Before going on to talk about why I believe the Holy Spirit still gives the same gifts and operates in the same manner described in the Bible, I want to talk about the problems cessationism (the belief that he does not) faces.
Problem 1: No biblical evidence
The basic problem cessationism faces is that there is no direct evidence for it in the Bible. Cessationists try to make some arguments from inference, but none of these arguments are very strong.
In many cases, there is nothing wrong with inferring beliefs from Scripture. We face many situations which Scripture does not directly address, for example, transgenderism. But there is plenty of evidence based on God’s creation of male and female, his proscription of cross-dressing in the Old Testament, and his prescriptions for gender roles that inform us how to think on this matter.
But in the case of cessationism, its adherents have to row against the strong headwinds of many direct and explicit biblical passages. Contrarily, their doctrines have to be whiffed from faint aromas drifting off passages which don’t directly state the proofs they seek.
For example, I recently saw a cessationist post Hebrews 1:1-2 online in response to another commenter arguing for the gifts. This passage reads “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son….” If you didn’t know by reading the rest of the New Testament that prophecy continued after Jesus’ ministry on earth, you might be persuaded by this attempt at using Scripture, but it is weak sauce indeed.
It’s been said that nobody ever became a cessationist by simply reading the Bible. I’m reminded of a famous quote by John Wimber; shortly after becoming a Christian, he asked a church elder, “When do we get to do the stuff? You know, the stuff here in the Bible; the stuff Jesus did, like healing the sick, raising the dead, healing the blind – stuff like that?”1 His innocent faith was rebuffed by the elder, who informed him that we no longer “did the stuff” the Bible talks about.
This is a problem because conservative evangelical Christians, which cessationists generally are, believe that the Bible is the sole authority for faith and practice. Reformed evangelical Christians hold to the “five Solas” of the Protestant Reformation, one of which is “Sola Scriptura”—Scripture alone. Reformed Christians reject popes, church fathers, extra-biblical documents, and anything else outside the Bible, as authoritative.
Cessationists not only run into the negative problem that there is no direct scriptural support for their position, but the positive problem that there are many passages which describe the spiritual gifts, many commands to seek and practice them, and many instructions on how to practice them, with no indication that any of these things have an end date before the coming of Christ.2 Rather, they are presented as a normal and essential part of the life of the church.
Given this problem, not many Christians today call themselves “hard cessationists”, that is, those who believe God never does miracles. Many of them call themselves “cautious continuationists”. They believe in theory that God could do miracles, and sometimes may somewhere in the world; they believe in theory that some of the spiritual gifts could operate sometime somewhere. But they do not teach about the gifts, they do not seek the gifts, they do not encourage their congregants to seek the gifts, and they do not provide opportunity to practice the gifts during meetings of the church. In short, they are functional cessationists.
They also frequently put unbiblical limits or guidelines on how the gifts might function in order to justify this contradiction. This can result in some pretty strange exegetical contortions.
For example, I’ve heard it said that nobody today has the gift of healing (contradicting 1 Corinthians 12:9), rather that the gift of healing has passed to the entire church, i.e. that anybody in the church can pray for healing, and God may answer that prayer.
As another example, cessationists believe that prophecy as described in the New Testament served the same function as, and has been replaced by, the Bible.
Neither of these ideas, nor any other limitations or qualifications often placed on the gifts, has any Biblical support. In fact, they are easily refuted from Scripture. The plain fact of the matter is, the “Sola Scriptura” men have to make up reasoning from somewhere other than scripture to support their cessationism.
This would seem to pose a serious problem. But as humans, we can be marvelously adept at overlooking and excusing contradictions in our worldviews.
Problem 2: Disobedience
The second major problem follows on from the first, and it applies to what I’ve called “functional cessationists”, that is, those who in theory believe that miraculous operations or gifts of the Spirit could happen, but do not seek them.
This is, I believe, a case of wanting to have one’s cake and eat it too. The Biblical evidence that the gifts were meant for the church until Christ returns is too strong, and the exegetical case for the contrary position so weak, that most Christians today can’t hold to hard cessationism.
Therefore, they claim to be “cautious continuationists”, but in practice, this doesn’t look any different to cessationism. No one would ever know except by talking to them that they think otherwise.
At least hard cessationists are intellectually honest. They do not pretend to believe in something they do not practice. “Cautious continuationists” are cessationists in everything but name.3
Again, this raises the biblical problem: Scripture is full of commands and encouragements to practice and seek the gifts, and examples of how they blessed and strengthened the New Testament church and resulted in explosive growth. In order to maintain their functional cessationism, these men have to ignore large swaths of Scripture, including direct commands such as “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts” (1 Corinthians 14:1); “Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies” (1 Thessalonians 5:19-20); and “earnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues.” (1 Corinthians 14:39).
This creates what one would imagine to be an unsolvable dilemma for the “Sola Scriptura” crowd. Scripture plainly and directly describes and commands something they do not do, and have no intention of doing. It raises the question of how one can claim that one’s faith or church is completely Biblically based, while ignoring multiple Scriptural commands.
In any other context, we would call that “disobedience” or “unbelief”. I don’t see how it is different in this one. There are people who claim to “believe in Jesus” but whose life manifests something completely different, who make no effort to obey his commands. We call those people “unbelievers”. I am not suggesting that cessationists are unsaved; what I am saying is that one’s actions reveal one’s faith or lack thereof in any given proposition.
https://quotefancy.com/quote/1586421/John-Wimber-When-do-we-get-to-do-the-stuff-You-know-the-stuff-here-in-the-Bible-the-stuff
In the past, some cessationists attempted to use 1 Corinthians 13:8-12 as a proof text, but as it is pretty obvious that it is referring to the second coming of Christ, this has fallen out of favour.
From here on out, I will not distinguish between “functional” and “hard” cessationists, just use the term “cessationist” for simplicity.