Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.  I Corinthians 13:8:13

The passage quoted above comes from 1 Corinthians 13 which is often referred to as the Love Chapter.  Paul’s description of love in this chapter has been read at countless weddings and other settings.  You know…. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud”…and so forth.  Interestingly, this chapter is sandwiched between two other chapters on the use spiritual gifts such as prophecy, tongues, healings, miracles, administration, and so forth.

The reason the chapter exists is that the believers at Corinth had been given amazing gifts but were exercising those gifts in selfish ways rather than as God intended.  Paul begins his letter by declaring, “So now you aren’t lacking any spiritual gift” (1 Cor. 1:7), which is very impressive, but he goes on to say, “When I was with you, I found it impossible to speak to you as those who are spiritually mature people for you are still dominated by the mind-set of the flesh” (1 Cor. 3:1, Passion Translation).

Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church makes it clear that believers can possess and exercise impressive spiritual gifts while at the same time not having the spiritual character to operate in those gifts as God intended.  The church at Corinth was full of people who were self-promoting, self-focused believers who were using their gifts to exalt themselves and to establish some kind of pecking order for who was “greatest in the kingdom.”

It’s important to notice that Paul did not forbid the use of the gifts because they were being abused, but rather instructed them in how to exercise the gifts with a godly perspective and attitude.  So…he drops an entire chapter in the middle of the conversation telling them that if there use of the gifts was not governed by love, then what they thought was impressive was totally unimpressive to God.  By the way that is true for all things not just the exercise of spiritual gifts.  If preaching, evangelism, giving to the poor, leading worship, etc. is not done with a heart of love towards God and his people, it counts for nothing in the kingdom of heaven.

Paul was essentially saying to God’s people at Corinth that although they thought they were extremely mature, they were extremely immature.  God is love.  Therefore, he cannot do anything without love as his motive. Paul argues that we must reflect that same love in everything we do if what we do is going to be pleasing to the Father and if we want him to increase the anointing and favor in our lives.  It is not about earning his love or favor, because it is all by grace, but it is about demonstrating that we can be good stewards of what he gives us.  Remember the principle…he who is faithful in little will be made faithful in much.  Love seems to be a defining measure of what it means to be faithful.  To be faithful means that we live and use the resources God has given us just as God would use them.

So…in that chapter, Paul states, “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.”

Much has been made of this text by those who believe that God no longer distributes his miraculous gifts to the church.  They argue that the apostle clearly states that the gifts will cease and they will cease when “perfection” comes.  The word translated as “perfection” is teleion in Greek, which can mean complete.  So those who hold the Cessationist view (the gifts have ceased to operate) argue that perfection is the “completed word of God.”

The idea is that gifts such as prophecy, tongues, and knowledge were needed only until the New Testament canon was completed, and once the complete will of God was made known through the written word, all the gifts would cease in the church. That view holds that the gifts were only temporary and temporarily needed to reveal God’s will to his church because the New Testament was in the process of being revealed. Once all of the N.T. had been penned and compiled in what we think if as the New Testament, the miraculous would cease.

The word teleion can mean complete in the sense of “there is no more to do,” but it also means complete in the sense of full maturity.  Jesus used the word when he said, “Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mt. 5:48). He was challenging his followers to have the mind and heart of God which is the definition of full spiritual maturity.   In Philippians 3:12, Paul says, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”  The word perfect in this verse is teleion again. Paul is simply saying that he his not yet Christ-like in every thing he says or does. In other words, he is not yet motivated by love in everything he does, says, or thinks.

In the context of 1 Corinthians, spiritual maturity is the goal, not a completed New Testament canon.  The idea of perfection is that when we are perfected in Christ, the gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will no longer be needed.  When we are perfect, complete, and fully mature in our ability to love, then those three gifts (and, perhaps, the rest) will cease. Okay, so if the gifts are needed until we love like Jesus loves…then I think they are still greatly needed.  I believe that we will be perfected in love, only when Jesus returns and when we are with him face-to-face, and so I belief the gifts are for the church until Jesus returns.  Paul is simply highlighting the fact that love is superior to gifts because the time will comes when the gifts will not longer be needed but love is forever.

Paul underlines this emphasis on spiritual maturity when he says that we need to be transformed from children to spiritual adulthood…which is his theme throughout the letter.  His point is that if you want to truly be great in the kingdom, seek love over the gifts. Don’t be mistaken…Paul is big on the gifts and wants them to powerfully work in the church.  However, he insists that they must be motivated and directed by love.  Otherwise, they will do more harm than good.

I think we can conclude from this section, that if we want an increase in gifts and anointing in our own lives and in our churches, we should pray first for the capacity to love as Jesus loves.  Our desire for the gifts must be based on a hunger to bless others rather than to exalt ourselves.  Paul counsels us to “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy” (1 Cor.14:1).  Notice that he puts love before the gifts in this verse.

