Pentecostal Apologetics
God Expects The Church to Operate in The Spiritual Gifts
By Investigating Christ's Distribution of The Spiritual Gifts in Hebrews, Romans, Ephesians, Acts, and 1 Corinthians; It Will Be Seen That God Gave The Spiritual Gifts (Including Tongues and Prophecies) For a Reason—Namely, to Build Up His Church.
Romans chapter 12
is identical to 1 Cor. 12-14 (Where Paul speaks to the Corinthians of
spiritual gifts). Both books speak of the spiritual gifts, and how to
use them to serve each other. Both speak of the church being a body
with different parts, and Paul warns both, not to be proud and arrogant
(which was the Corinthian's problem).
Cessationists say that
Paul learned his lesson watching the Corinthians fight, so that he
stopped encouraging the spiritual gifts at other churches. Just the
opposite is true. Actually, Paul wrote "Romans" from Corinth, and he
not only encouraged the Romans to use their spiritual gifts—he even
wanted to go over there and lay hands on them that they might receive
even more spiritual gifts; this, in order to help strengthen them by
adding spiritual power to their faith:
"For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established;" Rom. 1: 11
Apparently,
according to the verse above, (and the verse below); spiritual gifts
are to help strengthen the believer to fight the good fight.
"This
charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies
which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good
warfare;" 1 Tim. 1: 18
Paul most likely wanted to lay his
hands (and pray) on the Romans to impart the "gift" to them, as he
would do to Timothy several years later:
"Wherefore I put thee
in remebrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by
the putting on of my hands." 2 Tim. 1: 6 "Do not neglect your gift,
which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders
laid their hands on you" 1 Tim. 4:14
"I remind you to fan into
flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my
hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of
power, love and of self-discipline." 2 Tim. 1: 6-7
"If the
spiritual gifts are still active in the churches," some might ask,
"Then why do not even cessationists occasionaly speak prophetically by
God's power?" The answer to this is obvious. Do cessationists have the
faith necessary to operate in the prophetic?
"For I say,
through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to
think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think
soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of
faith... Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is
given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the
proportion of faith." Rom. 12: 3-6
God does distribute
spiritual/prophetic gifts to His people--sometimes he uses other
Christians to administer the impartation of the gifts. But it is God
who supplies the Spirit. Cessationists should be careful not to fight
against God by trying to prove that some of the gifts that He uses to
build up the church, have already ceased.
Below are a few
verses that speak of the distribution of spiritual gifts for His
church. Of course, Rom. 12: 6 (above) is one, but there are others:
"But
unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the
gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led
captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men... And he gave some,
apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors
and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the
ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Eph. 4: 7-12
Peter Speaks of This Distribution in Acts:
"And
it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of
my Spirit upon all flesh;and your sons and daughters shall prophesy...
Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost , he hath shed forth this
[tongues-speaking], which ye now see and hear." Acts 2: 17, 33
The Book of Hebrews Speaks of This Distribution of Gifts For The Church:
"so
great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken of by the Lord,
and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him; God also bearing them
witness, with both signs and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts of
the Holy Ghost, according to His own will?" Heb. 2: 3-4
Unfortunately,
there is an entire issue concerning the verses to the book of "Hebrews"
that must be touched on here. Many cessationists believe in the "once
saved--always saved" doctrine, and therefore ( I don't mean to sound
critical of that doctrine because I might believe that doctrine also.
I'm just not sure. But Hebrews 6 needs to be considered), they do not
like Hebrews chapter 6 which sounds like people can lose their
salvation. So they say that the book of "Hebrews" was written to Israel
just before the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 AD. Their plan
is to show that Hebrews 6 does not teach that one can lose his
salvation; but, rather, that it teaches that Israel, as a whole, has
rejected Christ, and is under God's judgement evidenced by the
destruction of the temple, and cannot be brought to salvation. (There
are variations of this argument; however, the book of Hebrews is not
written to any "Hebrews" but like the rest of the epistles, it is
written to the church--both Jew and Gentile. It was most likely some
Catholic who decided to give it the name, "Hebrews" long after it was
first written) As part of their argument, cessationists say that the
Hebrews, spoken to here, did not experience the gifts mentioned (signs,
wonders, gifts). They say that these Hebrews (who recieved this
epistle) are merely the children of the Hebrews that were preached
to--with signs following. They say that the Hebrews who received this
epistle did not experience signs, wonders, and gifts listed in the
verses above.
This argument; though popular, is almost absurd.
In reality, the epistle to the Hebrews was written between 64-68 A.D.
Therefore, there were plenty of people ("Hebrews") still alive who had
heard the messengers speak, and who experienced the signs, wonders, and
gifts of the Holy Spirit in their church. Some people, possibly
apostles, were eye-witnesses of the Lord—they spoke the word to the
Hebrews (These same Hebrews who were receiving this epistle) and the
word was confirmed as these Hebrews received the gifts of the Holy
Spirit that God wanted them to have. It could have been apostles--or
maybe just some of the evangelists or followers (disciples) of Christ
who did miracles, signs, and wonders at the "Hebrews" church; but these
Hebrews; like the Corinthians, Ephesians, and Romans, received some
spiritual gifts distributed by the Holy Spirit.
