Cessationism discussion with Theonomy

[Gavin]

This thread is open for theonomy and myself to discuss cessationism and some of the issues brought up in his paper.

Others are welcome to chime in. Hopefully I will post my initial thoughts soon.

[Gavin]

Okay, the link is here (http://pages.quicksilver.net.nz/theonomy/1_Corinthians.html) for all interested.

I hope to post my initial thoughts by tonight.

Sincerely,
Gavin

[Gavin]

Dear Glenn:

I enjoyed reading your intelligent paper very much and there were several areas of agreement that I had with it. Here are some areas of disagreement:

1) Tongues and prophecy ceased. Rather than a theological principle, this is said here as an historical observation.
It is a historical observation that is strongly disputed by many of today's leading scholars on the subject. Many would say (and have written entire books in defense of this) that the gifts are very prevalent throughout church history.

2) In Acts 2:42, the converts to Christ "devoted themselves to the Apostles’ doctrine," suggesting that the teaching of the Apostles carried the same kind of authority as Scripture

Sorry, but this seems like a non sequiter to me. It is possible to devote yourself to some teaching without it being, strictly speaking, Scripture. Remember - a great part of the New Testament was written by non-apostles, like Luke and Jude.

3) Paul is obviously aware of this kind of strict criteria when he defends his own Apostleship, and insists, "haven’t I seen the risen Lord?" (1 Cor 9:1-2)
So did theophanies also cease? Can Jesus not appear to people today as he did then?

Also, couldn't the rhetorical questions simply coincidental (but not unrelated). Just because he asks the two questions one right after another does not mean that one is the requirement of the other.

4) This is not the same as saying that this maturity = the New Testament canon. Rather, it refers to the laying down of a body of Apostolic teaching, which was later recognised and canonised.
How does this differ from the canon? And doesn't it fall prey to the same old objections based on the strong, nearly theophonic, language of verse 12?

I will stop for now.

Thanks Glenn.

[John Reece]

Whether any of these minor arguments have merit may very well stand or fall on the use of the term "the perfect" (v.10). The Greek term is to teleion. It is used only three times in 1 Corinthians altogether, in 2:6 and 14:20.
2:6 - "We do, however, speak a message wisdom among the mature…"
14:20 - "Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults."
Elsewhere in this same epistle then, the word doesn’t carry a meaning of absolute or final perfection, but rather of maturity over and against infancy or immaturity. This is stressed further in 1 Corinthians 13 when Paul says "when I was a child… when I became a man" (v. 11). The implication is that tongues, prophecy, and words of revelation ("knowledge") are the marks of an immature or formative stage. After this stage has passed, faith, hope and love will remain, but these revelatory gifts will not. This is only confirmed elsewhere where we read that apostles and prophets are part of the foundation of the church, along with Christ Himself, suggesting a formative "apostolic era" in which the revealed teaching for the church is laid down, by Christ and His apostles and prophets.
This is not the same as saying that this maturity = the New Testament canon. Rather, it refers to the laying down of a body of Apostolic teaching, which was later recognised and canonised.

The sense of τελειον in 1 Corinthians 13:10 is indeed “mature”.

But to the maturity of what does the word refer?

There is absolutely nothing in the biblical texts that suggests that the purpose of speaking in tongues was the laying down of a body of Apostolic teaching, which would later be recognized and canonized.

The purpose of the spiritual gifts regarding which Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12-14 was the building up ("edification") of the Body of Christ, not the production of apostolic teaching later to be recognized and canonized.

It is the maturity of the Church, the Body of Christ which is referred to by το τελειον in 1 Corinthians 13:10.

In 1 Corinthians 13:10, το τελειον refers to the same thing (that is the maturation of the Body of Christ) as does ανδρα τελειον in Ephesions 4:13.

In a Bible commentary published by the Church of England in 1903, the Reverend Canon Evans, Professor of Greek at the University of Durham, wrote the following remarkably pithy comment (re 1 Corinthians 13:9-11):

"N.B.: The true idea of the rare phrase εκ μερους in ver. 9, may be gathered from its contrast το τελειον = full-grown or perfect in ver. 10, and more plainly still in ver. 11, where νηπιος has for its contrast ανηρ. It is clear as day from these three verses taken together that εκ μερυς : νηπιος = το τελειον : ανηρ. Compare also Ephesians 4:13, 14, where ανηρ τελειος and νηπιος are in contrast.”

The article illustrates the truth of Gordon Fee's comments (quoted in the article).

:smile:

[CT292]

This thread is open for theonomy and myself to discuss cessationism and some of the issues brought up in his paper.

I was puzzled by the name of this thread, since the issue of Theonomy is not directly related to the issue of cessationism verses non-cessationism.

But it appears that your usage of the word "Theonomy" refers to Mr. Glenn Peoples who runs a Theonomy website, is that correct? Is he aware of this new thread of yours?

BTW you might be interested in this website below. Its run by a group of ex-Charismatics who had investigated the cessationist view and came to agree with it and had published several articles explaining why they did:

From Charismatic to Reformed (http://www.u-turn.net/8-1/)

Colin

[Gavin]

John,

The sense of ôåëåéïí in 1 Corinthians 13:10 is indeed “mature”.

But to the maturity of what does the word refer?

There is absolutely nothing in the biblical texts that suggests that the purpose of speaking in tongues was the laying down of a body of Apostolic teaching, which would later be recognized and canonized.

The purpose of the spiritual gifts regarding which Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12-14 was the building up ("edification") of the Body of Christ, not the production of apostolic teaching later to be recognized and canonized.

It is the maturity of the Church, the Body of Christ which is referred to by ôï ôåëåéïí in 1 Corinthians 13:10.

In 1 Corinthians 13:10, ôï ôåëåéïí refers to the same thing (that is the maturation of the Body of Christ) as does áíäñá ôåëåéïí in Ephesions 4:13.

In a Bible commentary published by the Church of England in 1903, the Reverend Canon Evans, Professor of Greek at the University of Durham, wrote the following remarkably pithy comment (re 1 Corinthians 13:9-11):

"N.B.: The true idea of the rare phrase åê ìåñïõò in ver. 9, may be gathered from its contrast ôï ôåëåéïí = full-grown or perfect in ver. 10, and more plainly still in ver. 11, where íçðéïò has for its contrast áíçñ. It is clear as day from these three verses taken together that åê ìåñõò : íçðéïò = ôï ôåëåéïí : áíçñ. Compare also Ephesians 4:13, 14, where áíçñ ôåëåéïò and íçðéïò are in contrast.”

The article illustrates the truth of Gordon Fee's comments (quoted in the article).

:smile:

I agree with this.:thumb:

Colin,

I was puzzled by the name of this thread, since the issue of Theonomy is not directly related to the issue of cessationism verses non-cessationism.

But it appears that your usage of the word "Theonomy" refers to Mr. Glenn Peoples who runs a Theonomy website, is that correct? Is he aware of this new thread of yours?

BTW you might be interested in this website below. Its run by a group of ex-Charismatics who had investigated the cessationist view and came to agree with it and had published several articles explaining why they did:

From Charismatic to Reformed

Colin
Thenomy is Glenn's user name here at Tweb.

Thanks for the link. I will check it out.

[Dr. Jack Bauer]

Gavin:[/i]

1)
It is a historical observation that is strongly disputed by many of today's leading scholars on the subject. Many would say (and have written entire books in defense of this) that the gifts are very prevalent throughout church history.

As I see it, the burden of proof falls to the one who claims that there were some specific instances of speaking in tongues and the gift of prophecy "throughout" church history. if there are credible examples, by all means present them.

2)

Sorry, but this seems like a non sequiter to me. It is possible to devote yourself to some teaching without it being, strictly speaking, Scripture. Remember - a great part of the New Testament was written by non-apostles, like Luke and Jude.

I don't think we should devote ourself to the teaching of anything not in Scripture. Do you?

I think this reading is supported by other texts I noted in that work. The Apostles (and prophets) are counted, along with Jesus Christ, as being part of the historical "foundation" of the church (Eph 2:20). Eph 3:5 confirms that the "apostles and prophets" refer to a NT phenomenon, not the OT prophets (i.e. Scripture).

I think my suggestion is also supported in In 2 Peter 3:2, where the teaching of the Apostles seems to be equated with the teaching of the "Lord and Saviour" Himself. There are no members of the church today who carry this kind of teaching authority, are there?

3)
So did theophanies also cease? Can Jesus not appear to people today as he did then?

That wasn't my point. My point is that Paul is showing an awareness of a fairly strict criteria of Apostleship. An Apostles must be someone who had first hand historical knowledge of Christ, and here Paul is insisting that he himself has this firsthand lnowledge - "Haven't I seen the risen Lord?" This reading is also supported in Acts 1:21-22, where the Apostles make a historical connection with the ministryof Jesus a criteria for the selection of Judas' replacement.

Also, couldn't the rhetorical questions simply coincidental (but not unrelated). Just because he asks the two questions one right after another does not mean that one is the requirement of the other.

This seems unlikely precisely because we know from this book that Paul's Apostleship was being undermined by some. Thus the reading which best fits the historical context is that Paul is pointing out that He has seen the risen Lord in order to defend his legitimate Apostleship.

4)
How does this differ from the canon? And doesn't it fall prey to the same old objections based on the strong, nearly theophonic, language of verse 12?

It differs from the canon in the same way that the teaching of the word of God differs fromt he canon. The canon is a deliniated group of books containing teaching. The Apostolic tradition itself is what is encapsulated within the canon.


It seems to me that in order to say that there are Apostles functioning in the Church today, we must say that there are teachers who carry the very same authority as the New Testament. I cannot see how it could be otherwise.

Peace to you:smile:
Glenn

[Gavin]

Thanks Glenn I will try to respond tomorrow.

Thanks for your thoughts,
Gavin

[Gavin]

Dear Glenn:

Thanks for your reply.:smile:

As I see it, the burden of proof falls to the one who claims that there were some specific instances of speaking in tongues and the gift of prophecy "throughout" church history. if there are credible examples, by all means present them

Why do you think the burden of proof falls on the continuationist? Your article claimed that it was a historical observation that the gifts ceased, so shouldn't you prove it if you claim it?

Nevertheless, I refer you this excellent article by Grudem on prophecy throughout the church age here (http://www.ephesians2.net/Articles/Grudem-HistoryProphecy.htm).

I don't think we should devote ourself to the teaching of anything not in Scripture. Do you?

I think this reading is supported by other texts I noted in that work. The Apostles (and prophets) are counted, along with Jesus Christ, as being part of the historical "foundation" of the church (Eph 2:20). Eph 3:5 confirms that the "apostles and prophets" refer to a NT phenomenon, not the OT prophets (i.e. Scripture).

I think my suggestion is also supported in In 2 Peter 3:2, where the teaching of the Apostles seems to be equated with the teaching of the "Lord and Saviour" Himself. There are no members of the church today who carry this kind of teaching authority, are there?

Okay, you are correct here. However, to what extent was the apostles teaching synonomous with Scripture? Considering that the vast majority of the apostles wrote no Scripture, and much of the New Testament was written by non-apostles, I remain unconvinced that the two are totally synonomous (and this may not be your position). Further clarification on this would be welcome.

That wasn't my point. My point is that Paul is showing an awareness of a fairly strict criteria of Apostleship.
Okay, understood.

An Apostles must be someone who had first hand historical knowledge of Christ, and here Paul is insisting that he himself has this firsthand lnowledge - "Haven't I seen the risen Lord?" This reading is also supported in Acts 1:21-22, where the Apostles make a historical connection with the ministryof Jesus a criteria for the selection of Judas' replacement.

