Cessationism (the notion that the miraculous gifts of the Spirit "went away with the death of the Apostles")

[David Lamb]

You win.
Yes, your god went on vacation 2000 years ago.

He did very little after your church was formed.
No more power.

But surely cessationists do not believe that God has ceased performing miracles. After all, every sinner, when they are converted, is given new life by God, and that is a great miracle. Rather, cessationism says that the miraculous abilities granted to the apostles have ceased. So nobody is claiming that God has abdicated His power.

 

[JimKnox]

Wasn't 454 recently on the forum staff ?

I have no clue.

I have never personally seen the dead raised.
I have personally cast out 2 demons and laid hands on the sick and seen healing.

I prayed for my blue healer that had Cushing disease.
It is incurable.
She was INSTANTLY healed after over a month of praying.
It took my breath away.
I prayed for a woman that had stage 4 cancer and she fully recovered.
When hurricane Ivan hit Florida, i walked into my backyard in full hurricane force winds and rebuked the storm. We had THE ONLY HOUSE ON THE STREET with no damage.
The fema guy came and asked to be shown the damage. He could not believe my house had no damage.

Your god could never do any of that.

My God is huge and powerful

"rebuked the storm" you say?
So you think you are on par with Jesus Himself?
Get behind me satan.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

But surely cessationists do not believe that God has ceased performing miracles. After all, every sinner, when they are converted, is given new life by God, and that is a great miracle. Rather, cessationism says that the miraculous abilities granted to the apostles have ceased. So nobody is claiming that God has abdicated His power.

Yes and no. The basic position of Cessationism I was raised in as a Conservative American Lutheran Evangelical, which was substantitally different from the Augsburg confession of my ancestors is that "Miracles have gone the away" after the days of the Bible. There was no specific talk of them being gifted to a particular person, even though we did cover that at times covering the Epistles in Confirmation class. but the theory was "the gifts were given just to launch the church". And I got to say, this position also harmonized with a souther Baptists parochial school that I went to for 6 years. Both as a Wisconsin Lutheran or prayers for people who were sick going to Immanuel Baptist the prayers were the same thing, if you really wanted to pray for someone to get better for a serious condition "praying that God would guide the hands or the surgeon" or aid the doctor that was about the best prayer of Faith you could muster given the official limitations imposed by the theology.


Anyway if you do listen to some official Cessationists, Justin Peters on YouTube the best example he does actually frame things the way you describe, gifts given to people, but God can still do miracles. Some people call this "soft Cessationism", because it is a bit more nuanced and flexible compared to the "hard" Cessationism I was raised with.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

Probably one of the biggest examples of the problems with Cessationism, I have even run across

Mokkotam miracle - Search Videos

Watch videos instantly on Bing—enjoy direct playback, discover related clips, and dive into trending content all in one place.

www.bing.com

A huge historical bullet against Cessationist theory

https://www.pas.rochester.edu/~tim/study/DidacheAndProphets.pdf

 

[rebuilder 454]

But surely cessationists do not believe that God has ceased performing miracles. After all, every sinner, when they are converted, is given new life by God, and that is a great miracle. Rather, cessationism says that the miraculous abilities granted to the apostles have ceased. So nobody is claiming that God has abdicated His power.

"Knowledge" ceased?
It sure does seem so.
Amen?

"The gifts",have ceased.
Discernment is one of them.

Wear that mantle if you like.
None of it ceased.
Fire your teachers immediately.

Who wants to place a target in front of them to hit, that says knowledge and discernment have ceased, and will mock anyone with knowledge and discernment,
......cause their baptist pastors taught them that.

Huh????
SMH

 

[rebuilder 454]

I have no clue.

"rebuked the storm" you say?
So you think you are on par with Jesus Himself?
Get behind me satan.

That could be the dumbest comment I have ever seen.
You are the miracle police. SMH
You are basically putting yourself in charge of what is a miracle.
But it is worse because you did what the Pharisees did.
"He did that by the power of the devil"

You see what you just did?

