Tag Archives: miracles

What Continues?

Posted on March 23, 2010 by | 13 comments

by Marv

Continuationism is not a wholly satisfactory term.  In some ways I prefer Non-cessationism. However, this latter is a term of negation rather than affirmation, and as such communicates reaction to another view, i.e. it denies cessationism.  So it not only states what it is not rather than what it is, but it grants the initiative to the side it disagrees with, and to a degree lets that side establish the terms of the debate, which may not be helpful.  Continuationism is not totally free from these criticisms, since “continue” is an opposing response to “cease.” Yet, at least it is a positive, affirmative term, as it should be.

Moreover, the term, both terms, imply a complement that may or may not be clearly understood.  With cessationism, there is something that ceases. With continuationism, there is something that continues.  The “something” may not necessarily be the same in both cases.  It certainly does not have to be so for one side simply because the other side defines itself in particular terms.  This is one reason I have objected to the term “sign gifts.”  Some cessationists may hold that what they say has ceased is this category, “sign gifts.”  However, when I use the term continuationist, I am not thereby asserting that “sign gifts” continue, since I find that term problematic.

What then is it that continues?  This post is an attempt to provide an answer and to elaborate on that answer.  The views are my own, though I welcome reaction and input from others.  I see this as a starting place for establishing some definition.  So this statement will surely require refinement and expansion.

Continuationism, then, is the belief that between Christ’s first and second advent He continues His work of glorifying His Father, building His Church, and advancing His Kingdom through the ongoing, vital and dynamic interconnection He maintains with those who are in Him, accomplished through the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit through whom the individual members of His redeemed community are enabled to fulfill the good works prepared for them, such that in interrelation with all the others, the entire community, despite differences of time and place, constitute Christ’s bodily presence on earth during this age.

  1. This reality exists by the Father’s good pleasure, in the Son, and through the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God.
  2. Christ made it clear that the same works that He did in carrying out His mission on earth He expected to be performed through believers, empowered by the Holy Spirit as He had been, starting with Pentecost and continuing to the end of the age when He will return in glory.
  3. The completeness of Christ’s ongoing ministry is a function of the community of those who are in Him, who constitute His Body, while individually each member participates and contributes according to the part assigned to him or her, as the Holy Spirit directs and according to his or her measure of faith.
  4. Christ established a small group of people to establish and found this community, whom He designated His apostles, and each of these in himself seemed to function in completeness of ministry, while non-apostolic members are apportioned aspects of Christ’s ministry, characterized as “gifts.”
  5. Through the apostles and a few individuals closely related to them, the corpus of the New Testament was written through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, forming the completion of Canonical revelation, which together with the Old Testament constitutes the only inerrant and infallible rule of faith and practice for humankind and the Church in particular.
  6. Canonical revelation, that which God chose to inscripturate and establish as the only inerrant and infallible rule of faith and practice, is to be distinguished carefully from God’s other acts of revelation which in His wisdom He has chosen to do throughout history.  He has revealed Himself and continues to reveal Himself in ways both general and specific, whether in imagery, in proposition, perceptibly to the physical senses, or perceptible only to individual cognitive functions, such as memory, dream, or intuition.  This is far from saying that any and all perception or cognition ought to be treated as God’s revelation, whenever it may happen to appear to be such to a particular person.  The standard for evaluation of any purported revelation from God is, as for all other things, the Canonical revelation, the Scriptures, as stated above.
  7. All of God’s revelation and communication is wholly true and free from error.  Human perception, reasoning, and interpretation is fallible, to put it mildly.  Scripture is that which is specifically designated as inspired or God-breathed and so designated God’s very words and recognized by inference as inerrant.  Non-inscripturated prophecy has never been given this guarantee and so requires discernment by those to whom it is spoken, since it entails one or more human act between the Spirit’s act of revelation and the report of that revelation by a person.  In all cases an accurate and complete report of the revelation is expected and required, though never guaranteed as it is with Scripture.  In the Old Testament, the theocratic role of the prophet was matched with severe consequences for inaccurate representation.  The situation in the Church changes with the generalization (“democratization”) of revelation and prophecy inherent in the New Covenant.  Reports of revelation, prophecies, are to be weighed and evaluated within the community.
  8. The Holy Spirit’s work in this age, in Christ’s body has many aspects which together make up a unified whole.  Sanctification, illumination, and empowerment for ministry, along with others, are integral parts of the whole, according to the way God was well pleased to arrange the Body of Christ.  The vital ongoing connection in terms of empowered ministry is variously described as abiding in Christ and bearing fruit, effectual prayer of faith, doing the works of Jesus, spiritual gifts, signs, wonders, and mighty works, and other terms.  Some understanding of these matters may center on specific terms (“spiritual gifts” for example) or draw questionable distinctions (“sign gifts,” or between “gifts of healing(s)” and prayer for healing, for examples) which tend to obscure the holistic nature of the vital, dynamic interconnection with Christ.
  9. God has established this ongoing, vital and dynamic interconnection in His wisdom, in His good pleasure and for His purposes, including confirmation of the gospel message, though there are many others, including encouragement, comfort, conviction, and edification.
  10. The provision of this ongoing interconnection is God’s own intitiative and is wholly within His sovereign control.  How He chooses to manifest it at different times and in different places is His choice to make.  At the same time the recognition of and participation in it by the Church has also varied because of factors within man’s responsibility, such as awareness, understanding, and acceptance. However, none of this means that God has at any time Himself withdrawn His provision for it or no longer wishes it to continue. What indications there are in the Scriptures for its duration is that it is continuous from Pentecost through the Second Advent.

