An essay about the gifts of the Holy Spirit
In this WEB page the author of the article will try to examine the validity of the Charismatic claim that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are present in the Church of Christ today. The author will try to argue that the Charismatic thesis is certainly a wrong one, by examining the important arguments that are present in the issue, arguments to which both parties in the dispute appeal to. It will be shown that a Charismatic meets more difficulties than a Noncharismatic in their interpretation of the Bible. The author will write in the first personal perspective.
The basic and underlying assumption for the article is that the gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthian 12-14 are of a supernatural character. However, if the reader does not share my assumption, I would nevertheless urge the reader to have a patience with my article in order to understand what is the problem in the dispute between a Charismatic and a Noncharismatic. I am very concerned with the assumption that these gifts are supernatural because I take Pentecostals very seriously in their understanding of Charisma. It will be shown that precisely this assumption, which a Charismatic grants, refutes effectively the Charismatic view.
I also wish to say some personal words to the reader before I proceed with my
exposition. I try to be fair in my evaluation of Charismatic position. I avoid the slandering arguments against Charismatics, that are so usually used by many Noncharismatics,
and I try to meet the best Pentecostal arguments.
Also, many Noncharismatics have wrong interpretations of Charismatic gifts, and many in their
Noncharismatic camp are dishonest in their arguments. I was very frustrated by reading their
Noncharismatic books. They are insensitive, bad and outright stupid.
You see, I have been Pentecostal when I became Christian, and was much frustrated when I met Noncharismatics.
Nevertheless, I changed my view, and now I am a Noncharismatic.
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The reason we should regard these gifts as supernatural is the mention of prophecy, healing and miracles. It is of course a possibility to regard other gifts, like faith and knowledge in a natural sense. But it is strange to regard knowledge as a gift. To be aware of some information does not require some special talent, unless the information in question is acquired through the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit. Faith is not a gift unless it pertains to extraordinary events as to move a mountain. It is this supernatural quality of faith that Paul is referring to and which is confirmed by 1 Cor 13:2, where Paul is saying "and though I have faith, so that I could remove mountains."
This basic assumption about the supernatural quality of the gifts will be taken for granted in this paper. It will accept what Pentecostals and Charismatics understand by the gift. Our most concern is the validity of the Pentecostal claim that these gifts are present in some individuals who are members of the Church. My purpose is to show that Pentecostal view is wrong.
What kinds of gifts are mentioned in the 1 Cor 12-14? Here follows my perspective of
the gifts.
There are nine gifts grouped in three groups:
These nine gifts were present and manifested through the members of the Church in the first century. They were so common that every local Church had the manifestation of all nine gifts in the service. Even the Corinthian Church had all nine gifts in spite of the problems and immaturity present in the Church. Are these gifts present in the churches of the 21th century or did they end after the first century due to the completion of the Canon? My answer is that they did ended after the completion of the Canon and the gifts that are supposedly present in some churches nowadays are counterfeits. They are not genuine gifts from God.
Another important note about the meaning of "having a gift of the Spirit,"
should be mentioned. To say that a person P does possess a gift means that P could use it
whenever he/she wants it. If someone had a gift of healing then the person could use the gift
when he/she finds it appropriate to use. If someone had prayed for a sick so that the sick
person became healed then it would not necessary mean that he/she who prayed had a gift of
healing. It could happen that when he/she prayed for someone else it would not be any
healing. This is not the case with someone who had the gift. A gifted person could in
principle use it whenever he/she wanted.
