I wrote this little statement clarifying my position to a Seventh Day Adventist I was disagreeing with two years ago on this board.
Position on the Gifts of the Spirit and New Testament Prophetic ministries
I am not a Cessationist. I do not believe there is an iron clad case to be made that the gift of prophecy and other supernatural signs and wonders etc. have passed away. In fact, I can point to good reasons and Bible verses why that is or should not be the case. However, this is also a far cry from supporting the claims of the many modern groups like many "prophets" of the modern charismatic movement and related movements, as well as people like Ellen White, Joseph Smith and so on. There still are many tests, as far as judging prophets and their prophecy before one should accept such things!
Besides this, I will also note based on the New Testament, when the scripture talks about the Church built "on the foundation of prophets and apostles" (Ephesians 2:20), on the prophet side of things it is more referring to the Old Testament prophets than folks like Agabus, saint John Divine, the itinerant ministers of the Didache etc. This is because the Old Testament prophets wrote "the Bible" that the Church used for the first 4 centuries! (The time it took to agree on the Common Received New Testament canon we now have and enjoy today). Until then the Church was doing the saint Paul / Justin Martyr thing of preaching Christ from the Old Testament Types and Shadows and using books like the Septuagint and original (OT only) Peshitta/ Peshitto as their reference (besides the older one-off ancient scrolls and papyri lying around).
I will note some ironies on the topic of Cessationism.
1) It did not formally exist until the Days of the Reformation, where Calvin made it a formal theory, considered to be an out right fact by some people like the Lutheran Church I was raised in and Catechized in. (Calvin took a tentative hypothesis of saint Augustine, and strengthened it to get off the hot seat that two different Catholic Apologists were trying to put him on for his lack of miracles unlike the major figurers of the Bible who had signs and wonders to prove that God was on their side).
2) Much of Charismatic Protestant Theology is built on the notions of Cessationism coming from the Latter Rain movement. This is especially true for the "New Apostolic Reformation" aka NAR, coming from seminal works by Bill Hamon on what was originally termed "The Prophetic Movement".
I don't really care for both extremes of Cessationism or what has happened with the excesses of NAR. I was active in the Charismatic movement in the 90s and early 2000s but there was a lot of things wrong with it. I think I benefitted by it, but I sympathize with its famous critics who often point out legitimate problems.
Position on the Gifts of the Spirit and New Testament Prophetic ministries
I am not a Cessationist. I do not believe there is an iron clad case to be made that the gift of prophecy and other supernatural signs and wonders etc. have passed away. In fact, I can point to good reasons and Bible verses why that is or should not be the case. However, this is also a far cry from supporting the claims of the many modern groups like many "prophets" of the modern charismatic movement and related movements, as well as people like Ellen White, Joseph Smith and so on. There still are many tests, as far as judging prophets and their prophecy before one should accept such things!
Besides this, I will also note based on the New Testament, when the scripture talks about the Church built "on the foundation of prophets and apostles" (Ephesians 2:20), on the prophet side of things it is more referring to the Old Testament prophets than folks like Agabus, saint John Divine, the itinerant ministers of the Didache etc. This is because the Old Testament prophets wrote "the Bible" that the Church used for the first 4 centuries! (The time it took to agree on the Common Received New Testament canon we now have and enjoy today). Until then the Church was doing the saint Paul / Justin Martyr thing of preaching Christ from the Old Testament Types and Shadows and using books like the Septuagint and original (OT only) Peshitta/ Peshitto as their reference (besides the older one-off ancient scrolls and papyri lying around).
I will note some ironies on the topic of Cessationism.
1) It did not formally exist until the Days of the Reformation, where Calvin made it a formal theory, considered to be an out right fact by some people like the Lutheran Church I was raised in and Catechized in. (Calvin took a tentative hypothesis of saint Augustine, and strengthened it to get off the hot seat that two different Catholic Apologists were trying to put him on for his lack of miracles unlike the major figurers of the Bible who had signs and wonders to prove that God was on their side).
2) Much of Charismatic Protestant Theology is built on the notions of Cessationism coming from the Latter Rain movement. This is especially true for the "New Apostolic Reformation" aka NAR, coming from seminal works by Bill Hamon on what was originally termed "The Prophetic Movement".
I don't really care for both extremes of Cessationism or what has happened with the excesses of NAR. I was active in the Charismatic movement in the 90s and early 2000s but there was a lot of things wrong with it. I think I benefitted by it, but I sympathize with its famous critics who often point out legitimate problems.