Perhaps, our daily prayer then should be, “Lord, I earnestly desire your spiritual gifts and your anointing in greater measure, but more than that, I want to love as Jesus loves. Give me that heart first, and then the gifts I desire because then I will use them as you desire.”

Blessings in Him

In this blog, we will finish our discussion of Cessationism which teaches that the miraculous gifts of the Spirit and the miraculous intervention of God ended somewhere around the end of the first century because the “purpose for miracles” had been fulfilled.

One basic rule of biblical interpretation is that you take the natural meaning of a passage unless the context or contradictory passages elsewhere force you to look for another meaning. Any natural reading of the New Testament would never leave the reader with the impression that miracles only had a seventy-year shelf life and would then slip into history.  The natural expectation for most would be that the ongoing life in the church would look like the Book of Acts with miraculous healings, deliverance, angelic visitations, and the dramatic evangelization of new people groups.  However, we are told by Cessationists that the power flowing through the church we read about in the New Testament was soon to be withdrawn and the Holy Spirit was about to be muted.

Miracles that were recorded two thousand years ago, but that are not replicated today in the name of Jesus, simply have the flavor of mythology. However, if those miracles are replicated, then the message about Jesus is reconfirmed to every generation.  I and millions of other Christians believe that God still performs miracles in order to confirm the message preached about Jesus and because he is still a compassionate God who cares about the suffering of people.  Additionally, John tells us that the reason Jesus came was to destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn.3:8) … which apparently were the lost condition of man, illness, infirmity, broken hearts (emotional wounding), demonic affliction, demonic storms, and even premature death because those are the things that Jesus dealt with in his ministry.   Was he only concerned about destroying those works for a few decades in the first century?  Was the church then left without power to oppose a powerful enemy for millennia?  When Jesus said that anyone who had faith in him would do not only the works he did, but even greater works (Jn.14:12), there was no suggestion of a time limit or a brief window of opportunity to do those things. How do we faithfully represent Jesus (which means to re-present) without doing what he did?

There is an illustrative list of spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12-14, Romans 12, and a list of offices in Ephesian 4:11.  Among those spiritual gifts are mercy, encouragement, administration, wisdom, faith, serving, giving, and leadership.  If these are spiritual gifts, then they were imparted supernaturally by the Holy Spirit.  Spiritual gifts do not come from the natural realm.  They are anointed supernaturally to bear spiritual fruit and to overcome the power of the enemy. If the supernatural gifts of healings, prophecy, miracles, etc. passed away at the end of the first century, then the remainder of the spiritual gifts should have ceased as well because Paul does not differentiate between one kind of gift and another.  To him they are all spiritual gifts (not natural bents or abilities) given by the Spirit to build up the body of Christ. Cessationists believe in the present-day gifts that don’t have such a supernatural flare such as mercy, giving, leadership, etc. but carve out those that demonstrate power and authority over the enemy and claim that God is done with those.  That seems very inconsistent to me. Theologians have created categories of gifts, but Paul never mentioned those categories.

Concerning the 1 Corinthians 13 passage that speaks of certain gifts ceasing, Paul was writing an entire chapter on love.  His premise was that even the most amazing gifts that were not motivated by love, fell short of God’s purposes.  He then said that love never fails but where there are prophecies they will eventually cease, tongues will eventually be stilled, and knowledge will eventually pass away.  He said that we know in part and prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect (complete, mature) shall come, what is in part will disappear. And we will know even as we are known. The Cessationists’ claim is that the “complete” or “perfect” in 1 Corinthians 13:10 is the finished New Testament.  According to this view, once the New Testament was written and compiled, there was no longer any need for miracles or miraculous gifts to validate Jesus or the apostles. I have already addressed that part of the argument.

In the context of his chapter on love, Paul is more likely to be talking about the full maturation of love in the body of Christ or the return of Jesus who himself is perfection and completeness.  I haven’t noticed that the completion of the New Testament has given us full knowledge of everything we didn’t know then. Simply having something in writing does not mean I understand it. Three semesters of calculus in college demonstrates that point.  I had it all in writing, but never really understood it or its applications. If the completed New Testament were the key to full understanding and knowing as we are known, we would all be united in the faith rather than divided over so many points of doctrine.  We would be certain about end-times, which we are not. We would be agreed on spiritual gifts, which we are not.

Ephesians 4:11-16, is an interesting parallel to this passage.  There Paul says that Jesus gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to the church in order to equip the saints for works of service.  Those works are to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature.  Then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by every wind of doctrine that blows through the church.