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I believe that we do not have any more supernatural Charismatic gifts in the Church. All these nine gifts, mentioned in the 1 Corinthian 12-14, are not any more present in the local churches of the followers of Christ, be it Brethren, Baptists, Mennonites, Anabaptists, etc. Before I give reasons for my belief I must say what my view does not imply. My Noncharismatic position does not imply that miracles cannot be seen in our churches. Nor does a Noncharismatic position imply that God does not heal any more. Furthermore it is important to say that God speaks to His children. We, who are in Christ, have the Holy Spirit who leads us in our lives. We, as God's children, have a personal contact with our Heavenly Father through Jesus Christ. In our daily contact with the words of the Bible we grow in His wisdom. God leads us when we read His words, which we do find in the Bible. In our prayer we can be led by the Holy Spirit to think about certain things that will help us to grow in our spiritual life. God can influence our thoughts when we are in our prayer, because He is in us through His Spirit. We are all baptized in His Spirit and I do not need tongues for the confirmation of that baptism. "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, (...) and have been all made to drink into one Spirit." (1 Cor. 12:13) So every child of God is a part of the Body of Christ through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. If we are in Christ, then we are baptized in His Spirit. To be saved is a sufficient condition for the baptism in God's Spirit. I do not need to have any supernatural gift that can confirm my baptism in the Holy Spirit. If tongues were condition for the baptism then it is strange that God says that we are all baptized in God's Spirit but that not all speak in tongues (see 1 Cor. 12:13, 28-30).
The fact that we have God's Spirit who leads us in our daily life implies that God does
speak to us, that God can heal us and even perform miracles for our comfort. The crucial
question is in which way does God speak to us. To repeat, I strongly believe that God
speaks to His children and that He can physically heal us when we pray to Him. But my
contention is that God does not speak through some special chosen prophets or that God
heals through some special chosen healers. The next section deals with the first reason
why we should reject the Charismatic thesis.
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If we maintain that every gift and ministry is still existing in the Church of our century, as it was in the Church of the first century, then we must maintain that we do have apostles today. But this is simply false to maintain. Why?
The word "apostle" is one of the few Greek words, which is not translated in our English Bibles. Why did we not translate this word from the Greek, which means a messenger, he that is sent, a delegate, one sent forth with orders? There are many other Greek terms for expressing the meaning of someone sent as messenger (e.g. angelo, pempo and their derivates). Angelo is translated into English messenger only when it denotes an ordinary human messenger, but it is not translated when it denotes angels, i.e. nonhuman messengers. In the case when it refers to nonhuman messengers, then the meaning of the term would not be correctly conveyed under translation. The same with the term apostolos. It is not translated because the term has a special meaning, not easily conveyed in languages that do not have the same concept of apostolos. The apostolos does not just mean an ordinary messenger, or some delegate. It is more than that. To illustrate the significance of the term "apostolos," I will give one example. When a king on those days had sent his apostolos to some distant town, then the people in that town regarded king's apostle as if the apostle was the king himself. They bowed to him and addressed him in the manner as he was the king who sent him. The apostle had the authority of the one who sent him. Thus, Jesus' apostles were messengers with Jesus' authority.
To repeat, an apostle was not just an ordinary messenger. If a king sent his apostle to some city, citizens would regard king's apostle as the very king himself. They will even bow to him, and the authority of the apostle's words and decisions were equal to the king's.
They were a foundation for the Church of the New Testament, (with Prophets, see Eph. 2:20). Both the Bible and many Greek Theological dictionaries confirm this perspective of the Apostleship. I will mention the renowned many volumed Kittel's Greek Theological Dictionary.
What it comes clear, when you study the Greek term apostolos, is that above all it is applied to the group of men who held the supreme dignity in the primitive church. The force of apostolos is 'one commissioned' - it is implied by Christ. Rengstorf, in particular, has elaborated the theory that it reflects the Jewish shalîah (shaluah), an accredited representative of religious authority, entrusted with messages and money empowered to act on behalf of the authority (for the idea cf. Acts. 9:2); also Gregory Dix and others renowned Greek scholars have applied ideas and expressions belonging to shalîah concept (e.g. "a man's salîlah is as himself") to the apostolate. Kittel himself also connects the ministry of Apostleship with Judaistic ministry of shalîah.
Kittel's Greek Theological Dictionary
The legal institution of the shaluah, which is ancient but takes shape in the first century, involves commissioning with specific tasks and stress authorization. The legal element of giving and obeying orders is decisive. The person sent represent the sender, e.g. in betrothal, divorce, or purchase. Full adherence to the commission is presupposed. The applicable law is that of messenger, whose honoring or shaming is an honoring or shaming of the sender (1 Sam. 25:40-41; 2 Sam. 10:1-2). The person sent is as the person who sends.