You are saying the devil answered my prayer, but any ignorant person would have enough sense to give GOD THE GLORY.

Look it up genius.
When they attributed the power of God to the devil, Jesus invoked the unpardonable sin on their heads.
You just gave Gods power to the devil.

Wow.
I surely feel for you

 

[rebuilder 454]

But surely cessationists do not believe that God has ceased performing miracles. After all, every sinner, when they are converted, is given new life by God, and that is a great miracle. Rather, cessationism says that the miraculous abilities granted to the apostles have ceased. So nobody is claiming that God has abdicated His power.

So because of people getting saved , we can SAFELY cast down miracles.?
Those salvations wore God out?

 

[rebuilder 454]

I

I have no clue.

"rebuked the storm" you say?
So you think you are on par with Jesus Himself?
Get behind me satan.

I had to read this twice.
I got saved in 1977.
There were miracles breaking out everywhere.

Now almost 50 years later, I have encountered MANY MANY cessationists.
As foolish as they are, I have never in all my encounters seen anyone attribute miracles to the devil.
Until you raised your little head.
I think God put a natural invisible line in believers that they somehow KNOW INSTINCTIVELY not to glorify the devil as you reckless do.

Whew

I pray for your soul friend.

 

[rebuilder 454]

But surely cessationists do not believe that God has ceased performing miracles. After all, every sinner, when they are converted, is given new life by God, and that is a great miracle. Rather, cessationism says that the miraculous abilities granted to the apostles have ceased. So nobody is claiming that God has abdicated His power.

QUOTE
"Rather, cessationism says that the miraculous abilities granted to the apostles have ceased"

Cessationists have it backwards.
We are TAUGHT BY THE BIBLE, it is the power of God that performs miracles.

Acts 3
12 And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all."

No apostle would claim that he had any power.
Neither do I.

I already told all you mockers God has the power. I call on him.
We are just a lightning rod that God chooses to use.
He would not use any of you guys.

The bible says " without faith it is impossible to please God"
God uses men of faith.
Not mockers.

You guys took out yourselves.
So when a crisis comes you will freeze up.
Why pray to a powerless God that left you in a dark room to be batted about by life, calamity, sickness, and the devil?
He has ceased.?
Maybe in a comma?

 

[rebuilder 454]

Gee Wally.
I know it's true coz I seen it on YouTube!

Now this miracle is really gonna make you mad;
George Muller.
• The Situation: A thick, impenetrable fog had kept the ship's captain on the ship's bridge for 22 hours. Müller approached the captain to tell him he needed to arrive in Quebec by Saturday afternoon.
• The Prayer: When the captain called it impossible, Müller took him into the chart room to pray. After Müller prayed a brief prayer, he told the captain the fog was already gone and to open the door, revealing that the fog had instantly vanished.

Your response would have been "get behind me satan"?

Fire your pastors and teachers immediately.

 

[rebuilder 454]

Wow.
I had no idea the pitiful level that cessationism would end up in.

I feel so fortunate God spared me that evil.

Miracles are now bad....very bad.
SMH.

LAST DAYS DECEPTION.
I recently realized what they did to themselves.
Gifts have ceased according to them.
So when they cast down the gifts, they cast down the gift of discernment.

Dear Lord.
What a pit.

 

[rebuilder 454]

I have no clue.

"rebuked the storm" you say?
So you think you are on par with Jesus Himself?
Get behind me satan.

Another miracle that you may get upset over.

George Muller
The Breakfast Miracle
• The Crisis: One morning in the 19th century, the housemother of the orphanage informed George Müller that there was no food in the house and no money to buy any, even though 300 children were dressed and ready to eat before heading to school.
• The Empty Plates: Müller told the housemother to have all the children sit down at the dining tables with their empty plates, cups, and cutlery laid out.
• The Prayer: He then stood at the front of the room and prayed, thanking God for the food He was about to provide them, acting in complete trust before seeing any physical proof.
• The First Knock (The Baker): Minutes after the prayer, there was a knock at the door. It was the local baker, who explained that he had been unable to sleep the night before because he felt strongly that Müller and the children needed bread, so he had gotten up early to bake fresh batches for them.