It is likely that Paul is saying the same thing in Ephesians 4 that he did in 1 Corinthians 13.  Notice the parallels:

• We have all been given spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ (1 Cor. 13)
• We have been given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers to equip the saints for works of service that build up the body of Christ (Eph.4).
• The gifts are needed until that which is perfect, complete, or mature has come (1 Cor.13).
• The offices are given until we reach unity in the faith and become mature, attaining to the measure of fullness in Christ (Eph.4).
• As we mature, we need to put away childish things (1 Cor.13).
• As we mature, we will no longer be infants (Eph.4).

The gifts and the offices are needed until we are all unified in Christ and totally mature in him so that all we do is motivated by love.  It seems most likely that which is perfect, mature, or complete is spiritual maturity, unity, and fullness in Christ.  I don’t think we are there yet.  In addition, even if the completed New Testament were the perfect thingto come, Paul said that prophecies, tongues, and knowledge would pass away, but he did not mention the other gifts.  The remaining gifts include healings, miracles, spiritual discernment, as well as the other “more comfortable gifts.” It is a big leap to include all of the miraculous gifts and to pronounce them to be nullified without a direct word from the apostle.

Finally, the pattern of evangelism that Jesus practiced and commanded his followers to use was to preach the good news and then demonstrate the kingdom through signs and wonders as well as compassionate healings, the restoration of life, and deliverance from demonic affliction.  To dismiss the miraculous gifts of the Spirit is to dismiss the demonstration of the kingdom. Jesus commanded his followers to evangelize the world, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe (or practice) everything he had taught his apostles (Mt.28:18-20).  He taught them to preach the kingdom and them demonstrate it with power.  We are commanded to do the same. Without all the gifts of the Spirit and the miraculous intervention of God, we cannot do what Jesus commanded us to do.

Although Cessationism takes power away from the church, it is in some ways an easier way to live.  You never have to wrestle with the question of why God did not heal a person you prayed for with faith because you don’t expect God to intervene in that way. You feel no responsibility to confront demons because the demonic is not on your radar. You never have to press in trying to hear God because you believe he only speaks through his word. You never have to question why you have not yet received the gift of tongues because you would never ask for that gift in a million years!  On the other hand, you must watch people remain in the grip of addiction, depression, anxiety, and homosexuality for years, only hoping that the secular world of psychology, science, and medicine can cure what Jesus has no apparent cure for.

A belief in the continuing work of the Holy Spirit through all of his gifts and a belief in the miraculous moves of God places more responsibility on us than we sometimes want, but it also enables us to join Jesus in pushing back the borders of darkness and liberating people from every form of bondage.  Yes, it makes the Christian life challenging but also exciting.  It does bring the Book of Acts to life and allows you to experience and see dramatic transformations in the lives of men and women in a few days or weeks rather than in years or decades. And honestly, witnessing the miraculous makes Jesus more real than he could ever be without the miracles.  When we see a miracle, we experience God not just hear about him and experience is the great transformer.  I hope you will be encouraged to pursue a life of miracles because it is biblical and it is the life God has always intended for you.

Blessings in Him.

In my last blog, I stated the primary reasons that Cessationists believe that God no longer performs “miracles” in his church, especially through the gifts of the Spirit.  I want to begin to respond to those reasons in this blog.

First of all, let me address the idea that God no longer works miracles.  A Cessationist believes that God answers prayers but works within the natural order of things rather than doing what is impossible according to natural law. For instance, when a person prays for the perfect job and gets that job, that is not a “miracle,” because God worked within ordinary laws of nature and society to facilitate the answer to that prayer.  However, Jesus walking on water is a miracle because it defies the laws of nature.  Cessationsist don’t believe that God operates in that way anymore and so accept the “ordinary” spiritual gifts of mercy, faith, encouragement, leadership, service, administration etc. but reject the “miraculous” gifts of prophecy, miracles, healings, tongues and so forth because they operate outside the natural order of things.

However, I would assert that if you pray, you believe in miracles. I believe that a miracle occurs anytime God intervenes in the natural order of things.  If you pray at all, asking for protection, provision, favor, etc., you are asking God to intervene in the ways things would pan out if left to themselves.  Otherwise, why would you pray?  You probably don’t pray for the sun to rise in the east in the morning because you anticipate that it will rise in the east without your prayers. You don’t pray for the lights to come on in your house each time to touch a switch because, in the natural order of things, the lights always come on.  So if you pray, you have begun to sense that if left to themselves, the natural order of things is going to bring harm or disappointment to you or your loved ones.

