No Christian believes that God gives no spiritual gifts today. Rather, what many do is separate the gifts into the ones they think are available to the church now, and those which were only for the narrow window of time between the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and the completion of the Biblical canon (somewhere between approximately 33 A.D. and the 60s-90s A.D. depending on when you think Revelation was written).
If they’re right, the Bible records many spiritual gifts that were only available for about 30 to 60 years. Then, they went away forever, because we now have the Bible and don’t need them anymore.
This, for me, raises so many questions about why God would bother to give gifts that were in effect for only a few decades; how practically did that work (was someone in church in the middle of giving a prophecy and suddenly stopped like a shut-off tap as the Apostle John penned the last letter of Revelation?)1; and how exactly gifts like healing are replaced by the Bible?
But the bigger problem with this view, as I’ve mentioned previously, is that the Bible itself nowhere gives any indication whatsoever that the spiritual gifts were not for all time. If it was meant to replace some of the spiritual gifts, and if it is our full, final authority for faith and practice, shouldn’t it inform us of this important doctrine?
We end up with the rather bizarre assertion that a document which was intended as the sole and ultimate authority for the church for all time records commands which only applied for a few decades at its beginning. Surely God-inspired, authoritative Scripture would have told us this? Or at least, left out teaching related to the gifts that would cease?
Regardless, cessationists separate the gifts into the ones they think ceased with the completion of Scripture, and those which continue today.
The problem with this is there is no indication whatsoever in Scripture that the gifts are to be divided in this way. There are no separate lists of gifts which have expiration dates, and gifts which are permanent.
Basically, cessationists pick and choose. To take an example of a New Testament spiritual gifts list, 1 Corinthians 12:28 says:
And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues.
Cessationists look at that list and say apostles2, prophets, miracles, healing, and tongues are not for today, but teachers, helping, and administrating are.
But on what basis? The passage itself doesn’t give us one. Essentially, cessationists only accept gifts that they don’t see as supernatural. Teaching, helping, and administrating are all things people can do in their own natural talents and strength. They could, depending on context, be indistinguishable from their Spirit-empowered versions.3
But Scripture makes it absolutely clear that all of the spiritual gifts are equally given and empowered by God (1 Corinthians 12:4-7). It does indicate there are greater and lesser gifts (1 Corinthians 12:31), but all are equally supernatural. We make a grave mistake when we think that Spirit-empowered administration is not much different than someone who naturally happens to be good at it, or that the latter can be substituted for the former. This attitude reflects the same unbelief and rejection of the supernatural activity of the Spirit that lays behind all of cessationism.
It reflects the attitude that we don’t really need the empowerment of God to accomplish the tasks he’s given us to do in the church. We just plug in people who are good at various things—all non-supernatural things, of course—and we’re good to go. After all, you don’t need the Holy Spirit to serve coffee, balance the budget, or wrangle toddlers in the nursey.
1 Corinthians 12:11 tells us “All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.” No one chooses the spiritual gifts he gets, and no one can say to God that he is allowed to give some gifts and not others. Spiritual gifts are distributed to each believer as the sovereign, free, Holy Spirit of God decides. In his word he tells us which gifts he gives; we do not get to limit or dictate to him in the matter.
Many if not most cessationists claim to believe in the sovereignty of God. Yet practically they do not accept his sovereignty to empower each believer as he sees fit.
More to the point, if God decided that all of these gifts were necessary for the edification of the church, who are we to decide that we don’t need some of them and can function just as well without them? Do we really think we know better than God, and that our wisdom, strength, and skills are equal to the working of his Spirit? Practically, I think that is what we are saying when we reject some of his gifts.
I suppose they might argue that spiritual gifts ceased in each church as they received the completed New Testament. But what about ethnic communities today who have been evangelized but don’t have a complete Bible in their language? Would they say the spiritual gifts would or should operate in such a church?
I am currently agnostic on the question of whether apostle was a unique office that no longer exists. The case for that argument might be stronger than for other gifts, but there is no clear statement in Scripture.
I know someone who takes this to the extreme of saying that we no longer need gifts of healing because God has gifted doctors with this ability instead.