I am not sure that historical connection with Jesus is necessary for apostleship. It depends on what you mean by this. If you mean simply that an apostle must be personally commissioned by Christ, fine. But if you mean that an apostle must be linked to Jesus' earthly ministry prior to his ascension, wouldn't the apostle Paul be an exception to that very rule?

So we are left the formor criterion, that you just had to be personally commissioned by Christ. And I see no reason why Jesus could not do this today, as he did with Paul.

This seems unlikely precisely because we know from this book that Paul's Apostleship was being undermined by some. Thus the reading which best fits the historical context is that Paul is pointing out that He has seen the risen Lord in order to defend his legitimate Apostleship.

"Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord?"

So (by parralelism) are freedom and planting a church both criterions as well? Seems to me the rhetorical questions are related, but not necessarily criterion of each other, and that Paul was validating his apostleship does not prove otherwise.

It differs from the canon in the same way that the teaching of the word of God differs fromt he canon. The canon is a deliniated group of books containing teaching. The Apostolic tradition itself is what is encapsulated within the canon.

So because we have the completed apostolic teaching, we see face to face and fully know?

It seems to me that in order to say that there are Apostles functioning in the Church today, we must say that there are teachers who carry the very same authority as the New Testament. I cannot see how it could be otherwise.
I am primarily in favor of advocating the gifts of prophecy, healnig, and tongues for today, since I think their absence robs the church of needed spiritual power - however I am open to apostle existing today.

I think part of the issue is that the word apostle is used in different ways in the New Testament. For example, other people than the 13 (the twelve plus Paul) are called apostles in the New Testament.

I Corinthians 15:5-8 teaches that Christ appeared to "the Twelve . . . then to all the apostles" (and last of all to him), which implies that there were other aposltes besides these twelve.

Furthermore, Paul actually calls many of helpers "apostles" in the New Testament - Barnabbus (Acts 14:14, I Corinthains 9:6) and possibly Apollos (I Corinthians 4:1, 6, 9).

Further still, the circle of apostleship could not have been closed if there were false apostles (II Corinthians 11:13). One could not pretend to be an apostle if everyone knew who the only apostles were!

This in turn implies that while the 12 original disciples held a unique place of honor in God's sight ("the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb", Revelation 21:14), other apostles could still be added to the church to help lead it and make authoratative decisions.

So the question is rather complex. I think a strong case can be made that when the bible refers to "apostle" as a spiritual gift (Ephesians 4:11-13, I Corinthians 12:28-29), it is using the word in the more generic sense, not referring to the original 13 only. After all, it is pretty difficult to think of the original disciples as spiritual gifts along with speaking in tongues and encouragement and the like.

And this difference in usage may well imply difference levels of authority. Hopefully we can discuss this more thoroughly.


Hope I did not bore you with the length of this post!:thumb:

Gavin

[CT292]

Gavin wrote:
Nevertheless, I refer you this excellent article by Grudem on prophecy throughout the church age here

Gavin, I would refer you to Kenneth Gentry's book, The Charismatic Gift of Prophecy - A Reformed Response to Wayne
Grudem

See also the article, Unquenching the Spirit (http://www.credenda.org/issues/7-6thema.php).

Colin

[Gavin]

Colin,

Gavin, I would refer you to Kenneth Gentry's book, The Charismatic Gift of Prophecy - A Reformed Response to Wayne
Grudem

See also the article, Unquenching the Spirit.

Colin

I don't have access to the book, although hopefully I can get it someday. I will take a look at the article. I am still working through the u-turn article you sent me a while back.

Thanks again,
Gavin

[Dr. Jack Bauer]

For some odd reason, I did not get email notification that you had replied, Gavin, so please forgive my slowness in acknowledging it. I will get on to a response soon.

Glenn

[Gavin]

Glenn,

no problem and take your time. I am in no rush.

sincerely,
Gavin

[Dr. Jack Bauer]

whoops

After much ado, it has occured to me that I am supposed to be replying. I'm so sorry for this delay. i sat down today and put a response together. Jope you like it!

Glenn

[Dr. Jack Bauer]

Hello again Gavin.

Thanks for your response. See my replies below:

Why do you think the burden of proof falls on the continuationist? Your article claimed that it was a historical observation that the gifts ceased, so shouldn't you prove it if you claim it?
Nevertheless, I refer you this excellent article by Grudem on prophecy throughout the church age here.

As I see it, if anyone believes that there was a continuity of all the gifts, they must believe so because of evidence, or not at all. If there are instances of such gifts throughout history from Apostolic times onwards, they should be able to point to them. For the cessationist like me, there is nothing to point to, since what we’re claiming is that there was an absence of such gifts.

But lest it be thought that I’m just being lazy :smile: , I will set forth at least one piece of evidence that tongues and prophecy ceased very early in the church’s history. That evidence is this fact: With the apparent exception of Grudem and perhaps a few others, Pentecostal/charismatic theologians and historians admit that these gifts did indeed cease. In the article of mine that you disagreed with, I actually documented some examples, both charismatic and non charismatic. For the benefit of those observing this thread, it might pay to present some of that evidence again here. Church historian E. Glenn Hinson puts it like this when talking about tongues in the early church: “The first sixteen centuries… were lean ones indeed… If the first five centuries were lean the next were starvation years for the practice in Western Christendom and doubtful ones in Eastern Christendom.”

I am willing to acknowledge that on very few isolated occasions in the early centuries, some persons or groups made the claim to have miraculous ability of giftings in this area, but their testimony is highly dubious. For example, the Montanist sect of the late second century practised religious ecstasy including prophetic utterances through the lips of the prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla. But this group has always been regarded as schismatic and deviant, in part due to the fact that their prophecies consisted largely of false predictions about the return of Christ and the location of the New Jerusalem, along with their extraordinary (perhaps Gnostic) asceticism and a zealous desire for martyrdom. By way of an aside, it is interesting to see neo-pentecostal writers revising history to exalt Montanism as a “Reform movement” restoring to the church a spirituality which it has immediately lost after the Apostolic era. The reason for this revision, it appears, is to provide historical validity to a position (Pentecostalism) that so clearly lacks it without such revisions. E.g. Charles E. Hummel, Fire in the Fireplace: Contemporary Charismatic Renewal (London: Mowbrays, 1978), 149, or Eric Nestler, “Was Montanism a Heresy?” Pneuma 6:1 (1984), 67-78.

As Donald Dayton notes, many advocates of the charismatic gifts today are willing to grant that certain of the gifts stopped, and that what we are seeing today is an eschatological outpouring, an event of the last days (Donald Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 26-28.). As the anecdotal saying goes – “these are the days of the Latter Rain.” Pentecostalism has, since its appearance in the 20th century, been almost universally associated with premillennialism and a highly futuristic view of eschatological prophecy, seeing the “last days” as a period of time just prior to Christ’s return (the “rapture”), a time where the Spirit would be poured out in fulfillment of the prophecies of Joel. But this entire approach is predicated on a very frank admission that the gifts – in particular, tongues and prophecy – ceased, and that we are now seeing their revival in the church.

I will make some comments on Grudem’s work at the end of this response.

Okay, you are correct here. However, to what extent was the apostles teaching synonymous with Scripture? Considering that the vast majority of the apostles wrote no Scripture, and much of the New Testament was written by non-apostles, I remain unconvinced that the two are totally synonymous (and this may not be your position).

Correct – that is not my position. Apostolic teaching was not synonymous with Scripture. Perhaps I could have been clearer. Scripture was written, Apostolic teaching was both verbal and written. But, as I think I was able to demonstrate, Apostolic teaching carried the same authority as that of Scripture – just like the teaching of Christ, and that was my point. Nobody has this authority today, and thus it follows that there are no Apostles today.

It is certainly true that the majority of Apostles did not contribute to the written body of Scripture. However, during the middle of the first century, the church did not have a New Testament, embodying the Apostolic tradition of teaching. Thus, even though they did not write Scripture, the Apostles were nonetheless very important to the early church. While the church did not have the written Apostolic tradition, they needed the living Apostles to convey that teaching to them.

I am not sure that historical connection with Jesus is necessary for apostleship. It depends on what you mean by this. If you mean simply that an apostle must be personally commissioned by Christ, fine. But if you mean that an apostle must be linked to Jesus' earthly ministry prior to his ascension, wouldn't the apostle Paul be an exception to that very rule?

The apostle Paul was met by the risen Lord in a way that other Christians of the New Testament after Christ’s resurrection were not – apart from those who were present with him prior to His ascension. Other than those who met Christ after His death and prior to His ascension, who else could have said “haven’t I seen the risen Lord?” Obviously I grant that having met Jesus is not sufficient grounds for a claim to Apostleship. But again, the New Testament gives strong grounds for saying that it is a necessary (even if not sufficient) ground. This is very obviously the case when the Apostles chose Matthias, and Paul seems to feel that it is important that his audience knows it to be true of him.

So we are left the former criterion, that you just had to be personally commissioned by Christ. And I see no reason why Jesus could not do this today, as he did with Paul.

I do think that’s too casual a reading of Paul, for the reasons I have given and because of what I am about to add.

"Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord?" So (by parralelism) are freedom and planting a church both criterions as well? Seems to me the rhetorical questions are related, but not necessarily criterion of each other, and that Paul was validating his apostleship does not prove otherwise.

On the contrary, these things are indeed the Marks of an Apostle. Certainly spreading the Gospel and forming churches, and for practical purposes freedom was manifestly required. Paul here is showing how he is different from the others who are falsely claiming to be Apostles. Have they seen the risen Lord? No – so they are false. Are they involved in ministry that brings people to Christ? No – so they are false. I’ll concede that the “free” reference is not so simple, but there seems to be no obvious way of avoiding the fact that that Paul in this text is continuing in His defense of his genuine Apostleship over and against those false apostles.

So because we have the completed apostolic teaching, we see face to face and fully know?

Yes. Now, you might react in disbelief – how can we say that we fully know, and see face to face? Surely this refers to when Christ returns, and we know Him fully, even as He knows us. And so I must ask you: Do you think that at the moment Christ returns and we see Him, we will know God fully, even to the extent that He knows us? In fact, even a trillion years after we see Christ face to face – even then will we know God fully even as He knows us? I think you will agree that the answer has to be no. This means that this text does not mean what you seem to be suggesting. It doesn’t refer to our knowing God absolutely and fully when Christ returns and we see Him face to face.