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Posted in about, continuationism, Holy Spirit, Power, revelation

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“Sign Gifts”?

Posted on March 11, 2010 by | 8 comments

by Marv

“Are the sign gifts for today?” one asks.

Well, excuse me, but if we wish to arrive at the right answer, hadn’t we better start with the right question?  And the above is just not the right question.  It is a wrong question, because it presumes the existence of a category called “sign gifts” in the first place.

For example, the very title of Daniel Wallace’s “Two Views on the ‘Sign Gifts’: Continuity vs. Discontinuity” casts the debate in cessationist terms.  Even so, note the quotes around “sign gifts.”  These disappear, however, in the body of the article.  The problem is, while the concept of “sign gifts” provides a convenient holding tank for, as Wallace lists them: “the spiritual gifts of tongues, prophecy, miracles, and healings,” the designation is not a Biblical one, as the following evidence demonstrates:

1. The phrase “sign gift” is found nowhere in the Scriptures.  This observation is only a starting place, since many theological terms are not found as such in the Bible.  However, it is a fact worth noting.

2.  There are no passages where “sign gifts” are separated from other spiritual gifts, as if they formed a distinct category.  Gifts such as “prophecy” and “tongues” appear right along with “teaching” and “mercy.”

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Rom. 12:6-8)

For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?  Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?  But earnestly desire the higher gifts. (1 Cor. 12:8-10, 28-31)

3.  Paul uses the term “sign” (Greek: semeion) unambiguously for only one gift, tongues.

Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers… (1 Cor. 14:22a)

It is a question of interpretation whether in the second half of the verse, Paul meant to call prophecy a “sign” too.  The Greek does not have the word for sign here, though it might be thought to be understood from the preceding clause.  The ESV takes it this way:

“…while prophecy is a sign3 not for unbelievers but for believers,”

But includes a footnote: “Greek lacks a sign.”

The NASB has a similar reading.

On the other hand, the NIV takes the opposite position:

“Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers; prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers.”

The majority of English translations concur, for example:  Wycliffe, Tyndale, KJV, RSV, NKJV, NET, NRSV, NLT, CEV, HCSB.

4.  Paul does refer to “the signs of a true apostle” (2 Cor. 12:12), though he does not say what these are, but only that they were performed “with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.”

5.  Luke refers to signs throughout Acts, and in one passage it specifically refers to a healing as a “sign.”  However, he never refers to “spiritual gifts” at all, much less “sign gifts.” In acts “signs” and “wonders” and “mighty acts” are different ways of indicating what we call miracles.

“What shall we do with these men? For that a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it. But in order that it may spread no further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” (Acts 14:16-17)

For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old. (v. 22)

This is in reference to the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate, which was performed by Peter (Acts 3:6).  If this is an example of a “spiritual gift,” then perhaps there is some justification for calling it a “sign-gift.”  Yet, Luke is not calling it both a sign and a gift; the word Paul uses for spiritual “gift,” charisma, is not in Luke’s vocabulary at all.  He does use the entirely different word dorea, but this by this he refers to the Holy Spirit Himself who is said to be given as a gift to believers.

6.  The author of Hebrews at least uses “sign” and “gift” in the same verse, though he speaks of these in parallel, along with “wonders” and “miracles.”  This verse is sometimes used as if “gifts” were here specifically those so-called “sign gifts,” but it is not what

“…while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” (Heb. 2:4)

7.  There is one other possible source of the concept “sign gifts,” the references in the longer ending of the gospel of Mark.  These verses do not appear to be original, however, as early manuscripts omit them entirely.  However, they do refer to what elsewhere are listed as “gifts” by the term “sign”:

And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. (Mark. 16:17-18, 20)

I would venture to say that these verses are by far the strongest “Biblical” argument for a category called “sign gifts.”  Perhaps the phrase originally came out of this passage, before there came to be a general consensus that they are not genuine.  I’m not sure if cessationists would be better off with these verses than without them, but in any case the passage has doubtful authenticity and makes a poor basis for doctrine one way or the other.

So to summarize, the Scriptural case for a subset of spiritual gifts, identified as “sign gifts” is far from compelling.  As a continuationist, I do not consent to define the debate in those terms.  It lends a certain subtle circularity to the argument that yields a bit of ground to cessationism, because “sign gift” tends to suggest a narrow purpose and thus limited utility.  If you are a cessationist, I suggest trying to make your case without resorting to this term.  If you are a continuationist, you probably don’t use the term anyway, but if you do maybe you should reconsider.

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Posted in Gifts, Gifts of the Spirit, sign gifts

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