The Second Knock (The Milkman): Immediately after, a second knock came. A milk cart had broken down right outside the orphanage gates. Realizing the wheel would take hours to fix and the milk would spoil before he could move it, the milkman offered all his remaining ten large cans of fresh milk to the children for free.


I love my big God.
He is able.

 

[rebuilder 454]

Right after I got saved back in the mid seventies, I had gone through a divorce and I had a couple of little dogs that were my pets.
One day I was next door at the neighbor's house.
Their house was on a busy street.
One of my dogs ran into the street and got run over by a car.
You could hear It. Go "boom", so i ran out there, and I picked her up, and took her over to the sidewalk and I began to pray for that little dog.
Under my hands, I could feel bones popping and moving.
In just a few seconds my dog got up healed by the power of God and one hundred percent o k.

My God is power.
He is big and has power.
THANK YOU JESUS !!!!!!!

 

[rebuilder 454]

A few years back what I had contracted COVID. I got the real bad one where you can't even get out of bed.
I couldn't eat anything. It just nauseated me so bad.
I couldn't even get on the internet or do anything. I just laid there in bed. And I would go through chills. And then I would get fever. And I couldn't seem to shake it.

I could get up to go to the bathroom but it was a struggle.
It scared my wife and I could see she thought the worst.
One day she said " what are we going to do"?

A missionary friend came by and prayed.
I did feel a tiny bit better but not really.

On day 21, I prayed for healing for about the hundredth time.
Heaven answered.!!!!
GOD SAID " You don't need healing , you need deliverance"
I saw immediately I had prayed wrong for weeks.
I shifted into warfare.
I started casting down, and casting out Satan.
I chased him away.

I GOT OUT OF BED THAT SAME DAY AND STARTED WORKING OUTSIDE.
HEALED AND DELIVERED BY GODS AWESOME POWER!!!!!!!

 

[rebuilder 454]

Oh yeah.
He is definately alive and doing miracles

 

[rebuilder 454]

This one is really gonna make a bunch of you mad.
Back in the day, about 48 years ago or so, i commuted on a motorcycle.
One day a car ran a stoplight and came straight at me.
After about 30 ft he slammed on his brakes.

The car went right through me. I had evidently been translated or God took me into another dimension.
I also slammed on my brakes and looked back at the car not understanding what happened.
We looked at each other.
Neither of us could discern what really happened.
It was way later that God showed me what actually happened.

THANK YOU JESUS!!!!!!!!

 

[David Lamb]

So because of people getting saved , we can SAFELY cast down miracles.?
Those salvations wore God out?

Where did I say that? What I was saying was that cessationism (at least as I understand it) says that the "sign gifts" given to the apostles, like healing, have ceased, not that God Himself no longer performs miracles. I said nothing about miracles "wearing God out."

 

[David Lamb]

QUOTE
"Rather, cessationism says that the miraculous abilities granted to the apostles have ceased"

Cessationists have it backwards.
We are TAUGHT BY THE BIBLE, it is the power of God that performs miracles.

Acts 3
12 And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all."

No apostle would claim that he had any power.
Neither do I.

I already told all you mockers God has the power. I call on him.
We are just a lightning rod that God chooses to use.
He would not use any of you guys.

The bible says " without faith it is impossible to please God"
God uses men of faith.
Not mockers.

You guys took out yourselves.
So when a crisis comes you will freeze up.
Why pray to a powerless God that left you in a dark room to be batted about by life, calamity, sickness, and the devil?
He has ceased.?
Maybe in a comma?

I fully agree that even the miracles associated with the apostles were performed by God's power, not the power of the apostles. I certainly don't believe in a powerless God.