The point you raise is certainly one that others have used confidently. I noted that Craig Blomberg makes this very same point. However, this point has not gone unanswered. One significant fact to note is that it isn’t clear that Paul means that we will see God face to face in this verse (even if he believed that we will see God at the consummation). The comparison is between seeing oneself dimly in a mirror, and seeing face to face (i.e. clearly). When we look into a mirror we do not see God – we see our own face. This comparison would make little sense if it meant “Now we see ourselves dimly as in a mirror, but then we will see God face to face.” The use of this comparison suggests that what is being referred to is an improved vision of ourselves, in a better, clearer mirror than that which we now possess, to use Paul’s analogy. Cessationist Myron Houghton comments on this saying of Paul’s: “ ‘Face to face’ describes the clear and direct revelation of oneself which believers today possess when they look into the mirror of the Scriptures, God’s completed revelation.” (Myron J. Houghton, “A Reexamination of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13,” Bibliotheca Sacra 153:611 (1996), 353) Since “then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” comes immediately after the mirror analogy, and since it doesn’t say “then I shall know God as well as He knows me” (most would admit this is impossible, even in heaven), this is also quite capable of being seen as a reference to improved knowledge of oneself in the light of the revelation given through the apostolic tradition. Houghton acknowledges that this may seem fairly presumptuous. Do believers who have access to the revelation of the New Testament really know themselves as well as God Himself knows them? He replies: However, the problem does not go away if these words are interpreted eschatologically. In eternity, will believers really know fully just as they have been fully known? The answer to this question seems to be, “Yes, but only in some limited qualified sense.” If that answer is acceptable for the eschatological interpretation, then it ought to be acceptable for this writer’s “completed canon” view as well. (Ibid., 354)

Gordon Fee acknowledges this argument, but his “response” is illustrative of his approach to the subject:

It his perhaps an indictment of Western Christianity that we should consider “mature” our rather totally cerebral and domesticated – but bland – brand of faith, with the concommitant absence of the Spirit in terms of his supernatural gifts! (Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 645, fn. 23)

Note the clearly circular nature of this argument. Fee implies that it is obviously wrong to think that maturity might involve the removal of these gifts, even though the text he is commenting on expressly says that when this maturity comes these gifts will cease. In other words, in response to an exegetical case for the view that when maturity comes, certain gifts will cease, Fee has said “but that must be false because it would imply that maturity would be present without these gifts.” Yes, that is what such an exegesis would imply, pointing that out is not a rebuttal! The rest of Fee’s statement consists of emotive condemnation (e.g. “cerebral, domesticated, bland”), and contributes nothing to his position but an ugly hostility towards those with whom he differs.



I think part of the issue is that the word apostle is used in different ways in the New Testament. For example, other people than the 13 (the twelve plus Paul) are called apostles in the New Testament.
I Corinthians 15:5-8 teaches that Christ appeared to "the Twelve . . . then to all the apostles" (and last of all to him), which implies that there were other aposltes besides these twelve.
Furthermore, Paul actually calls many of helpers "apostles" in the New Testament - Barnabbas (Acts 14:14, I Corinthains 9:6) and possibly Apollos (I Corinthians 4:1, 6, 9).

I think that this is your only real potentially strong argument on Apostleship. Elsewhere, I think it looks clear that the Apostles, with the prophets, had a unique historical function in establishing the church. I’ve pointed to a couple of texts where this appears to be made quite clear. I’ve also shown some evidence that there was a fairly rigid criteria for determining who was a genuine Apostle. I do not think you’ve presented a rebuttal of these claims. Yet you do here present what looks, initially, like a good counter argument.

The first thing to note is that there is nothing in my argument to prevent there ever having been more than 13 Apostles. I am inclined at the present time to think that there were only 13, but my case would certainly not crumble if it turned out that there were 20. My point is that they were a temporary institution.

Part of the difficulty in response arises because of the existence of more than one way of using words. In particular, the word “Apostle” is capable of at least two kinds of usage: literal (what the word literally means according to its linguistic derivation) on the one hand, and technical (how the word came to be conventionally used) on the other. For example, the literal meaning of glossa in Greek is “tongue,” the object in your mouth. But it is used to mean “language” as well, and this is a technical meaning. The word apostle in Greek literally means “sent one.” But it also picked up a technical meaning, to refer to a special group with a teaching authority that historically laid a foundation for the church (e.g. Eph 2:2). One way of making this distinction is to refer to apostles (lower case a) when the word has a literal meaning, and Apostles (upper case A) when it has a technical meaning. In other words, there were possibly numerous “sent ones” who were not Apostles, and so translation becomes a more tricky exercise, and one which will necessarily involve interpreting. Should a given example be translated as “Apostle,” or as something meaning “sent one”? It may not always be clear.

With regard to the specific texts you have referred to, I have some specific responses. Firstly, 1 Corinthians 15:5-8. Surprising as it may seem, I am inclined to agree with Gordon Fee on this one (who in turn accepts the majority view of the commentators). He suggests that this appearance of Christ to “all the Apostles” refers to the Twelve plus a somewhat wider group who had been followers of Jesus during His earthly ministry, who came to be associated with the Apostolic ministry. Fee acknowledges that even this group, while not necessarily being limited to the twelve, had to met the criteria of having met the risen Lord, and these had been commissioned (perhaps by the Twelve, perhaps by the risen Lord) to proclaim the gospel and to plant churches. Fee connects this to Paul’s comments in 1Cor 9:1-2, seeing these (as I did) as a criteria of Apostleship. (Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 732.) Fee is prepared to say that these other apostles did not share the authority of the twelve, who always held a special place, yet still met the criteria of having a unique and formative ministry in the church.

This line of argument employed by Fee (which I accept) would quite adequately explain the other references you cite. There may have been others outside the twelve who could in some sense be called Apostles. However none of this is to deny what I see as clear biblical teaching about the foundational role in history that Apostles played in the Church.

Further still, the circle of apostleship could not have been closed if there were false apostles (II Corinthians 11:13). One could not pretend to be an apostle if everyone knew who the only apostles were!

On the contrary, the fact that there were people who claimed to be Apostles who did not meet the criteria shows that there were criteria, and that it is possible to evaluate a person and ascertain that they did not in fact meet them. I haven’t suggested that every Christian in the first century knew the criteria. All I’ve said is that there were criteria, and that the Apostles met them.

So the question is rather complex. I think a strong case can be made that when the bible refers to "apostle" as a spiritual gift (Ephesians 4:11-13, I Corinthians 12:28-29), it is using the word in the more generic sense, not referring to the original 13 only. After all, it is pretty difficult to think of the original disciples as spiritual gifts along with speaking in tongues and encouragement and the like.

Why do you find this difficult? It doesn’t seem in the least bit odd to say that a certain number of people had a gifting which carried with it responsibility and authority, does it?


Now, to Grudem’s historical claims…. I was, to be quite honest, a little surprised to see them. Setting aside the Westminster confession of faith (which is really a piece of speculation, given that it is really a cautious and, I think, improbable interpretation of the wording), we have Spurgeon, Knox and Rutherford who, so it seems, believed that they practiced the gift of prophecy. What this means is that I will have to do a bit of digging in history. However, the fact that grudem was unaware of example slike this until people pointed them out to him suggsts that they are highly unusual (especially given the theological emphasis of Calvin and the Reformers in general – sola scriptura). But still, the accounts are there and I will look into them. I have also been made aware of an important response to Grudem by Kenneth Gentry, which I must look at as well. As with any claim, it must stand the test of Scripture.

I’d like to finish with a couple of questions for you Gavin:

Firstly, if you believe that there can be Apostles today, what exactly is such a person? What is their role and function?

Secondly, how can we defend the Apostleship of such people? Are there any criteria that we could use to show that there are indeed true Apostles?

All the best,

Glenn

[Gavin]

Glenn,

thanks for the reply.

As I see it, if anyone believes that there was a continuity of all the gifts, they must believe so because of evidence, or not at all. If there are instances of such gifts throughout history from Apostolic times onwards, they should be able to point to them. For the cessationist like me, there is nothing to point to, since what we’re claiming is that there was an absence of such gifts.

Your article claimed that it is a "historical observation" that tongues and prophecy ceased. So I still think the onus is on you to back up that claim. But I see your point and I will try to provide the evidence you want in what follows.

But lest it be thought that I’m just being lazy , I will set forth at least one piece of evidence that tongues and prophecy ceased very early in the church’s history. That evidence is this fact: With the apparent exception of Grudem and perhaps a few others, Pentecostal/charismatic theologians and historians admit that these gifts did indeed cease. In the article of mine that you disagreed with, I actually documented some examples, both charismatic and non charismatic. For the benefit of those observing this thread, it might pay to present some of that evidence again here. Church historian E. Glenn Hinson puts it like this when talking about tongues in the early church: “The first sixteen centuries… were lean ones indeed… If the first five centuries were lean the next were starvation years for the practice in Western Christendom and doubtful ones in Eastern Christendom.”

I disagree with this. I would say that the vast majority of charismatic scholars would not say that tongues and prophecy ceased as a historical fact. A few would, but no more (and probably less) than the number of noncharismatic scholars who would grant that they did not cease as a historical fact. In short, charismatic scholars who agree with Grudem about the gifts in the church age are the norm, not the expection.

See Richard Riis, "Tongues and other miraculous gifts in the second through nineteenth centuries, " or Ronald Kydd, "charismatic gifts in the early church, " or any other of the numerous charismatic defenses of this view.


I am willing to acknowledge that on very few isolated occasions in the early centuries, some persons or groups made the claim to have miraculous ability of giftings in this area, but their testimony is highly dubious. For example, the Montanist sect of the late second century practised religious ecstasy including prophetic utterances through the lips of the prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla. But this group has always been regarded as schismatic and deviant, in part due to the fact that their prophecies consisted largely of false predictions about the return of Christ and the location of the New Jerusalem, along with their extraordinary (perhaps Gnostic) asceticism and a zealous desire for martyrdom. By way of an aside, it is interesting to see neo-pentecostal writers revising history to exalt Montanism as a “Reform movement” restoring to the church a spirituality which it has immediately lost after the Apostolic era. The reason for this revision, it appears, is to provide historical validity to a position (Pentecostalism) that so clearly lacks it without such revisions. E.g. Charles E. Hummel, Fire in the Fireplace: Contemporary Charismatic Renewal (London: Mowbrays, 1978), 149, or Eric Nestler, “Was Montanism a Heresy?” Pneuma 6:1 (1984), 67-78.

As Grudem's article illustrates, though, the evidence for the gifts stems not merely from heretical groups but also from some of the most respected and beloved champions of the faith ever.

I will give just one example here for the sake of space. Martin Luther was (in the modern sense of the term) a charismatic. Although disgusted by false and fanatical imitations of the miraculous gifts, Luther believed that all Christians had the ability to exercise the miraculous gifts. He said in a sermon on Ascension Day in 1522, "where there is a Christian, there is still the power to work these signs if it is necessary", and exactly a year later, in a sermon on Mark 16, added:

Therefore, we must allow these words to remain and not gloss them away, as some have done who have said that these signs were manifestations of the Spirit in the beginning of the Christian era and that now they have ceased. That is not right; for the same power is in the church still. And though it is not exercised, that does not matter; we still have the power to do such signs.


As Donald Dayton notes, many advocates of the charismatic gifts today are willing to grant that certain of the gifts stopped, and that what we are seeing today is an eschatological outpouring, an event of the last days (Donald Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), 26-28.). As the anecdotal saying goes – “these are the days of the Latter Rain.” Pentecostalism has, since its appearance in the 20th century, been almost universally associated with premillennialism and a highly futuristic view of eschatological prophecy, seeing the “last days” as a period of time just prior to Christ’s return (the “rapture”), a time where the Spirit would be poured out in fulfillment of the prophecies of Joel. But this entire approach is predicated on a very frank admission that the gifts – in particular, tongues and prophecy – ceased, and that we are now seeing their revival in the church.

The "last days" view is a minority viewpoint in the charismatic circles I am involved in, and is not my own view. I see the "last days" period as inaugerated on Pentecost.

Correct – that is not my position. Apostolic teaching was not synonymous with Scripture. Perhaps I could have been clearer. Scripture was written, Apostolic teaching was both verbal and written. But, as I think I was able to demonstrate, Apostolic teaching carried the same authority as that of Scripture – just like the teaching of Christ, and that was my point. Nobody has this authority today, and thus it follows that there are no Apostles today.