Notice, in the
verse below, that the writer said "to us;" (not, "to them") which means
that he, and the "Hebrews" were the ones who heard the salvation
message and experienced the spiritual gifts. It is absolutely
preposterous to say that these "Hebrews" were not the same "Hebrews"
that were preached to earlier (with signs and wonders).
"so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken of by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us
by them that heard Him; God also bearing them witness, with both signs
and wonders, and divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost,
according to His own will?" Heb. 2: 3-4
Cessationists say that
there may have been prophetic speaking early on, but that today there
is no need for prophets. But anyone who says that, is in direct
violation of 1 Cor. 12:20-22
"But now they are many members,
yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need
of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay,
much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are
necessary.'" 1 Cor. 12: 20-22
It is Noticed in The Two Verses
below, that God sent the spiritual gifts; not just for individuals to
enjoy, but for offices in the church:
"And God has set some in
the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers,
after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments,
diversities of tongues" 1`Cor. 12: 28
The book of Ephesians
also shows that the gifts should be used for offices in the church:
"And He Himself gave some apostles; some, prophets; some, evangelists;
and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for
the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Eph.
4:11-12
According to the verses above, prophets are listed as a
necessary office in the New Testament church. Their inclusion is
necessary, as they play a vital role in the church (as seen below).
Apostles start the church. For example, if you start churches in Nigeria, then you are an "apostle "(a "sent one") to Nigeria.
Pastors preach the revealed written word
Teachers teach using the revealed written word
Evangelists preach and evangelise from the revealed written word.
Prophets do not speak the already revealed written word. They preach/speak divine revelation—words that come directly from God.
IN CONCLUSION:
The cessationist argument that "we don't hear much about tongues and
prophecy after 1 Cor." is not even close to truth. It has been shown in
these chapters that Hebrews, Romans, Ephesians, the writings of John,
and the writings of Peter all contain the same message of 1 Cor.
concerning prophetic speaking (that is why section 2 of this chapter is
important—because it shows that tongues are included when writers speak
of "prophecies).
The book of 1 Thessalonians is particularly
damaging to the cessationist argument (even though it was written
before 1 Cor.) as it says that those who "despise prophesyings" are
"quench[ing] the Spirit."
After hearing cessationist teaching,
this author is convinced that the cessationist view against tongues and
prophecies are based soley on the three most loathsome arguments:
1) The argument from silence
2) The argument from history
3) The argument from experience
"The
argument from silence" states that if we do not hear of tongues at a
particular church, then that means there were no tongues at that
church. The absurdity of the argument from silence is that it means "We
do not hear much about celebrating baptisms, marraiges, or the Lord's
Supper after 1 Cor. was written—therefore, those things ceased with
tongues and prophecies." The argument from silence cannot be taken
seriously. There are a lot of churches listed in Acts that do not have
an epistle written to them that we may read. According to the argument
from silence, those churches did not celebrate the Lord's supper, have
baptisms, tongues, or prophecies—in fact they did not even have church
services unless there was an apostle present! Now, if it is admitted
that those churches engaged in prophetic speaking, then it can also be
admitted that they celebrated the Lord's Supper, marriges, and water
baptisms as well.
"The argument from history" states that
prophetic speaking died out after an "apostolic age"--because the early
church fathers say it that it did. This issue has not been addressed in
this book because this book is not about what the early church fathers
taught, but what The Holy Bible teaches. But actually, the only "church
fathers" are the ones who wrote the Holy Bible. All others are "late,"
and they are not "church fathers." It must be remembered that the Holy
Bible does not say that any person or group of people ("church
fathers") can understand the holy word better than you. When faced with
this fact; cessationists usually say that the "early church fathers"
had a lot of wisdom. That idea is basically meaningless as anyone can
investigate the teachings of the "fathers" and find that some of their
beliefs were incredible nonsense. Where the "church fathers" agreed
with the Holy Word, they are good teachers; where they disagree with
the Holy Word, they need to be silenced. The problem with the argument
from history is that it is actually the argument from experience.
"The
argument from experience"—their experience. Church history has been
written by the ecclesiastically powerful. Popular, influential
theologians and powerful churches are the ones who wrote (their) church
history. They certainly did not experience the gifts of the Spirit, as
they did not associate with those who did operate in the gifts of the
Spirit. Therefore; their writings state that the gifts of the Spirit
had died out. In reality, however, there may have been thousands and
thousands of people (maids, barnworkers et.) of low pedigree and
influence who spoke in tongues but did not write about it. If only one
person, anywhere on the planet has a prophetic dream or a prophetic
prayer; then tongues and prophecies are still here. Time to move on.
This is silly—even to consider the arguments from
silence/history/experience in a scholarly work
Copyright 2006
- 2007. Peter Kwiatkowski. All rights reserved. This work is licensed
under a Creative Commons Public Domain License.
http://www.pentecostal-tongues-theology.org Peter Kent Kwiatkowski --