The Perfect, a.k.a. Cessasionism’s Achilles Heel

Let’s discuss wether or not the full spectrum of gifts are still for us today or wether having the full canon is simply good enough and once that happened certain gifts ceased.

This is the major problem with many today. They are guided by their own understanding of how to apply the word when they see fit and how and have no sense of the direction of God which comes by the Spirit. So this has to be dealt with first. I quote Hebrews 1:1-3 “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purifacation of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

This seems to be the poster boy verse for those who do not believe that God speaks through anything other than the Bible. The problem with that conclusion is that this is not what Paul is teaching at all. There are some important facts to consider here. First of all, Paul is writting to Hebrew Christians who are backsliding into Judaism. They are going back into trying to follow the Law and Prophets by sheer pysical exhertion. Paul’s number one reason for relating this statement about Jesus is for these people to realize that Jesus wasn’t just a prophet whom God spoke through, but is very God Himself! In fact, to read into this some kind of moratorium on further speakings of God to the human soul is to eisegete this passage rather than drawing from it what is actually there. It’s interesting that Paul says “long ago”. Before John the Baptist and Jesus came there was a 400 year prophetic silence. The kingdom of God introduced by John and inaugurated through Jesus broke that silence and is what God had been saying and was currently saying to Israel. I’m tempted to want to get into the rest of the chapter, but then with a book of this calibre you have to really go after the whole letter. I only wanted to first point to the fact that this is NOT a proof text that God no longer speaks to His own and says nothing of the sort, nor does it even hint at it. This is Paul stating emphatically that Jesus is someone whom God spoke to the Jewish people through and that he isn’t just the Prophet Moses spoke of, but God Himself and he is to be obeyed and not retracted from.
If it had said, “God spoke to us by Jesus and that is all He has to say anymore” then not even the bible should be considered inspired or worthy of our consideration since all of the NT was written a considerable amount of time after He ascended. If Jesus was the last thing God had to say, then what are all these letters we canonized and called “Scripture”? No friends, God did speak to us through Jesus and Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would come to us and carry on through us the work that Jesus did. He never implied any other. The fact is is that there is not one single scripture verse which says (without perverting it) that the supernatural elements of the church will go away when a book is pulbished. That’s like saying you don’t need gas in your car now that you have the builders manual from the production plant. Sure, let’s start in the Spirit and end in the flesh and work out all the complexities of the Word of God in our own understanding since God no longer speaks and just wants us to read the bible and do as we see fit from it. I’ve seen more disaster done in this kind of living. People who are doing technically biblical things and yet it is misapplied or done too late or too soon. Without God’s Living Voice guiding us and teaching us all things and guiding us in truth, the bible is like straw in our mouths. For instance, in Proverbs 26:4-5 it says, “Do not answer a fool according to His folly or you will be like Him. (5) Answer a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes.” Now what the heck do you do with that? How do you know when to open your mouth and when not to? It says do both opposites and gives good reasons why. Only a man who’s in step with the Spirit of God will know; only that one who knows His voice and His promptings will answer/not answer the fool in his folly. But He’s no longer speaking to us, then how do you know what to do? You’ll lean on your own understanding and flesh out, that’s what you’ll do.
Another problem with this view is that if it’s true that God quit speaking after Jesus came and went, then what does that do to the testimony of the apostles? What about the prophets listed in Acts 13? What about the rest of the book of Hebrews? Was this an uninspired book since Jesus isn’t talking to anyone anymore? And most importantly, what do we do with the fact that The Revelation of Jesus Christ was penned by John the Apostle nearly 30 years after Pauls death? If Jesus was the last statement of God to anyone, then what do we do with the Epistles and The Revelation? Was Paul saying, “God doesn’t speak to us anymore now, so even this letter is totally uninspired by reason of this same logic”? If God wasn’t speaking anymore after Jesus then not even the letter to the Hebrews is worth anything. Some folks don’t have their logic worked out to well, but this is what happens when you create theology to suit your lack in the church. We make excuses that become law, then we call it “orthodoxy”. Is orthodoxy just another name for heresy?
I believe people take this view with this text because of how they view 1 Corinthians 13:10. The problem is that verse 10 is viewed independant of the rest of the context. Let’s quote it…by the way, I’m quoting the NASB. If you’re a KJV only guy/gal, keep it to yourself and don’t bother with dumb comments or I’ll gong you.
Actually, I’ll start in verse 8. “Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophesy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.”

From this many have concluded the “the perfect” is here meaning canonized scripture. How in the world that conclusion is reached is beyond me. Let’s look at what “the perfect” will accomplish once it is here.
(1)Partial knowledge will be done away with (v.8) and will become complete knowledge (v.12), i.e. we shall know fully as we have been fully known. On this point I have to ask, “Since we have recieved the complete canon, do we now know fully as we have been fully known?” Do cessasionists mean to tell me that they know everything about everything in the same way that God knows everything? So now we no longer have partial knowledge? How arrogant! Then who needs Heaven?
(2)Partial prophecy will be done away with (v.8).
(3)Tongues will be done away with. (v.8)
(4)We will be fully grown spiritually (v.11).
(5)We will see Face to face (v.12).

In other words, these gifts will no longer be necessary when “the perfect” arrives. What does the context reveal the perfect to be? Well I can tell you this: not even a slight hint at a completed book is mentioned here, but what is mentioned is eternity, heaven, seeing God face to face and knowing all things just as God has always known them. Knowing everything won’t make us God, as some have said, but that’s another post for another day. We will still be His creation and still not able to make people out of dirt, but I digress.
It’s interesting; I find Paul saying in verse 11, “When I was a child I used to….reason like a child.” My, my, my, how so many of us intellectuals fancy ourselves so grown up in our wisdom. Paul here is comparing the eternal glory to certain aspects of being immature and incomplete mentally with growing up and putting that way behind you. Even so, we will put off this earthly tent and become complete in Him. But that hasn’t happened just by virtue of having the Bible; we are still in our corrupted flesh that is childish, selfish and basically evil. Let’s face it; since the bible became complete, we didn’t. Since the canon arrived, we have not come to know fully as we are fully known. We don’t see Him face to face, rather we see dimly as if looking through a tinted window. How in God’s name can we even for a second try and believe that the bible has made us to know everything God knows? What utter foolishness.

So that’s somewhat of a foundation. It doesn’t take much to upset the poor theology of cessasionism, just truth.

So yes, we need the gifts of prophesy, knowledge and *cringe* even tongues; not so we can all stand in a room and shay-tay-shon-dye and be the exact opposite of 1 Corinthians 14, but to keep our inner man edified. More on the proper usage of this gift later. It’s a huge can of worms and when I open it all the pentecostal people are going to want to hang me….kinda like the cessasionist does right now.

Alright, so let’s get into the other stuff…
mark jr.