It is certainly true that the majority of Apostles did not contribute to the written body of Scripture. However, during the middle of the first century, the church did not have a New Testament, embodying the Apostolic tradition of teaching. Thus, even though they did not write Scripture, the Apostles were nonetheless very important to the early church. While the church did not have the written Apostolic tradition, they needed the living Apostles to convey that teaching to them.

Okay, I can accept this. I have a few reservations about it, but it does not hurt my case because I am arguing that there exist two different ways that apostleship is used in the New Testament, and one has ceased while the other has not. See below.



[continued in next post]

[Gavin]

The apostle Paul was met by the risen Lord in a way that other Christians of the New Testament after Christ’s resurrection were not – apart from those who were present with him prior to His ascension. Other than those who met Christ after His death and prior to His ascension, who else could have said “haven’t I seen the risen Lord?” Obviously I grant that having met Jesus is not sufficient grounds for a claim to Apostleship. But again, the New Testament gives strong grounds for saying that it is a necessary (even if not sufficient) ground. This is very obviously the case when the Apostles chose Matthias, and Paul seems to feel that it is important that his audience knows it to be true of him.

I will also grant that apostles (in the technical sense) were specifcally appointed by Christ. But I still see now reason why Christ could not appear to people today as he did to Paul. But this point is, perhaps, moot, since I agree that apostles in the highly technical sense did in fact cease.

I do think that’s too casual a reading of Paul, for the reasons I have given and because of what I am about to add.

. . .

On the contrary, these things are indeed the Marks of an Apostle. Certainly spreading the Gospel and forming churches, and for practical purposes freedom was manifestly required. Paul here is showing how he is different from the others who are falsely claiming to be Apostles. Have they seen the risen Lord? No – so they are false. Are they involved in ministry that brings people to Christ? No – so they are false. I’ll concede that the “free” reference is not so simple, but there seems to be no obvious way of avoiding the fact that that Paul in this text is continuing in His defense of his genuine Apostleship over and against those false apostles.

I would say that your view in general tries to make things a bit too neat and tidy. Paul may be defending the genuity of his apostolic ministry in this passage, but he is not necessarily latching onto the only and universally accepted tests for apostolic genuity. His inclusion of his freedom in Christ (a blessing common to all believers) favors this sense. It may be the case that apostles arise who have not been called in exactly the same way Paul was.

But again I agree that apostles in the technical sense ceased.

Yes. Now, you might react in disbelief – how can we say that we fully know, and see face to face? Surely this refers to when Christ returns, and we know Him fully, even as He knows us. And so I must ask you: Do you think that at the moment Christ returns and we see Him, we will know God fully, even to the extent that He knows us? In fact, even a trillion years after we see Christ face to face – even then will we know God fully even as He knows us? I think you will agree that the answer has to be no. This means that this text does not mean what you seem to be suggesting. It doesn’t refer to our knowing God absolutely and fully when Christ returns and we see Him face to face.

The point you raise is certainly one that others have used confidently. I noted that Craig Blomberg makes this very same point. However, this point has not gone unanswered. One significant fact to note is that it isn’t clear that Paul means that we will see God face to face in this verse (even if he believed that we will see God at the consummation). The comparison is between seeing oneself dimly in a mirror, and seeing face to face (i.e. clearly). When we look into a mirror we do not see God – we see our own face. This comparison would make little sense if it meant “Now we see ourselves dimly as in a mirror, but then we will see God face to face.” The use of this comparison suggests that what is being referred to is an improved vision of ourselves, in a better, clearer mirror than that which we now possess, to use Paul’s analogy. Cessationist Myron Houghton comments on this saying of Paul’s: “ ‘Face to face’ describes the clear and direct revelation of oneself which believers today possess when they look into the mirror of the Scriptures, God’s completed revelation.” (Myron J. Houghton, “A Reexamination of 1 Corinthians 13:8-13,” Bibliotheca Sacra 153:611 (1996), 353) Since “then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” comes immediately after the mirror analogy, and since it doesn’t say “then I shall know God as well as He knows me” (most would admit this is impossible, even in heaven), this is also quite capable of being seen as a reference to improved knowledge of oneself in the light of the revelation given through the apostolic tradition.

Now hold on here. If "face to face" and "know fully" won't be realized even after a trillion years in heaven, then when will they be realized? Ever? You seem to want to make the strength the language favor the idea of that they refer to simply Scripture; but the strength of the language leads to the greater, not lesser, event.

Yes, I do believe that belivers in heaven will see God "face to face". Every time this phrase is used in the LXX, it refers to theophany. See my debate with Apollos on this, my third post. I do believe that we will fully know in heaven, just as God knows us. I cannot see that the text allows us to any other conclusions. Certainly these events did not occur in the first century!

Houghton acknowledges that this may seem fairly presumptuous. Do believers who have access to the revelation of the New Testament really know themselves as well as God Himself knows them? He replies: “ However, the problem does not go away if these words are interpreted eschatologically. In eternity, will believers really know fully just as they have been fully known? The answer to this question seems to be, “Yes, but only in some limited qualified sense.” If that answer is acceptable for the eschatological interpretation, then it ought to be acceptable for this writer’s “completed canon” view as well. (Ibid., 354) ”



Gordon Fee acknowledges this argument, but his “response” is illustrative of his approach to the subject:

“ It his perhaps an indictment of Western Christianity that we should consider “mature” our rather totally cerebral and domesticated – but bland – brand of faith, with the concommitant absence of the Spirit in terms of his supernatural gifts! (Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 645, fn. 23) ”

Note the clearly circular nature of this argument. Fee implies that it is obviously wrong to think that maturity might involve the removal of these gifts, even though the text he is commenting on expressly says that when this maturity comes these gifts will cease. In other words, in response to an exegetical case for the view that when maturity comes, certain gifts will cease, Fee has said “but that must be false because it would imply that maturity would be present without these gifts.” Yes, that is what such an exegesis would imply, pointing that out is not a rebuttal! The rest of Fee’s statement consists of emotive condemnation (e.g. “cerebral, domesticated, bland”), and contributes nothing to his position but an ugly hostility towards those with whom he differs.

You have a good point here that the maturity does come with the cessation of the gifts, not their presence, but I would be much more sympathetic to Fee's sentiments. In general, the western church is nowhere near "mature", irrespective of the question of gifts. But this is a bit of a tangent.



[continued in next post]

[Gavin]

Before I forget here is a link to one of those earlier cited works.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0913573094/spiritualwarfareA/002-5143372-5944812

[Gavin]

I think that this is your only real potentially strong argument on Apostleship. Elsewhere, I think it looks clear that the Apostles, with the prophets, had a unique historical function in establishing the church. I’ve pointed to a couple of texts where this appears to be made quite clear. I’ve also shown some evidence that there was a fairly rigid criteria for determining who was a genuine Apostle. I do not think you’ve presented a rebuttal of these claims. Yet you do here present what looks, initially, like a good counter argument.


To clarify my position: apostleship is used in different senses in the New Testament. This is supported by the contexts in which it is used together with the philology of the greek "apostolos" which originally meant simply "messenger" or "ambassodor". Philippians 2:25 uses the word in this sense, for example.

Sometimes aposlteship refers to the twelve disciples minus Judas plus Matthias and perhaps a few others such as Paul, and implies a degree of authority in leading the early church. I agree that apostles in this sense ceased. Other times the word simply refers to any messenger or ambassador for Christ. In this sense apostleship is a spiritual gift (I Corinthians 12:28-29, Ephesians 4:11) which did not contain the authority that the other sense did and continues today.

The first thing to note is that there is nothing in my argument to prevent there ever having been more than 13 Apostles. I am inclined at the present time to think that there were only 13, but my case would certainly not crumble if it turned out that there were 20. My point is that they were a temporary institution.

Of course, but what I am arguing for is not merely that there were more than 13 but that the word is used in two different ways.

Part of the difficulty in response arises because of the existence of more than one way of using words. In particular, the word “Apostle” is capable of at least two kinds of usage: literal (what the word literally means according to its linguistic derivation) on the one hand, and technical (how the word came to be conventionally used) on the other. For example, the literal meaning of glossa in Greek is “tongue,” the object in your mouth. But it is used to mean “language” as well, and this is a technical meaning. The word apostle in Greek literally means “sent one.” But it also picked up a technical meaning, to refer to a special group with a teaching authority that historically laid a foundation for the church (e.g. Eph 2:2). One way of making this distinction is to refer to apostles (lower case a) when the word has a literal meaning, and Apostles (upper case A) when it has a technical meaning. In other words, there were possibly numerous “sent ones” who were not Apostles, and so translation becomes a more tricky exercise, and one which will necessarily involve interpreting. Should a given example be translated as “Apostle,” or as something meaning “sent one”? It may not always be clear.


Exactly. You said it better than I could. And my contention is that when apostleship is used to refer to a spiritual gift it is the literal not technical sense.

With regard to the specific texts you have referred to, I have some specific responses. Firstly, 1 Corinthians 15:5-8. Surprising as it may seem, I am inclined to agree with Gordon Fee on this one (who in turn accepts the majority view of the commentators). He suggests that this appearance of Christ to “all the Apostles” refers to the Twelve plus a somewhat wider group who had been followers of Jesus during His earthly ministry, who came to be associated with the Apostolic ministry. Fee acknowledges that even this group, while not necessarily being limited to the twelve, had to met the criteria of having met the risen Lord, and these had been commissioned (perhaps by the Twelve, perhaps by the risen Lord) to proclaim the gospel and to plant churches. Fee connects this to Paul’s comments in 1Cor 9:1-2, seeing these (as I did) as a criteria of Apostleship. (Fee, 1 Corinthians, p. 732.) Fee is prepared to say that these other apostles did not share the authority of the twelve, who always held a special place, yet still met the criteria of having a unique and formative ministry in the church.

Equally surprising, I may disagree with Fee in that he (and the majority of commentators) are mushing the distinction between the literal and technical sense of the word apostle. Nothing in I Corinthians 15 says anything about the authority of these other apostles.

This line of argument employed by Fee (which I accept) would quite adequately explain the other references you cite. There may have been others outside the twelve who could in some sense be called Apostles. However none of this is to deny what I see as clear biblical teaching about the foundational role in history that Apostles played in the Church.

You agreeing with Fee does nothing if you do not address the argument I will bring up below for why apostleship as a spiritual gift is probably not used in the more technical sense.

On the contrary, the fact that there were people who claimed to be Apostles who did not meet the criteria shows that there were criteria, and that it is possible to evaluate a person and ascertain that they did not in fact meet them. I haven’t suggested that every Christian in the first century knew the criteria. All I’ve said is that there were criteria, and that the Apostles met them.

They may have not known the criteria for being an apostle, but if there were only 13 aposltes, than people would surely know that! And I still think it would be ludicrous for people to fake being apostles if everybody knew who the real aposltes were. That would be like people faking an identity as congressmen today!

Why do you find this difficult? It doesn’t seem in the least bit odd to say that a certain number of people had a gifting which carried with it responsibility and authority, does it?

But spiritual gifts are different than offices to which Christ calls 13 people. Spiritual gifts are "manifestations of the Spirit" given across the church among a wide number of believers. They are general, not specific. Other gifts like administering, leadership, helping, serving, etc. are not offices to which a few people are called - they are general abilities that the Spirit gives.

