Samuel Rutherford and the prophecies of the Reformers

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If God directly puts a thought in your head or however He did with the writers in scripture...write it down and pass it off as such.

I think Richard Cameron did, and then you said it was hagiography. You always move the goalposts in these discussions.
 
I understand that. My point is that language is always a medium.
If you reduce everything to a "medium," then your arguments won't touch the one drawing a distinction between immediate and mediate because you are using a different definition and concept of the term. You'll just talk past the one you are arguing with.
 
Earl,
I'd be interested to know of any theologian who shares your view. To begin with, much Biblical prophecy has nothing to do with predicting the future. Moreover, Scripture itself talks about people "prophesying" whose words are not written down in its pages. For example, Numbers 11:25-26; Acts 21:9; 1 Cor 14:1-3. None of that depends at all on your view of cessationism vs continuationism.
I've argued elsewhere (see the Festschrift for Vern Poythress) that everyone functionally operates with a broader and a narrower definition of prophecy: "Prophecy" (with a capital "P") which is "Thus says the Lord" standard revelation from God (which no theologian I know of identifies exactly with Scripture) and "prophecy" (small "p") which covers a wider range of Spirit-inspired phenomena. The difference lies in what they call the wider range (though William Perkins called his preaching textbook "The Art of Prophesying" and Dick Gaffin talks in Perspectives on Pentecost about the "prophethood of all believers"), which suggests that thoughtful cessationists are not quite as closed to the continuation of "prophecy" as you might think (I suspect Rev. Winzer's distinction is an attempt to address the same issue). The differences tend to lie in whether they think NT prophecy has a "P" or a "p" - and therefore whether "P/prophecy" continues. I've argued that (contra both Gaffin and Grudem) both kinds of prophecy exist in both Old and New Testaments; "Prophecy" has ceased, with the completion of the major events of redemptive history, but "prophecy" in the sense of the wider work of the Spirit continues. Having said that, it's probably better not to call such things "prophecy" but use more precise language like "extraordinary providence", because the average person in the street (like yourself) hears "prophecy" and immediately thinks "infallible prediction of the future".

I agree "extraordinary providence" should be used and I believe that is what the theologians were speaking about as referenced in this thread. The misreading of them in today's world frames them in a charismatic manner.
 
If you reduce everything to a "medium," then your arguments won't touch the one drawing a distinction between immediate and mediate because you are using a different definition and concept of the term. You'll just talk past the one you are arguing with.

That's possible, but my bringing that up shows that some here themselves aren't clear on the distinction.
 
If God directly puts a thought in your head or however He did with the writers in scripture...write it down and pass it off as such.

Earl,

You're a brave man Earl. I would have quit long ago if I saw that I was pretty much a minority of one. I have said very little since my first interactions with you early in this thread. But I don't remember you answering one of my questions in post #26. So I ask it again.

Do you not even believe in the filling of the Holy Spirit? How about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit? And I mean it in a supernatural sense. Does your fellowship with God, at least sometimes, experience the power and presence of the Spirit in a supernatural sense? If you deny all supernatural experiences I fear you must have a rather boring and merely cerebral Christian experience.

Now I will return to lurking mode.

Ed
 




Do you not even believe in the filling of the Holy Spirit?


If you mean in a
charismatic sense then no...If you mean in the reformed sense then yes.

How about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Once again the same as above.

And I mean it in a supernatural sense. Does your fellowship with God, at least sometimes, experience the power and presence of the Spirit in a supernatural sense?

Of course I do as it says "O taste and see the Lord is good." Also even unbelievers taste and see The Lord is good BTW.

If you deny all supernatural experiences I fear you must have a rather boring and merely cerebral Christian experience.

When I say the lack of experience of the "supernatural" I am speaking of the sign gifts, which are no longer extant today.

Don't fear for me I have a rather ordinary Christian experience. :)


 
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