Another important feature of the ministry of an apostle in the Body of Christ was that an apostle of Christ was a Prime Witness of Jesus' Resurrection. The necessary condition for a person to be an apostle of Jesus was that the person had seen the Physically Resurrected Jesus in order to give the Prime Testimony for the truthfulness of our fundamental Christian belief. The only possibility for such kind of testimony to be truthful was that the person had seen Jesus before His death, witnessed (or knowing for sure) the fact of His physical death and that He was able to recognize Jesus in meeting Him physically alive (see Acts. 1:21-22). However, if someone claims today that he/she had seen the Resurrected Jesus, then we are entitled to ask the person how can he/she know for sure that it was Jesus he/she had seen. How can a person nowadays recognize Jesus of Nazareth, who died on the cross 2000 years ago? It is obvious that the person had never seen Jesus while Jesus was walking in a human flesh among us. If the person answers our question by saying that Jesus was seen in the vision, then such testimony is not reliable. The Testimony should be based on certain objective criteria that enables the recognition of the Resurrected Christ, and not on mere subjective criteria. A Testimony of an apostle should be of a Prime quality; namely, it is first in rank, authority, or significance. The Testimony should have the highest quality or value as a Testimony for the fundamental Christian belief, fundamental in the virtue that the whole Christian faith is based on the Testimony for the truthfulness of the physical Resurrection of our Lord.
The first century is, therefore, rightfully called the Apostolic Period of the History of our Church. At that time in Judea there were at least 500 persons who had truly witnessed the appearance of the Physically Resurrected Messiah, and many of them were appointed by Jesus to be a Prime Witnesses for His Resurrection. There were two kinds of apostles. The first important group was the circle of The Twelve, and they were the foundation of the First Church in Jerusalem. However, also other persons were appointed as a Prime Witnesses of the Resurrected Christ in order to spread the Gospel throughout the whole Roman Empire. Jesus Himself appointed them, for instance consider the case of Paul. We know that at least there were 83 apostles, 12-1+70+Paul+Barnabas (Lk. 10:1 about 70 more apostles; Acts. 1:26 about Matthias' replacing Judas of Iskariot, and perhaps Matthias was one of the former 70; Acts. 14:14, about Paul and Barnabas). But it is clear that the Twelve had some special character, especially seen in Acts 1:26. Probably because they were close to Jesus during His ministry before His death. Anyway, all Apostles were the foundation for the continuing Mission to spread the Gospel for the whole world. Christianity was spreading with an exponential rate in spite of the persecutions. Already at the end of the first century, Christianity was established in the whole Roman Empire and it was also already spread in other areas outside the Roman Empire. I believe that Christianity began to be known in Ireland, Armenia, and even in some provinces of India. It is interesting that the Apostle Thomas, according to the Christian tradition, extended his apostolate into India, where he is recognized as the founder of the Church of the Syrian Malabar Christians, or Christians of St. Thomas. The origins of the Christians of St. Thomas are uncertain, though they seem to have been in existence before the 6th century AD.
Implied in Apostleship is the commission to witness by word and sign (2 Cor 12:12) to the risen Christ and His completed work. This witness, being grounded in a unique experience of the incarnate Christ, and directed by a special dispensation of the Holy Spirit, provides the authentic interpretation of Christ, and has ever since been determinative for the Church. In the nature of things, the office of Apostleship could not be repeated or transmitted: any more than the underlying historic experiences could be transmitted to those who had never known the incarnate Lord and seen Him resurrected. Therefore, we do not have Apostles in our age after the 1st century A.D.
Do we have apostles today? Certainly not. If that was the case then the Bible would not
be our sufficient authority in our life, and the Canon of the bible would be open. If we
have apostles nowadays, then we could in principle add new books to the Bible because we
have persons with an apostolic authority. Because of the fact that the apostolic ministry
is gone, it is plausibly to assume that some gifts of the Holy Spirit is not manifested in
our churches, especially those gifts pertaining to the sign of the Apostleship (see 2 Cor.
12:12).