From my debate:

So the question then becomes – in what sense is Paul using the term “apostle” in Ephesians 4:11? It will not do to go with Apollos and dogmatically insist that the word is being used in the more technical sense simply because that is allegedly the “primary sense” of the word. What after, is a “apostle” (in the highly technical sense) to speak of it as a spiritual gift, which by definition is a spiritual ability given by the Spirit, not an ecclesiastical office instituted by the risen Christ? What sense would it make to write to the lay people of the New Testament churches that God has given each of them spiritual gifts, some of which may be apostles? The thirteen were clearly not “spiritual gifts” per se. There were no apostles in Ephesus or Corinth at the time of Paul’s writing to them! Thus it is far more likely that the word is being used in the older, more generic sense of missionary, or messenger. “Messenger” as the definition of apostle fits in categorically with the other gifts mentioned, evangelists, administrators, pastors, etc., while the definition of apostle as “13 specific individuals called by Christ, twelve of whom were his original disciples”, to put it mildly, seems to be a very anomalous sort of gift.

Thus I think it highly more likely that when Paul speaks of apostleship as a spiritual gift he is using the more literal, general sense of "messenger." This view fits in with all the relevant evidence and favors the continuation of this gift.

Firstly, if you believe that there can be Apostles today, what exactly is such a person? What is their role and function?

An "apostle" is the same as a "messenger" or "ambassador" or "one who is sent on a mission". One who is gifted with this gift is presumably endowed with a special capacity for missions, leadership, proclamation of the gospel, etc. Just as one with a gift of "messengership" (i.e., apostleship) carries a message, one with the gift of leadership leads, one with the gift of showing hospitality shows it, etc. It is very simple and almost so obvious that it is overlooked. Aposltes today possess no authority on par with that of the writers of Scripture and do not even need to be called "aposltes" officially, any more than those with the gift of showing hospitality need to be offically dubbed "showers of hospitatlity."

Secondly, how can we defend the Apostleship of such people? Are there any criteria that we could use to show that there are indeed true Apostles?

Paul does not give us tests for testing spiritual gifts as he evidently thinks it will be apparent what spiritual gifts are rather obviously. No criteria really need to be presented with the spiritual gift of apostleship, since Scriptural truth is not at stake in their recognition (as it was in the technical apostles' recognition).

Whew! This is going unedited.

Blessings Glenn,
Gavin

[Dr. Jack Bauer]

Hi again Gavin, and thank sfor that response.

You have agreed that Apostleship in the technical sense ceased. Great! We're part way there. You will, of course, have to be rigidly consistent now, so that you don't say "Paul was an Apostle, and there are still Apostles today," since this would ignore the distinction we have both now agreed to make.

It will be obvious to any observer of the wider debate on cessationism that the question of cessationism rlates to the technical sense of "Apostleship." When it comes to the literal meaning of apostelo, my claim would be very simple: TRANSLATE the word. Refer to ambassadors or messengers, and not Apostles, since "Apostles" has a technical meaning. That is actually why the word came into the English language - because technical terms (e.g. "Apostle" or "baptism") are often words that have simply been transliterated in another language instead of translated (e.g. "ambassador," "dipping") because of the danger of simply taking their literal meaning when translated.

You say that Fee is "mushing" the defiition by including two different types of Apostle. But how do you know he is including two types? Nothing in the immediate text would suggest this.

And your objection to the view that the gift of Apostleship was a limited time appointment has some visible problems. If we can agree that the greek word could mean "Apostle" or "ambassador" then the gift could mean two things:

1.) It could mean the gift of being an Apostle, but you've agreed with me that this was a limited time thing, so there would be no disagreement there. I think this IS what it means, and so I conclude that the gift is no more. You don't think i means this, however.

2.) This leaves you with the other option - that the gift really refers to the gift of being an ambassador or "sent one." OK, but you must realise when you say this that you're saying nothing that the cessationist view would reject. Do cessationists believe that people today may ambassadors for Christ? Absolutely. If you take this option, you just have to appreciate the fact that when a cessationist says there are no Apostles today, he doesn't mean "ambassadors."

So I think that if you take the gift of Apostleship to refer to ambassadors, you have no reason to differ from the cessationist POSITION (even if you disagree with the cessationist understanding of what this gift is). It's just that you think this gif refes to messengers rather than Apostles, and it would be helpful when talking to cessationists to use the word "messenger" or "missionary" or something else to be clear that you're not actually saying there are Apostles today.

Now that we can agree that "Apostles" are no more (provided we can agree that "Apostle" as a translation of the Greek is a technical term), we can now turn to the question of Prophets. I'll turn back now to Ephesians 2:20. It says that the "Apostles and Prophets", along with Jesus, are the founation of the Church. Paul confirms in Eph 3:5 that he dos not mean Old Testament prophets, but prophets in his own day.

Since you agree that Apostles in this sense have ceased, what about Prohets? Do you think that they continue in the church, even after this foundation hs been laid?

Now, if you want to say "Ah, no, there are no more prophets in THAT sense, they have ceased. What we have now is people who offer teachings that need to be tested against Scripture," then could you explain how you are not a cessationist?

Glenn

[Gavin]

Hello Glenn,

You say that Fee is "mushing" the defiition by including two different types of Apostle. But how do you know he is including two types? Nothing in the immediate text would suggest this.

Well, my understanding of I Corinthians 15 is that the "other apostles" would be primarily those non-authoratative aposltes. But your point is well taken nonetheless, as Fee may not be taking I Corinthians 15 in that way.

2.) This leaves you with the other option - that the gift really refers to the gift of being an ambassador or "sent one." OK, but you must realise when you say this that you're saying nothing that the cessationist view would reject. Do cessationists believe that people today may ambassadors for Christ? Absolutely. If you take this option, you just have to appreciate the fact that when a cessationist says there are no Apostles today, he doesn't mean "ambassadors."

So I think that if you take the gift of Apostleship to refer to ambassadors, you have no reason to differ from the cessationist POSITION (even if you disagree with the cessationist understanding of what this gift is). It's just that you think this gif refes to messengers rather than Apostles, and it would be helpful when talking to cessationists to use the word "messenger" or "missionary" or something else to be clear that you're not actually saying there are Apostles today.

I can agree with this. :thumb:

Now that we can agree that "Apostles" are no more (provided we can agree that "Apostle" as a translation of the Greek is a technical term), we can now turn to the question of Prophets. I'll turn back now to Ephesians 2:20. It says that the "Apostles and Prophets", along with Jesus, are the founation of the Church. Paul confirms in Eph 3:5 that he dos not mean Old Testament prophets, but prophets in his own day.

Since you agree that Apostles in this sense have ceased, what about Prohets? Do you think that they continue in the church, even after this foundation hs been laid?

Now, if you want to say "Ah, no, there are no more prophets in THAT sense, they have ceased. What we have now is people who offer teachings that need to be tested against Scripture," then could you explain how you are not a cessationist?

My position is that the gift of prophecy is for today. My reasons for thinking so are as follows.

Within Scripture itself, there are different types of revelation. In the Old Testament, there are casual references to "companies of prophets" in various cities of the Old Testament (II Kings 2:3, 5, 7) which likely contain hundreds of prophets. Nothing of what these prophets did or said is recorded in Scripture. Similarly, there seems to be spontaneous and somewhat "charismatic" prophecies (in the modern sense of the term) in the Old Testament as an evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit on people (Numbers 11:24-25, I Samuel 10:9-11, 19:20). Turner calls such prophecies "invasively inspired charismatic praise or worship." These prophcies are not recorded in Scripture either.

When the Spirit is poured out on Pentecost in Acts 2, and throughout the rest of Acts, those on whom he falls frequently prophesy and speak in tongues (Acts 2:4, possibly 8:17, 10:46, 19:6). What was prophesied is not recorded. Other prophecies, dreams, visions, and other such revelatory phenomena in Acts (Acts 5:3, 8:26, 29, 9:10-12, 10:3-6, 10:19-20, 11:27-30, 16:6-10, 18:9-10, 21:4, 10-12, 27:23-24) contain not general soteriological revelation but rather personal and specific guidance "guidance that the advent of the canon would not render unnecessary" (Turner).

What is said about the gift of prophecy in I Corinthians 14 bears similar evidence to what is above. See especially verses 29-30. Prophecy seems in this sense to differ greatly from Scripture which contains general not specific guidance; theological, principial, not "personal" per se. So I would say the gift of prophecy (as opposed to what is in view in, say, II Peter 1:20-21 or Romans 16:26) is very different from Scripture and continues today as a sign of the Spirit's presence (Acts 2:17), for the edification of the church (I Corinthians 14:3), and for the personal and specific guidance of believers (e.g., Acts 21:10-11). It is clear that since prophecy is said to occur in relation to the two witnesses in Revelation 11:3, not all prophecy can be a threat to the closed canon.

What then, of Ephesians 2:20? There are a number of possibilities.

1) Paul could be referring to apostles in the technical sense and prophecy in the sense of Scripture (as opposed to the gift of prophecy as in I Corinthians 14) which cease once the foundational period of the church. This would not be a damper on my diaper since I believe the canon is closed and the Aposltes (note capital) are ceased. But I do think this is the most likely sense of the passage (see number three).

2) Paul could, as Grudem argues, be employing a hendiadys in Ephesians 2:20. The sense then would be "the apostles who were prophets" and would not bear to the question of the cessation/contuation of prophecy per se. A hendiadys is gramatically possible (and not unlikely) but neither necessary. Again this view would fit in with continuationism, but I do not bank much on it because there is really no way to know with certainty if that is what Paul is thinking here.

3) Regardless of what Paul is referring to in Ephesians 2:20, nothing in the verse demands cessationism, for the following factors.

a) Just because some of the prophets founded the church (along with apostles), that does not mean that they cannot contribute to the superstructure as well. Jack Deere has said, "the founding director of a company or corporation will always be unique in the sense that he or she was the founder, but that does not mean that the company would not have future directors or presidents." In noting the significance of the redemptive-historical structure of Acts, D. A. Carson helpfully points out, "Some gifts . . . function in Acts in ways particularly related to the inception of the messaniac age. But it does not follow that Luke expects them to cease once the period of inception has passed away." Ruthvin echoes this idea: "The NT sees these gifts as first and definitive, but certainly not unrepeatable."
In other words, the prophets role as founders of the church in no way excludes them from future activity in the church, because founders can and do contribute to the entire building. Gaffin's argument is a logical non sequiter - why should the founders of a building be unable to build on to the rest of the building? Because a person with a certain talent begins to a building, can people with similar talents not continue to build onto the building later?
Very probably Paul meant that the apostles and prophets were foundational to the church not in terms of sequence, but in terms of importance - that is, the importance of the message they bore, the gospel. You could say that American democracy is "built on the foundation of Presidents and Congressmen" - but this does not imply that people holding these titles will go away after the foundational period of America. That is beause the use of the analogy of the foundation of a building in this context is not sequential or temporal; it merely denotes the importance of these offices in the structure of American political ideology (regardless of what period they operate in). In the same way, apostles and prophets are foundational in terms of importance, not sequence, in which case they still "found" the church today.

b) This argument does not account for the next two verses of the passage, which use the present tense to refer to the construction of the superstructure of this building: "the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." Paul sees the apostles and prophets as foundational to the church, true, but he also sees the rest of the building growing (present tense), and having been joined together (past participle), in the time of the apostles and prophets. If the superstructure was being constructed and had been joined together during the apostolic age, the apostles and prophets were already contributing to the superstructure. So it is gratuitous to argue against their building onto the superstructure from this passage. The very action this argument claims that founders cannot do they are already doing in the next two verses! Apostles and prophets contribute both to the foundation and to the entire superstructure in Ephesians 2:20-22.

c) Thirdly, the inclusion of Christ into this group of founders as the "chief cornerstone" hinders cessationists' claims. As Ruthven remarks, "the cessationist argument by analogy collapses if Christ is not limited to the 'foundation' in Eph. 2:20." But clearly Christ's work in the church cannot be limited to the apostolic age! On the contrary, Jesus works actively to build his church until his return (Matthew 16:18), and is present with us "to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

In sum: Paul is not limiting any spiritual gifts to any time frames in Ephesians 2:20; he is standing back and looking at the church structure as a whole and reminding the Ephesians of their inclusion in this larger picture. Paul's emphasis is not on the sequence of church history and changes in the Spirit's activity from one period to another but on the overall make-up of the church, which from Paul's perspective in the first century had already risen to become a temple holy in the Lord. It is later, in Ephesians 4:11-13, in a context specifically set in discussion ff spiritual gifts, that Paul dates the duration of the spiritual gifts ("until" [13]): the complete maturity of the church in heaven (cf. I Corinthians 8ff.).

