I'd like to make a few quick comments on why the old-time cessationist consensus broke down. In the 35 years I've been a Christian, we've seen the whole scene shift from dominant cessationism to dominant continuationism, including inside the EFCA. Why did this happen? Just a few guesses...
It started breaking down when credible theologians began re-examining the issue. As long as continuationism was being championed by crooks like Oral Roberts, kooks like Pat Robertson, show-boaters like Jimmy Swaggart, and heretics like Kenneth Hagin, it was easy to argue against it. John MacArthur could write a book named Charismatic Chaos and fill it with the most egregious examples of Pentecostal excess and doctrinal absurdities he could find, and he certainly didn't lack for material! (He still doesn't; the crooks, kooks, show-boaters, and heretics are still out there, thick and plentiful). But over the decades, serious-minded, conservative/inerrantist theologians began re-examining the issue, particularly among Calvinists. Once you started having D.A. Carson, John Piper, Stott, Packer, and Grudem re-examining it, a respectable middle zone opened up between being a Warfield/Walvoord/MacArthur cessationist, and the kooks. This process of theological re-examination opened the door to a respectable middle ground.
The cessationist argument also began to spring some leaks, or at least wasn't always defended skillfully. The identity of the "perfect" in 1 Corinthians 13 takes work to define. People other than the apostles manifested the controversial gifts (the Seventy, Stephen, Ananias II, Agabus), so that needs to be explained. If the spiritual gift of prophecy is different from Biblical inspiration -- I'm not convinced it is, but if -- then its continuation wouldn't threaten the integrity of the canon.
The new analyses challenged old paradigms. We realized that maybe we can hold to the continuation of the gift of languages on one hand and reject thAssemblies of God doctrine of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, at the same time (thus irritating two sides of the argument simultaneously!). We perhaps could believe in the spiritual gift of healing, and reject the unscriptural doctrine of universal healing in the atonement. We perhaps could believe in tongues, and yet say (correctly) that it's the miraculous ability to speak to God in a foreign language -- not meaningless gibberish.
Basically, I think the two traditional sides were lined up against each other like two Maginot lines, but various theologians over the past thirty years created a different shaped battlefield. I also think that the old groups (whether Pentecostal, Dallas, or Reformed) still haven't fully caught up with the latest scholarship in this area, though they're working on it.
(edited 9/5/09)
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Interesting analysis. This is an issue with which I've struggled for a long time, having worshipped at the Assemblies of God in the past, but becoming more Reformed in my doctrine over time, which led me to becoming part of the E-Free. I am probably as close to a cessationist as you can get without becoming one technically. I just have a hard time saying that God cannot and will not move in that fashion any longer, because I don't see it clearly in the Word.
ReplyDeleteMost people who argue from a cessationist point of view seem to do so largely from a historical reference rather than from a biblical one. However, I must say that Phil Johnson and the guys over at Pyromaniacs have been very helpful to me as I continue to study this issue.
What drove me out of the charismatic camp was indeed the unbiblical excesses that I saw. But can I say with certainty that God will never move through a sign gift today? I'm not quite there yet.
The Pyros and the Master's Seminary people build a lot of their case on a slippery-slope argument. "Crazy Group A believes doctrine #195; you're considering believing 195-c; don't do it, because if you do you will turn crazy."
ReplyDeleteBut if the spiritual gift of prophecy is different from Biblical inspiration -- if it's a combo gift of spontaneous teaching, exhorting, comforting, encouraging, and convicting -- then it wouldn't add to, or supplant, the canon. It would apply the canon.
I agree with the cessationists that there are a lot of foolish, and sometimes harmful, things done and said under the guise of divine guidance. But I don't think we can completely cut out all forms of subjective enlightenment, angelic appearances, dreams & visions, and the like, just because we foolish people do foolish things.
And on the other hand -- I've met several EFCA continuationists, especially among the younger guys, who don't see the cultic-crazy potential in some of the ideas they espouse. They haven't been burned yet, or enough. They are insufficiently cautious, like kids fishing in a pond full of unexploded mines.