07-13-2007, 05:41 PM
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| Cessationism
Cessationism by Willem Berends
Interesting article: Quote:
Yet there are some difficult questions associated with the weak cessationist position. The first is: which gifts are to be included among the extraordinary and miraculous gifts which have ceased? There is no consensus on the identity of the miraculous gifts. In the previous article we noted that some regarded the gift of prophecy as extraordinary, while others regarded it as a gift that can be found among preachers who excel in Bible interpretation and application.33 Those who give the first interpretation tend to list prophecy with the gifts that have ceased, while those who follow the second interpretation list it with the Spirit's permanent gifts to the church.
A second question concerns the time of the cessation of miraculous gifts. John Calvin, William Perkins and George Gillespie, who link the miraculous gifts with the earliest period of the Church's development, are open to the possibility of a re-occurrence of extraordinary offices and their gifts in extraordinary circumstances. For them the cessation of these gifts meant that they had ceased to function as an ordinary part of church life, not that they had ceased altogether. But Warfield's argument that these gifts were linked with the apostolic office and therefore ceased with the disappearance of this office is consistent with both history and Scripture. Perhaps the insights of both viewpoints can be combined in the recognition that the gift allowing some of God's people to do extraordinary works for God at their will has disappeared, but that God may still use human agents to do wondrous works in extraordinary circumstances.
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