Let me know your thoughts at your convenience, Glenn, on this post or previous ones.

Take care,
Gavin

[Dr. Jack Bauer]

Gavin,

OK, we've basically agreed that the cessationists are right to say that there are no longer Apostles in the church (we do not agree on what Paul means by "apostle" in 1 Corinthians 12, but no matter, we agree in principle that there are no Apostles now). So prophecy....

You give several reasons why you think that the gift of prophecy did not end with the Apostolic era. I'll respond to what I think are the main ones, in the order that you presented them.

Firstly, you make reference to prophecy in the book of Acts, and you point out that is not recorded. I might be reading too much into your comments here, but that sounds something like an argument used by Grudem, who notes that in 1 Corinthians 14, not all prophecy is heard or recorded, thus it must be of a lesser authority than Scripture, since some of it could potentially be “lost” in the mist of time. I consider this argument to be very weak, since it would mean that much of Jesus’ own teaching is not as authoritative as Scripture, since a lot of it was never recorded.

What is said about the gift of prophecy in I Corinthians 14 bears similar evidence to what is above. See especially verses 29-30. Prophecy seems in this sense to differ greatly from Scripture which contains general not specific guidance; theological, principal, not “personal” per se.

Everything about 1 Corinthians 14 (as well as chapters 12 and 13) militates against this position. Paul’s emphatic and sustained line of argument is that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are badly misunderstood if we think they are for “personal” benefit. On the contrary, they are intended for the building up of the body of Christ.

Secondly, no cessationist has ever claimed that prophecy is Scripture. Rather, as God’s spoken word it carries the same authority as Scripture, namely, the authority of God.

So I would say the gift of prophecy (as opposed to what is in view in, say, II Peter 1:20-21 or Romans 16:26) is very different from Scripture and continues today as a sign of the Spirit's presence (Acts 2:17), for the edification of the church (I Corinthians 14:3), and for the personal and specific guidance of believers (e.g., Acts 21:10-11).

None of these texts can contribute to an argument for the continuation of the gift of prophecy, since all of them deal with instances of prophecy during the formative stages of the church’s history. I don’t dispute for a moment that prophecy was exercised for these purposes (although I emphasis corporate benefit as opposed to individual private benefit). But texts that show the gift functioning in the early church context stop there. Whether the gift continued is another matter altogether.

None of these lines of argument really begin to deal with the cessationist argument. But you do not stop there, you do go on to address the case arising from Ephesians 2:20
1) Paul could be referring to apostles in the technical sense and prophecy in the sense of Scripture (as opposed to the gift of prophecy as in I Corinthians 14) which cease once the foundational period of the church. This would not be a damper on my diaper since I believe the canon is closed and the Aposltes (note capital) are ceased.
Well, Paul doesn’t refer to “prophecy” in Ephesians 2:20. He refers to “Apostles and Prophets.” I agree that it doesn’t refer to Scripture, it refers to living people in the New Testament era. Paul shows this to be the case later in the same book, in 3:5, “In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” So as a Pauline phrase, the “apostles and prophets” are a group of people in the New Testament Church.

2) Paul could, as Grudem argues, be employing a hendiadys in Ephesians 2:20. The sense then would be “the apostles who were prophets” and would not bear to the question of the cessation/contuation of prophecy per se. A hendiadys is gramatically possible (and not unlikely) but neither necessary. Again this view would fit in with continuationism, but I do not bank much on it because there is really no way to know with certainty if that is what Paul is thinking here.
I think you are wise not to rest any of your case on this argument, since you would then have to own the burden of proof to show this was a correct reading.

You close by offering three reasons why “nothing in the verse demands cessationism, for the following factors.” Nothing! That’s a pretty strong way to put it. Your arguments were as follows:

a) Just because some of the prophets founded the church (along with apostles), that does not mean that they cannot contribute to the superstructure as well.

I find that position somewhat ironic, given that you do accept that the Apostles were a temporary institution for the establishment of the church. Yet it looks very obvious that in Ephesians (both in 2:2 and 3:5) Paul is presenting Apostles and prophets as having the same role in Church history. Why choose one for an extra function beyond this, but not the other?

b) This argument does not account for the next two verses of the passage, which use the present tense to refer to the construction of the superstructure of this building: "the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit." Paul sees the apostles and prophets as foundational to the church, true, but he also sees the rest of the building growing (present tense), and having been joined together (past participle), in the time of the apostles and prophets. If the superstructure was being constructed and had been joined together during the apostolic age, the apostles and prophets were already contributing to the superstructure. So it is gratuitous to argue against their building onto the superstructure from this passage. The very action this argument claims that founders cannot do they are already doing in the next two verses! Apostles and prophets contribute both to the foundation and to the entire superstructure in Ephesians 2:20-22.

You have already indicated that you don’t accept this argument. You do not actually believe the statement you have written, that “Apostles and prophets contribute both to the foundation and to the entire superstructure in Ephesians 2:20-22.” You yourself have already said that you agree that Apostles were a temporary institution. So what do you mean here – that Apostles and prophets do continue today? Have you changed your mind about Apostles?

I certainly agree that the structure of the church existed at the same time as the Apostles and prophets, but what could this possibly show? Once the Apostles had begun the foundational work in the church, the superstructure grows. Obviously the Apostles don’t ignore the church beyond this point – why would they? But nothing about this fact should indicate that there would be more Apostles and prophets to come. That’s really a non sequitur.

c) Thirdly, the inclusion of Christ into this group of founders as the "chief cornerstone" hinders cessationists' claims. As Ruthven remarks, "the cessationist argument by analogy collapses if Christ is not limited to the 'foundation' in Eph. 2:20." But clearly Christ's work in the church cannot be limited to the apostolic age! On the contrary, Jesus works actively to build his church until his return (Matthew 16:18), and is present with us "to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

Yes Christ is with us (by His Spirit) to the end of this age, no doubt there. But then again, Christ never dies, unlike Apostles and prophets. Yes He is still alive today, but the foundation that He laid was laid in the past, through His life, death, resurrection, ascension and sending the Holy Spirit. That, combined with the ministry of the Apostles and prophets, was the historical foundation of the church.

In sum: Paul is not limiting any spiritual gifts to any time frames in Ephesians 2:20; he is standing back and looking at the church structure as a whole and reminding the Ephesians of their inclusion in this larger picture. Paul's emphasis is not on the sequence of church history and changes in the Spirit's activity from one period to another but on the overall make-up of the church, which from Paul's perspective in the first century had already risen to become a temple holy in the Lord.

The very opposite is the case. Paul is looking at God’s unfolding work through His people. Go back just a few verses to verse 11, and read the whole paragraph, right through to 3:6. He starts out saying that once Jews and Gentiles were aliens, but now God has made us one body, one temple, which has its roots in the ministry of the Apostles and prophets, with Jesus as the cornerstone. The consistent theme is that God though Christ has made us one, and that this message has been delivered through God’s holy Apostles and prophets. It is ALL about the historical unfolding of God’s dealings – his unrepeatable dealings, I might add.

All the best,
Glenn

[Gavin]

Hey Glenn,

Firstly, you make reference to prophecy in the book of Acts, and you point out that is not recorded. I might be reading too much into your comments here, but that sounds something like an argument used by Grudem, who notes that in 1 Corinthians 14, not all prophecy is heard or recorded, thus it must be of a lesser authority than Scripture, since some of it could potentially be “lost” in the mist of time. I consider this argument to be very weak, since it would mean that much of Jesus’ own teaching is not as authoritative as Scripture, since a lot of it was never recorded.

That was not really my argument. I think you must be confusing what I said with what Grudem has said. All I was trying to prove with reference to all those other types of prophecy is that not all prophecy is Scripture. Hence a contuation of non-scriptural prophecy does not threaten the closed canon. But no matter because you seem to agree with what I was trying to prove when you say no cessationist has ever claimed that prophecy is Scripture.

So can we agree that prophecy as a spiritual gift is categorically different from Scripture?

Everything about 1 Corinthians 14 (as well as chapters 12 and 13) militates against this position. Paul’s emphatic and sustained line of argument is that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are badly misunderstood if we think they are for “personal” benefit. On the contrary, they are intended for the building up of the body of Christ.

I think you misunderstood me here. I was not saying that prophecy is personal as opposed to corporate - I entirely agree that prophecy should build up the corporate body of believers. I was using personal in the sense directed toward specific individuals in specific contexts. Prophecy is personal in that it is directed not toward the Christian believer in general, but toward "Frank Jones" regarding a specific decision he needs to make. I hope that is clearer.

None of these texts can contribute to an argument for the continuation of the gift of prophecy, since all of them deal with instances of prophecy during the formative stages of the church’s history. I don’t dispute for a moment that prophecy was exercised for these purposes (although I emphasis corporate benefit as opposed to individual private benefit). But texts that show the gift functioning in the early church context stop there. Whether the gift continued is another matter altogether.

Again, I was not arguing for continuationism per se but just trying to show a distinction between prophecy and Scripture. I feel quite misunderstood.

None of these lines of argument really begin to deal with the cessationist argument.

Which is because that is not what I was arguing against. To be obnoxiously redundant: I was arguing that prophecy and Scripture are different.

Well, Paul doesn’t refer to “prophecy” in Ephesians 2:20. He refers to “Apostles and Prophets.” I agree that it doesn’t refer to Scripture, it refers to living people in the New Testament era. Paul shows this to be the case later in the same book, in 3:5, “In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.” So as a Pauline phrase, the “apostles and prophets” are a group of people in the New Testament Church.

Again, my view can be reconciled to this even though I disagree.

You close by offering three reasons why “nothing in the verse demands cessationism, for the following factors.” Nothing! That’s a pretty strong way to put it. Your arguments were as follows

Yes, I hold to that statement. I do not think any verse in the New Testament "demands" cessationism.

I find that position somewhat ironic, given that you do accept that the Apostles were a temporary institution for the establishment of the church. Yet it looks very obvious that in Ephesians (both in 2:2 and 3:5) Paul is presenting Apostles and prophets as having the same role in Church history. Why choose one for an extra function beyond this, but not the other?

But you are assuming that Paul is using "apostles" in the highly technical sense in Ephesians 2:20. That was my whole point in all that previous discussion, that we cannot assume that apostles always means this.

You have already indicated that you don’t accept this argument. You do not actually believe the statement you have written, that “Apostles and prophets contribute both to the foundation and to the entire superstructure in Ephesians 2:20-22.” You yourself have already said that you agree that Apostles were a temporary institution. So what do you mean here – that Apostles and prophets do continue today? Have you changed your mind about Apostles?