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What about the prophets, do we have them in the 21th century? If we have persons who give prophetic utterances, meaning that God is speaking directly to people through such utterances, then these prophetic words are in principle of the same authority as the words of the Bible. The prophet, through the verbal inspiration by God, speaks directly the words of God to the Church by addressing the Church in a first person utterance in the name of the Lord. That means that the prophet begins his utterance with "and so says the Lord." Because the prophet begins with such strong declaration, we should regard the speech as infallible, unless God did not inspire it. If we maintain that the prophetic words are not direct and infallible speech of God then the person is not entitled to speak in the first person utterance in the name of the Lord, by using the expression "and so says the Lord." If a person comes with such strong prophetic declaration "and so says the Lord" and begins to speak in the first person in the name of the Lord, as if God is directly speaking to the Church, then we should regard the speech to be direct and infallible words of God. However, this would imply that the prophetic words are in principle of the same authority as the words of the Bible. The reason for this is that the words of the Bible and the words uttered through a true prophet of God have the same origin and comes directly from God. If that is not the case, then what is the distinction in the authority between God's words uttered through some modern prophet and God's words written in the Bible? In principle, there is no distinction! What that amounts to say is that the existence of the new prophetic utterances repudiates the necessary and sufficient authority of the Bible. Because of that, I cannot accept the Charismatic notions and doctrines about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
An obvious objection, which gives the strength to the Charismatic thesis, is that the Bible does not tell that gifts of the Holy Spirit will come to their end, or at least it does not tell clearly about it.
It is true that the Bible does not say clearly that prophecies shall end. However, 1 Cor. 13:8 indicates that the gifts will end. But the passage is not so clear, so it is not a good idea to take 1 Cor. 13:8 as a basis for a Noncharismatic position. [We will tell more about 1 Cor. 13:8 in the last section of the article].
Why does not the Bible tell us more clearly that gifts, as prophecies, will end after the death of the last apostle? There are three reasons, assuming that the Noncharismatic thesis is true. A Charismatic should understand this problem from a Noncharismatic perspective.
However, a Charismatic would not agree that prophecies downgrade the sufficiency of the Bible as our Supreme Authority. They would say that every true prophecy given today is consistent with the Bible, and it is given for edification, exhortation and comfort for the Church. The Bible is a necessary authority, they will say, because it is by the Bible that we can test prophecies, which are given in the Church. To that, I will say that this criterion of the truthfulness of the prophecy is not a sufficient test. Recall that prophetic words have equal authority with the words of the Bible. However, let us suppose for the moment that the Charismatic view is correct. We grant for the sake of argument that the Bible has a sufficient role in the test of the truthfulness of a prophetic utterance. Nevertheless, a Charismatic has a following problem:
Let us assume that we had tested a prophetic utterance and we are certain that God did indeed inspired the prophetic utterance. Why should I not write these prophetic words and add it to the Bible?
This problem is the fundamental problem for the Charismatic perspective if we grant that the Canon of the Bible is closed. Mormons are quite consistent with their doctrine that the presence of new revelations and prophecies implies that the Canon of the Bible is open. No wonder that they venerate their prophetic books with the same authority as the books of the Bible. To this day, I did not get a satisfied solution to the problem, which a Charismatic is confronted with.
One important note about the above problem: When I say "add it to the Bible", I do not mean that we add it literally. The point is that we do not need to add a prophetic utterance to the Bible in order to downgrade the authority of the Scriptures. It is rather the attitude we have to the prophetic utterances. My contention is that prophetic utterances are of the same authority to the words of the Bible, since they are God's direct words. By our attitude we actually add the words to the Bible, since there is no principal difference between God's words in the Bible and God's words uttered through the prophet.
Another objection, which could be raised by a Charismatic, was to maintain that we
have to make a distinction between the gift of prophecy and the prophetic ministry. This
objection is very implausible. It is very implausible to deny that a man who could make
prophetic utterances was a prophet, i.e. had this ministry. To make a prophetic utterance
requires the gift of prophecy. The gift of prophecy is precisely defined as a gift that
enables a person to give prophetic utterances. I get impression from 1 Cor 14:29-32 that
those who deliver prophetic utterances are prophets. The passage comes after Paul's
instructions about the gifts of speaking in tongues and interpretations. It is
plausible to interpret 1 Cor 14:29-32 as the continuation of Paul's instructions regarding
the gifts, namely the instruction regarding the gift of prophecy. If someone has
a gift of prophecy, then the person speaks prophetic, and by that token the
person is a prophet, according to 1 Cor. 14:19-32. A prophet is a person who has
prophetic ministry.
