Continuationism vs. Cessationism

The noun form of these two words would be Continuationist  and Cessationist. What do these words mean? In Biblical terms it is dealing with certain gifts of the Holy Spirit such as: Apostles, prophets gifts of healings[i], miracles, tongues,  (I Cor 12:28-29).

The continuationist believe all of these gifts are in operation today whereas the cessationist believe they have ceased at the end of the apostolic era – the end of the first century. In the writer’s opinion, the continuationist (not all) assume since these gifts are in the Bible and God does not revoke His gifts, then they continue. Furthermore, they would say they have either witnessed these gifts in action, or they have operated the gifts themselves; tongues, prophecy (in the predictive or foretelling since), a word of knowledge. Continuationists also believe in what is called a “latter rain” blessing where the Holy Spirit has been poured out on all flesh just as or even more so than Pentecost. This phenomenon began in the early 1900’s. Some of the “latter rain” blessings include:

a        The laying on of hands to receive the gift of tongues

b       The restoration of the office of the apostle and prophet in the church

c        Receive divine healing through the laying on of hands

d        Women having equal authority with men in the church

In  their worldview, God has us re-living the past in the present. The continuationist  has us traveling back in time 2,000 years to the foundations of the church in the first century. They believe everything that occurred during the era of the apostles and prophets is happening today. This stems from a misinterpretation of Joel 2:23. It reads, "be glad then you children of Zion and rejoice in the Lord your God. For He has given you the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month."

The continuationist (i.e. the Charismatic/Pentacostalist) believes this is making reference to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (i.e. the latter rain) which is untrue. The Lord is talking about actual rainfall in this verse. The Israelites were an agrarian people. They needed the rain to fall on their soil in the fall and spring for them to have a bountiful harvest. The former rains in Autumn (Oct – Dec) prepared the seed, and latter rains (Mar – May) filled the crops for harvest. God was promising a restoration of their land so that it could yield it’s rich wheat, grain and produce blessings.

It is tragic how one verse can be so grossly misinterpreted and a false theology develop around it. This unfortunately has occurred with the Latter Rain Movement which the continuationist beliefs hinge upon.

The position of the cessationist is that miracles, gifts of healings, tongues, new revelation are a thing of the past. I guess some would call cessationists naturalists; meaning they do not believe in the supernatural at all. This would be an extreme case. In the area of tongues, history tells us the gift has already ceased. Many in the Church disagree. The early church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine considered the temporary sign gift of tongues as a thing that passed with the passing away of the apostles.

                                                              What did tongues signify?  

Paul in I Corinthians 14:21-22 said, with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak to this people, and yet for all that they will not hear Me says the Lord. Therefore tongues are for a sign, not those who believe but to unbelievers, but prophesying is not for unbelievers but for those who believe.

To understand what the apostle is talking about, we have to travel back to the book of the prophet Isaiah.

The prophet had to rebuke the prophets and priests for their drunkenness. As a result of their inebriation they could not provide counsel, proper worship or leadership of the people. They were abusing the privileges God gave them. Because of their persistent wickedness God warns them of impending doom. These foolish leaders mocked Isaiah for his oracles saying he’s talking nonsense to us as if he is talking to babies, that is “Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little” (Isa 28:13).  According to the Bible commentator Matthew Henry (18 October 1662 – 22 June 1714), the transliteration of these words in Hebrew are “Tsau latsau, kau lakau." The drunken mockers syllables in completion read like this: “Saw lesaw saw lesaw, qaw leqaw qaw leqaw, ze’ir sham ze’ir sham.” What the mockers were doing was making a sort of a nursery rhyme out of Isaiah’s words. These were the words they were singing in their drunken stupor. It lets you know how apostate they had become. They were mocking the words of God as if it was baby talk, gibberish!  God’s word was supposed to bring about hope and refreshment, but instead they ridiculed the prophet and God’s words (Isa 28:12).

As a result of them refusing to hear the word of the Lord in their own language, God would send a nation against them with stammering lips and a language they could not understand as a sign of judgment on the northern kingdom (the 10 tribes). The Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom of Israel called Ephraim in 722 B.C. Later the southern kingdom (tribes of Judah & Benjamin) would be destroyed and taken captive by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. leaving the nation Israel a desolate wilderness.

                This started the diaspora of the Hebrews.