No - see above. Apostles in the literal sense found the church today.

I certainly agree that the structure of the church existed at the same time as the Apostles and prophets, but what could this possibly show? Once the Apostles had begun the foundational work in the church, the superstructure grows. Obviously the Apostles don’t ignore the church beyond this point – why would they? But nothing about this fact should indicate that there would be more Apostles and prophets to come. That’s really a non sequitur.

You are not addressing or misunderstanding my argument. Cessationists' whole case in Ephesians 2:20 is that the apostles and prophets cease once the foundational period closes. But the fact that the superstructure is already being built while the apostles and prophets are still alive shows that aposltes and prophets can indeed exist past the foundational period of the church. Paul is not thinking in sequential terms in this passage.

Yes Christ is with us (by His Spirit) to the end of this age, no doubt there. But then again, Christ never dies, unlike Apostles and prophets. Yes He is still alive today, but the foundation that He laid was laid in the past, through His life, death, resurrection, ascension and sending the Holy Spirit. That, combined with the ministry of the Apostles and prophets, was the historical foundation of the church.

That is a good rejoinder, but I am not sure how you would prove that the "foundational" aspect of Christ in the church is only in what he did while physically in a body.

The very opposite is the case. Paul is looking at God’s unfolding work through His people. Go back just a few verses to verse 11, and read the whole paragraph, right through to 3:6. He starts out saying that once Jews and Gentiles were aliens, but now God has made us one body, one temple, which has its roots in the ministry of the Apostles and prophets, with Jesus as the cornerstone. The consistent theme is that God though Christ has made us one, and that this message has been delivered through God’s holy Apostles and prophets. It is ALL about the historical unfolding of God’s dealings – his unrepeatable dealings, I might add.

That is a good point, Glenn. The larger context does deal with a sequence of history.

Don't forget our discussion on the gifts in church history and I Corinthians 13. I posted in multiple posts so you might have missed those ones.

Best regards,
Gavin

[Dr. Jack Bauer]

Hi again Gavin

I’ll respond to the last post of yours, and then I’ll also offer some comments on your argument from 1 Corinthians 13.

Firstly, it appears that misunderstood your purpose at a couple of points. Your response to a number of my comments went along the lines of: “Again, I was not arguing for continuationism per se but just trying to show a distinction between prophecy and Scripture. I feel quite misunderstood.”

Well I’m sorry for not understanding you. But the fact is, I was quoting a paragraph where you did explicitly say:
So I would say the gift of prophecy (as opposed to what is in view in, say, II Peter 1:20-21 or Romans 16:26) is very different from Scripture and continues today as a sign of the Spirit's presence (Acts 2:17), for the edification of the church (I Corinthians 14:3), and for the personal and specific guidance of believers (e.g., Acts 21:10-11).
So I hope you’ll understand why it looked to me as though you were citing these texts to show that the gift of prophecy “continues today.” But OK, so you were only using them to show that prophecy isn’t Scripture. Well, that’s fine, since as you know, cessationism does not claim that prophecy is Scripture. Not every authoritative word from God became Scripture (for example many words of Christ never did). Only if prophecy was recorded, written and included in the body of texts that were canonised, would its message become part of Scripture. But the cessationist position is that the New Testament revelation came (in part) through prophets, as Paul says in Ephesians 3:5. This foundation laying was part of the historical founding of the church, just as the ministry of Christ was (Eph 2-3). Prophecy, like Scripture, and like Apostolic teaching, carries the authority of God, and thus has equal authority with Scripture.

Now, on to the other points…

Point 1: Prophets, Apostles, and the foundation of the church in Ephesians 2

You claimed, on the basis of Ephesians 2, that Apostles and prophets have a part in the ongoing life of the church (the “superstructure,” as you say) and not just the foundational role mentioned in 2:22. I pointed out he irony here, since you have conceded that the Apostles are no more, and because their role was foundational, they are no longer required, and nobody today can have that kind of authority.

But you don’t see a problem here, because as we agree, the Greek word translated “Apostle” can have a literal meaning (messenger, ambassador etc.) or a technical/conventional meaning (Apostle). One of the problems of a word’s having multiple meanings is that it becomes tempting to select a meaning that avoids theological difficulties for us (I know that I have been guilty of this at times). I hope you won’t be offended when I suggest that this is what you have done in this instance.

While we agree that the word apostolos is capable of a literal and non-technical meaning (i.e. “messenger” and not “Apostle”), we clearly do not agree about the general tendency of new Testament usage of the word. Although I realise it is not a proof that will convince you, I would point out that the translators of all of our english versions recognised that “messenger,” while possible, was generally not what the word was used for in the New Testament. In the NIV, NRSV, the KJV, and I suspect, any other translation you could lay hold of, the word is translated “apostle” on all but two rare occasions, in 2 Corinthians 8:23 and Philippians 2:5, where it is translated “messenger.” This difference in translation is intentional, to reflect the two kinds of meaning that you and I have discussed. But of course, as you will point out, the translators could just be wrong, pushing their interpretation by the way they translate. That can sometimes be the case, I will admit.

But consider these facts: In the ancient Greek literature outside of the New Testament, the word apostolos was not used of specially appointed leaders in the church (obviously), it was simply used in a literal way, to refer to a messenger. Thus, there was no concept of “the apostles.” And note that the term was actually very rarely used at all, since there are other words (eg angelos) which are far more commonly used. So as far as words go, apostolos was just not common. P. W. Barnett points this out:
The word apostolos… was used only infrequently in the Greek language prior to NT times… In classical Greek its use is more or less confined to seafaring contexts. Herodotus uses it twice for “messenger,” while the LXX has it only once, with the same meaning.
P. W. Barnett, “Apostle,” in G Hawthorne, R. Martin and D. Reid, A Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Leicester: InterVarsity, 1993), 45.

As Barnett goes on to observe, however, the word appears no less than thirty-five times in the Pauline literature! Now, if the word only meant messenger (and I realise that neither of us are saying that), then we would expect it to be used maybe once – twice if we were lucky, in keeping with the frequency of the word in Greek literature generally. In fact, it is used twice where it clearly has this meaning, in 2 Cor 8:23 and Philp 2:5. However, why the truly massive amount of usage? It is obvious that the word has, generally speaking, taken on a new meaning (one that we have been calling a “technical” meaning) in the New Testament, one that has great importance for Paul’s understanding of the church. Now, there have always been ambassadors and messengers, both inside and outside of the church, and the word apostolos has rarely been used to refer to them, since there are better words. What then is this new thing Paul is referring to with his very frequent use of this term in the NT? What else but the Apostles (and not merely messengers)?

Your argument requires something to be true It requires it to be true that in Ephesians 2:20, Paul is in fact using the term “the apostles” to refer to people in the church in the present and future who would be given the gift of being messengers. But I submit, firstly, that the linguistic evidence against this claim makes it appear unbelievable. We would need very clear evidence on any given occasion to say that the word does not mean “Apostle,” but merely “messenger.” Can you think of another case where “the Apostles” means “the messengers”? Secondly I say that this is even more so given the context of Eph 2 and 3, which deals with the historic work of God bringing Jews and Gentiles together through the work of Christ, and that this message has been delivered authoritatively through the apostles and prophets. To your credit, you do acknowledge the strength of this argument.

And so I must ask for the sake of clarification – do you maintain that the people who, with the prophets, are part of the foundation of the church in Eph 2:20 are “messengers”? or do you agree that they are Apostles in the proper sense. If so, do you agree that there is a good case from this passage that the prophets, like the Apostles, have fulfilled their historic function?

In addition to the above, I should comment on the remarks of yours from another debate, which you quoted here:
What after, is a “apostle” (in the highly technical sense) to speak of it as a spiritual gift, which by definition is a spiritual ability given by the Spirit, not an ecclesiastical office instituted by the risen Christ? What sense would it make to write to the lay people of the New Testament churches that God has given each of them spiritual gifts, some of which may be apostles? The thirteen were clearly not “spiritual gifts” per se. There were no apostles in Ephesus or Corinth at the time of Paul’s writing to them! Thus it is far more likely that the word is being used in the older, more generic sense of missionary, or messenger.
If I understand the point, you seem to be saying that Paul was telling the church in Corinth that some of them could be “apostles.” But none of them were Apostles (technically), so he must have meant messengers. Note first of all that if Paul really does mean “messengers,” then his comments here could easily fit with a cessationist position, since all of us accept that people today could be messengers.

But note that the premise is incorrect – Paul doesn’t say that any of the people in Corinth could become apostles. It’s just not there. All he says (in 1 Cor 12:27-31) is that God has established firstly Apostles, then prophets, then teachers etc. in the church, and secondly he asks “are all Apostles?” No it’s just not the case that he says that any of them could be Apostles. In fact, Gordon Fee has brought something to my attention – the New Testament never refers to a gift of apostleship. I didn’t challenge your use of the term earlier, since I operate on a philosophy of only disagreeing where absolutely necessary, so as to not waste time on endless small issues. I don’t think that even if apostleship were a gift, that would show that it different from the Apostles with a capital A, so I just let it slide and granted it as true. But I will challenge it now. Where does the Bible refer to apostleship as one of the gifts? Certainly not in 1 Corinthians. Look at the list of gifts in 12:4-11
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
“Apostleship” is not there. When Paul asks later in the chapter, “are all Apostles?” there is no good reason to think that he mans that some of them could be Apostles. I’d go with Fee again, who says, “most likely with this word he is reflectn gon his own ministry in this church.” (Fee, First Corinthians, 620)

Point 2: The meaning of 1 Corinthians 13, and to teleion

As I hope I have made clear, 1 Corinthians 13 is by no means the major evidence in defence of cessationism. I get the distinct impression that many Charismatics seem to focus on it above all else, since it is the weaker evidence for cessationism. But nonetheless, I argued that some kind of case (albeit not the major case) could be made from this text.

As we know, there are two general kinds of use of this passage in 1 Cor. 13. Some (like you) say it means that all the gifts will continue until the utter perfection of the new heavens and earth arrives at the return of Christ. Others (like me) say that teleion does not refer to absolute “perfection” in this sense, but rather a stage of the church’s maturity. It is vitally important to note that I’m not saying (and I have never said, nor ever will say) that it means that the gifts will continue until the close of the canon. Such a notion seems implausible if for no other reason than that the comment would have made no sense to Paul, and it would have made the statement uninterpretable to Paul’s audience (since neither Paul nor his audience would have been aware of the future canonising work of the church). What I would limit myself to saying is that it means the gifts will continue while they are necessary, while the Apostolic teaching is still being laid down. As it turns out, the Apostolic teaching WAS later canonised of course, but that’s not what is in view in the NT itself. Rather what is in view is the establishing of the teaching tradition which would later BECOME canonised. I thought it might clarify things to stress this point, lest you think I’m calling the canon itself the “maturity” that teleion refers to.

I argued that the “face to face” and “knowing even as we are known” references refer to a knowledge that is brought about through the Apostolic teaching, rather than to a distant future sight and knowledge of God. You objected to this:
Now hold on here. If "face to face" and "know fully" won't be realized even after a trillion years in heaven, then when will they be realized? Ever? You seem to want to make the strength the language favor the idea of that they refer to simply Scripture; but the strength of the language leads to the greater, not lesser, event.
Yes, I do believe that belivers in heaven will see God "face to face". Every time this phrase is used in the LXX, it refers to theophany. See my debate with Apollos on this, my third post. I do believe that we will fully know in heaven, just as God knows us. I cannot see that the text allows us to any other conclusions. Certainly these events did not occur in the first century!