Many of God’s greatest miracles worked within the realm of natural law.  Great catches of fish on Galilee employed only boats, men, nets, and fish which all function in the natural realm.  The timing and location of the fish marked the catch as a miracle.  If you don’t believe in miracles, you would mark it only as a coincidence or a unique, spontaneous convergence of natural forces that prompted the outcome.  A stone hitting an exceptionally large Philistine warrior in the one square inch that would kill him employed only a young man, an ordinary slingshot, and a common stone from a creek bed.  All of that operated within the realm of natural law.  Did God miraculously guide the stone or was it simply dumb luck? God fed his people in the wilderness with quail.  The miracle was that so many quail arrived at the camp at the same time. Was it a miracle or a migratory phenomenon of some sort?  The Bible would call it a miracle.  So…even when we ask God to work within the natural order of things to manipulate time, circumstances, decisions, job availability, favor, a doctor’s performance, etc. we are asking for a miracle. God still performs miracles on behalf of his people on a daily basis but only faith knows the difference between an intervention by God and a curious coincidence.  I believe the scriptures call any intervention by God a miracle.

Now, there are definitely acts of God throughout scripture that defy natural law…the healing of leprosy by a touch, blind eyes spontaneously gaining sight, withered hands growing out in a moment, walking on water, the Red Sea parting, a dead man being raised after four days in the tomb, etc. But those miracles are no harder for God than directing quail, fish, or a stone.  If he does miracles, he does miracles…yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  If he intervenes for his people so that the natural order of things is disrupted or reordered, then a miracle has occurred.

Now, the first argument by Cessationists is that they have never seen an authentic miracle such as we see in the gospels.  Therefore, in their view, miracles no longer occur.  These same believers have never seen an angel or Jesus face-to-face, but would not deny their reality.  So, is it not possible that authentic miracles still occur even if we haven’t seen one personally?  Secondly, I would venture that God has performed miracles in their sight but they filtered them through their unbelief and pronounced them as frauds or natural coincidences. Remember, I served in Cessationsist churches for over 20 years. I remember men and women on several occasions telling our staff and elders of amazing healings.  Tumors disappeared with proof on x-rays and children that had been declared to have severe birth defects by every scientific standard were born whole and healthy. We simply wrote those off as faulty equipment or a poor diagnosis rather than seeing the miraculous hand of God.  Even when we couldn’t deny what we saw, we never announced the healing to the church knowing that there was simply some unknown natural explanation for what had happened.

Part of the reason, these churches have not seen miracles is that they only pray for the ordinary and get what they pray for. I remember when a good Christian doctor asked me to pray that he would do his best work. I told him I believed he would do his best work even if I didn’t pray, but I would pray that God would enable him to do even more than he was capable of on his own.  Even when you see miracles outside the realm of natural law, it takes faith to acknowledge them or, at least, the source. The Pharisees saw much, but discounted the miracles as fraud or as the work of Satan. I suspect that some Cessationists have done the same.

The second argument made on behalf of Cessationism is that Jesus only performed miracles to demonstrate that he was the Messiah, the Son of God.  It is true that the miracles of Jesus testified that he was the Son of God, but he performed many miracles simply out of compassion rather than a need to demonstrate who he was (Mt.9:35-36, 15:32, 20:34; Mark 1:41, etc.). The writers of the gospels seem to go out of their way on numerous occasions to mention that the motive of Jesus for healing individuals or the crowd was compassion rather than publicity.  You would think that same unchanging compassion would still prompt him to relieve the suffering of his people – even through miracles.

In addition, he told many that he healed not to tell anyone about their healing.  Those commands are contrary to the purpose of miracles if we restrict their purpose to evidence that he was the Son of God. If that were the only purpose for miracles, surely he would have told those people to go and tell everyone they could find.   After he returned to the Father, the miracles done by his followers were done in the name of Jesus, which means “by his authority.” Those miracles, performed after his ascension, still demonstrated that Jesus was who he said he was. Present day miracles do the same.

The third argument is that God empowered the apostles to do miracles simply to confirm that they were men approved of God in order to establish their authority in the church and so that their writings would be seen as writings inspired by the Holy Spirit.  Certainly that was part of it, but why give spiritual gifts of healings, prophecy, miracles, tongues, deliverance, discerning of spirits, words of knowledge, etc. to the ordinary members of the church and to those who did not write any of the New Testament such as Philip and Stephen?

In addition, Luke wrote his gospel and the Book of Acts.  Yet, he was not an apostle nor do we have any record of him performing any miracles to demonstrate the inspired authenticity of his writings.  Therefore, miracles were not given only for the purpose of marking Jesus or the apostles as men approved of God because “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given…” (1 Cor.12:7).

I want to reiterate that believers who attend Cessationsist churches along with their leaders are good people who love Jesus. They were taught or indoctrinated in this theology from birth or as new Christians.  I was in such awe of the men who taught me that I simply accepted their teachings, believing that the parts that didn’t make sense to me then would make sense later as I learned more Bible.  I’m sure they learned this theology in the same way.  The problem is not with the people but with the theology that robs the church of power and leaves people in the grip of Satan.

We will finish our discussion of Cessationism in my next blog.