So we see that when Paul says that tongues (or better interpreted languages) are for unbelievers, it meant in particular unbelieving Israel. In the NT the tongues was a judicial sign against Israel, that they would be set aside by God to make room for the Gentiles due to their unbelief (i.e. the pagans, heathen, non Jewish peoples) to be saved, and enjoy the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant.

Let’s look at a couple of verses to amplify this point.

Acts 13:46-48 reads, on the next Sabbath almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. When the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and contradicting and blaspheming they opposed the things spoken by Paul. Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first, but since you reject it (italics mine), and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold we turn to the Gentiles. For the Lord has commanded us:

“I have set you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to
                                                       Ends the of the earth.”

                                                                                    

                                                              Quoted from Isaiah 49:6

Now when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed unto eternal life believed (vs. 48).

We see here the Jews rejecting God’s word which began the judgment of  them being temporarily set aside to due to their unbelief, and the grafting in of the Gentiles into God’s olive tree (Read the entire chapter of Romans 11 for Israel’s current status and their future).

We also read where Peter preached the gospel to Cornelius’ house in Acts 10. The Holy Spirit fell on them as they believed and spoke with languages (vs. 44-48). These too were Gentile converts.

In Acts 8 we read of Philip preaching to the Samaritans who were Israel’s Gentile mortal enemies. So at the beginning of the Church we see that God was fulfilling his promise of including all nations in His kingdom.

This new nation was and is the Church. We are now in the “Time of the Gentiles” (Rom 11:25).

Once the judgment fell on NT Israel which some cessationists believe occurred with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D., the sign was fulfilled and the gift of tongues ceased. What is interesting to note is tongues is not mentioned in the latter writings of the NT. I Corinthians one of the earlier writings was written around 55 A.D. Neither Paul or the other apostles mentioned tongues after this date. Paul’s prison epistles were in the 60’s with his last book written to Timothy around 68 A.D. Peter’s epistles were around 64-65, and 67-68 A.D. John’s books were around 90-96 A.D. What we are hearing today as tongues is not the Biblical gift, but a dangerous counterfeit. Please remember, tongues was never a non-language, unintelligible gibberish or babbling to build someone up. Biblical tongues were known human languages supernaturally spoken by people who never learned the dialect. It was an endowment sovereignly bestowed by the Holy Spirit (I Cor 12:11).

The main point of contention between the continuatioinist and cessationist is the issue of tongues. The first group insist the gift is operative, but the gift they are promoting isn’t the Biblical gift; it’s a counterfeit with a bunch of unintelligible syllables that do not make sense. In extreme cases, the practice could be demonic. The second group (at least some), insist the real gift of languages was a temporary sign gift of judgment to Israel in two ways. 1) It signified them being set aside because of their unbelief. 2) It also signified the Gentiles being grafted into God’s olive tree (Romans 11). Once the sign was fulfilled, Israel’s judgment of unbelief punished, and the gospel being made available to the rest of the world, the gift ceased to operate. As mentioned earlier, the early church fathers wrote on this; the gift ceasing with the death of the apostles.

In conclusion, it is the writer’s opinion that whatever position one holds, we MUST put our personal influences and biases aside, and run to the scriptures for our answers to these crucial matters. There are those that will say they have seen the genuine gift of tongues in operation in modern times; that is someone in the church speak in a real language they never learned and interpret that language (i.e. prophesy) speaking the wonderful works of God with unbelievers in the assembly who knew the language natively and was convicted of sin due to God’s power in operation and became saved. Why? Because the person who spoke the language never learned it. It was a supernatural manifestation of God (I Cor 14:24).

To the cessationist this is more hypothetical than actual. The cessationist is more to the letter of the law in that where it says in I Corinthians 13:8 that tongues will cease, they insist tongues did cease and do not continue now so no event such as a real languages manifestation in the church can occur today whether actual or even hypothetical. In their mind God is not going to resuscitate tongues or any of the other gifts such miracles, healings, predictive prophecy, the apostle and prophet.

What gifts we know abide today are the teacher, prophecy (expository preaching and teaching), the evangelist and Pastor.

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[i] This gift the writer believes is not in operation today. For if it were,

Why aren’t people being instantaneously healed by these so called “faith healers”

Like in the days of Christ and the apostles? If this gift is operative, the cemeteries,

And hospitals, convalescent homes should be empty. Organic terminal diseases should

Be cured.