Well Gavin, I actually gave some arguments in support of my claims at that point. What was your rebuttal of them? It’s not enough to say “wait a minute.” I realise that you offered a couple of counter examples, which I will respond to here in regrds to the "theophany" language. But let’s recall, my specific arguments were as follows:
Firstly, it is not obvious that Paul is saying we will see God face to face. You say this is the language of theophany, but that’s actually not true. Whether or not it is the language of theophany depends absolutely on the object of seeing. If the object of seeing really is God, then OK, it may be seen as the language of theophany. But if the object of seeing were, say, Bob, then obviously seeing “face to face” would not refer to a theophany, since Bob is not God. In the Septuagint, for example the phrase is used on occasions where it is clearly not referring to a theophany. 2 Kings 14:8; 2 Chronicles 25:17; Jeremiah 32:4; Jeremiah 34:3, as well as in the New Testament elsewhere (2 Cor 10:1; 2 Jn 12; 3 Jn 14). So I must disagree that this is clearly the language of theophany. This is strengthened by the immediate context of 1 Cor 13. As I have pointed out, Paul is talking about looking into a mirror. How would it make any sense at all to say “now we see ourselves in a mirror, but in heaven we will see God face to face.” No, the contrast is between dim knowledge of something, and a future greater knowledge of that same something. That’s the argument I raised.

All Christians must be compelled to admit that they will never know God to the same extent that God knows us. Therefore “know fully” must be qualified in some way. But in what way? You say that we must favour the greater event – knowing God in the next life. But that is certainly not demanded by Paul’s use of teleion. Quite the contrary in fact. Paul uses the word in this form only three times altogether in 1 Corinthians, and on both other occasions it refers, not to perfection, but to a state of maturity.
2:6 “We do, however, speak a message wisdom among the mature…”
14:20 “Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.”

So the Pauline usage of the term does not favour the view that his reference is to the next life of perfection, but rather to a stage of maturity.

To your credit, you do acknowledge some of the strength the point.
You have a good point here that the maturity does come with the cessation of the gifts, not their presence, but I would be much more sympathetic to Fee's sentiments. In general, the western church is nowhere near "mature", irrespective of the question of gifts. But this is a bit of a tangent.
It might be true that in many ways the church is not mature (or it might be!). But in regard to having the revelation of God at its disposal, I think it is indeed mature. It might not always use the revelation of God wisely, and is in constant need of the wisdom of the Spirit of God, but the infant stages where we did not yet have this revelation are now forever behind us.

I would add one additional point to the above. If the text so clearly refers to the beginning of the age to come, then why does Paul expend energy pointing out that when tongues and prophecy have ceased, love will continue? Is that not obvious? Now, given the present strife and unloving nature of the conduct in the Corinthian church, it is easy to see why Paul needs to emphasis that love must be placed at the top of priorities in the present age, but why would he need to wax so eloquent in pointing out that love will remain in heaven?

While (as is obvious) I do think that 1 Corinthians 13 favours a cessationist view (and even though you don’t think it teaches this, you acknowledge the strength of the argument), I am aware that it is the kind of text that could never clinch the case. The possibility of using this text to refer to the beginning of the age to come (while I think that is incorrect) means that those who believe in tongues and prophecy today will always have an alternative way of explaining the passage, and vice versa. That is why I haven’t said much about the passage.


Best wishes,

Glenn

PS – I think this is the best continuationist/non-continuationist debate that I have seen on the net, don’t you agree? :smile:

[Gavin]

Glenn,

Thanks you for your very thoughtful, fair, and balenced post.

My comments:

So I hope you’ll understand why it looked to me as though you were citing these texts to show that the gift of prophecy “continues today.” But OK, so you were only using them to show that prophecy isn’t Scripture. Well, that’s fine, since as you know, cessationism does not claim that prophecy is Scripture. Not every authoritative word from God became Scripture (for example many words of Christ never did). Only if prophecy was recorded, written and included in the body of texts that were canonised, would its message become part of Scripture. But the cessationist position is that the New Testament revelation came (in part) through prophets, as Paul says in Ephesians 3:5. This foundation laying was part of the historical founding of the church, just as the ministry of Christ was (Eph 2-3). Prophecy, like Scripture, and like Apostolic teaching, carries the authority of God, and thus has equal authority with Scripture.

I can understand how you would interpret my comments as arguments for continuationism. I am glad that is clearer now.

Contrary to your statement, I would say that a decent number of cessationists would argue that prophecy is the same as Scripture. I think I can give Gaffin and MacArthur as examples - they have not actually written the exact words, "prophecy is Scripture," but I cannot help but infer that this is their position based on other comments they have made. I do not want to speak for them and I may be wrong in this. In any case, it is not your position, so it does not really matter.

It is not clear to me that prophecy, though clearly not Scripture, nevertheless carries the same authority as Scripture. I believe there are number of texts and other considerations which make this rather unlikely. May I introduce my case for the non-authoratative status of the gift of prophecy?

You claimed, on the basis of Ephesians 2, that Apostles and prophets have a part in the ongoing life of the church (the “superstructure,” as you say) and not just the foundational role mentioned in 2:22. I pointed out he irony here, since you have conceded that the Apostles are no more, and because their role was foundational, they are no longer required, and nobody today can have that kind of authority.

But you don’t see a problem here, because as we agree, the Greek word translated “Apostle” can have a literal meaning (messenger, ambassador etc.) or a technical/conventional meaning (Apostle). One of the problems of a word’s having multiple meanings is that it becomes tempting to select a meaning that avoids theological difficulties for us (I know that I have been guilty of this at times). I hope you won’t be offended when I suggest that this is what you have done in this instance.

Absolutely no offense taken, of course. If my interpretation of verse 21, especially the present tense of “rises”, is what leads me to suspect that the type of apostles depicted here are literal apostles, i.e. messengers, than that is not a “selection” but a deduction. Plus I think there are many other factors that lead to this conclusion.

My main problem with the passage at hand in regards to cessationism is that it seems to be speaking of prophets in a way that is different from the rest of the New Testament, and yet too many cessationists use Ephesians 2:20 as the controlling text for how we interpret New Testament prophecy at large. It seems to me a good deal fast and loose to define one’s entire theology of prophecy on this one verse (which in my view has its own ambiguities and uncertainties with regard to exactly how and in what sense apostles and prophets are foundational), when the rest of the New Testament presents in such non-foundational ways. For example, how were Philip’s four daughters (Acts 21:9 contributing to the unique once and for all foundation of the church? How were the anonymous disciples at Ephesus (Acts 19:6) who spoke in tongues and prophesied laying the unrepeatable foundation of the church? How were Corinthians believers who prayed in tongues in private in the absence of an interpreter (I Corinthians 14:28) for the purpose of edification (I Corinthians 14:4) contributing to this foundation? This fact, combined with the ambiguities involved in Ephesians 2:20 such as verse 21, or the possibility of a hendiadys, or the multiple meanings of “apostle”, or whether “foundation” refers to sequence or importance, etc. lead me to question the thesis that all prophecy functioned only foundationally in the church.

While we agree that the word apostolos is capable of a literal and non-technical meaning (i.e. “messenger” and not “Apostle”), we clearly do not agree about the general tendency of new Testament usage of the word. Although I realise it is not a proof that will convince you, I would point out that the translators of all of our english versions recognised that “messenger,” while possible, was generally not what the word was used for in the New Testament. In the NIV, NRSV, the KJV, and I suspect, any other translation you could lay hold of, the word is translated “apostle” on all but two rare occasions, in 2 Corinthians 8:23 and Philippians 2:5, where it is translated “messenger.” This difference in translation is intentional, to reflect the two kinds of meaning that you and I have discussed. But of course, as you will point out, the translators could just be wrong, pushing their interpretation by the way they translate. That can sometimes be the case, I will admit


But just because the word is being translated as “apostle” does not mean that the translators had in mind the technical sense. The word is common enough to be translated as “apostle” and yet still carry that other sense of general messenger. For example, is Romans 16:7 (to name just one passage) using the word “apostle” in only the technical sense? Yet it is still translated “apostle” over “messenger.”

But consider these facts: In the ancient Greek literature outside of the New Testament, the word apostolos was not used of specially appointed leaders in the church (obviously), it was simply used in a literal way, to refer to a messenger. Thus, there was no concept of “the apostles.” And note that the term was actually very rarely used at all, since there are other words (eg angelos) which are far more commonly used. So as far as words go, apostolos was just not common. P. W. Barnett points this out:
“ The word apostolos… was used only infrequently in the Greek language prior to NT times… In classical Greek its use is more or less confined to seafaring contexts. Herodotus uses it twice for “messenger,” while the LXX has it only once, with the same meaning.
P. W. Barnett, “Apostle,” in G Hawthorne, R. Martin and D. Reid, A Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Leicester: InterVarsity, 1993), 45. ”



As Barnett goes on to observe, however, the word appears no less than thirty-five times in the Pauline literature! Now, if the word only meant messenger (and I realise that neither of us are saying that), then we would expect it to be used maybe once – twice if we were lucky, in keeping with the frequency of the word in Greek literature generally. In fact, it is used twice where it clearly has this meaning, in 2 Cor 8:23 and Philp 2:5. However, why the truly massive amount of usage? It is obvious that the word has, generally speaking, taken on a new meaning (one that we have been calling a “technical” meaning) in the New Testament, one that has great importance for Paul’s understanding of the church. Now, there have always been ambassadors and messengers, both inside and outside of the church, and the word apostolos has rarely been used to refer to them, since there are better words. What then is this new thing Paul is referring to with his very frequent use of this term in the NT? What else but the Apostles (and not merely messengers)?

This is a helpful consideration, but all it proves is that the word has taken on a new meaning in the New Testament and is used very frequently. This frequency of use does not determine which sense the word carries in any given passage. That must be determined by context and other factors. It would be entirely natural for the word to increase in usage with regard to its literal meaning as “messenger” as well as increase in the new technical meaning, especially as “messenger” works quite well to describe a spiritual gift. Your comments are well taken, but not conclusive.

Your argument requires something to be true It requires it to be true that in Ephesians 2:20, Paul is in fact using the term “the apostles” to refer to people in the church in the present and future who would be given the gift of being messengers. But I submit, firstly, that the linguistic evidence against this claim makes it appear unbelievable. We would need very clear evidence on any given occasion to say that the word does not mean “Apostle,” but merely “messenger.” Can you think of another case where “the Apostles” means “the messengers”?


First, my argument does require that. I may be wrong in my understanding of verse 21 and yet my other comments above on the other functions of New Testament prophecy in the New Testament still apply.

But I do not think your argument is conclusive here. Why is “apostle” the proper translation unless there is clear evidence otherwise? That does not seem balenced. Romans 16:7 may indeed be translated “the messengers”, but even if not, that does not conclusively demonstrate what the sense of the passage is in Epehesians 2:20. What you have said may make “apostles” a more likely translation, but you have not proven conclusively that the other translation is “unbelievable” as you claim.

Secondly I say that this is even more so given the context of Eph 2 and 3, which deals with the historic work of God bringing Jews and Gentiles together through the work of Christ, and that this message has been delivered authoritatively through the apostles and prophets. To your credit, you do acknowledge the strength of this argument.

Yes that is a good point.

[Gavin]

And so I must ask for the sake of clarification – do you maintain that the people who, with the prophets, are part of the foundation of t