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A Charismatic is wrong to maintain that the Bible is a sufficient criterion for the truthfulness of the prophecies. There are two reasons why the Bible is not a sufficient criterion for the test of true prophethood.
First, a true prophetic utterance has the same authority as the Bible. Paul's new revelation that ritual laws of Mosaic Pact are abolished would not have been accepted if we maintained that the Bible was a sufficient condition for testing truthfulness of prophetic revelation. It is precisely because the prophetic word is on the same footing with the words of the Bible. We will more clarify this later.
Second, someone can give a prophetic message which can be consistent with the Bible but still be inspired by his/her own human spirit. It is even possible that demon possessed persons can give true prophetic utterances which are wholly consistent with the Bible. Remember that demon possessed persons said true things about Jesus' and apostles' ministries.
We have to examine what the Bible says about testing the prophets. Let us first begin with Paul's relevant instruction found in 1 Cor. 14:29. "Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge." He encourages those with the gift of prophecy to practice their gift and that other judge their prophetic utterance. The question is how should we judge some prophet, or test a person who speaks in a prophetic manner.
We have to be clear on the meaning of the word "prophet" and the "gift of prophecy," as it is used in the Bible. A prophecy does not necessarily mean to foretell future. Nevertheless, a prophecy has a supernatural quality and it is not an ordinary speech. The sign of a prophetic utterance, as a confirmation of its divine origin, was usually in telling some information a prophet could not possibly acquire in the natural way. The main point with this ministry was that God spoke directly to the Church, and that was the very core or essence of the ministry. The biblical notion is that God speaks directly through such person to edify, to exhort or to teach something of importance to the Church. But edifying, exhortation and admonishing the Church could be done also through simple preaching or teaching by teachers and preachers. So, some distinction existed between the edifying the Church through a prophecy and edifying the Church through a simple teaching or preaching. What was the distinction? The distinction consisted on the peculiarity of God's speaking. God spoke directly His words through the prophet, while through a teacher/preacher He spoke indirectly.
Therefore I am strongly convinced that the gift of prophecy has a supernatural element in the virtue of God's direct way to speak with His people through such gift. God spoke directly through prophets to His people, otherwise it is meaningless for a prophet to say "and so says the Lord." A prophet gave a direct speech of God, otherwise he/she was not entitled to say "and so says the Lord."
How should we test such a prophet? How did Corinthian Christians understand Paul when he wrote to them "let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge"? It is wrong to use this verse as a basis for testing other prophets by the Bible, when in that time they had not the New Testament. Only thing they had was some gospels and a few other letters by Paul. So how could they use the Bible as a sufficient test when the Canon of the New Testament was not yet complete? They could not. How could they judge then? The answer is very simple, namely they judged by the supernatural quality of the prophetic utterance. This test was strong and very reliable. If we use this test then many modern prophecies, which are spoken in the name of our Lord, would be easily revealed as empty speeches. This test has a biblical basis. The Bible tells us very clearly how we should test prophets.
But the prophet who shall presume to speak a word in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or who shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
And if thou say in thine heart, "How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken?"
when a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him.
(Deut. 18:20-22)
To repeat my question: "when Paul said to the Corinthians that they should judge
those who prophecies (1 Cor 14:29), how would they judge when they had not the whole
Bible?" They only had the Old Testament. But they surely knew how to test a prophet
by their knowledge of Deut. 18. On the basis of Deut. 18, they had
tested a prophet by observing whether what was said would be fulfilled. Let the Bible
interpret the Bible. Thus, we cannot apply 1 Cor. 14:29 to mean that we nowadays shall
test a prophet only by the Bible. A false prophet can even speak totally consistent with
the Bible, but speaking through another spirit, be it his/her human or demonic. (Recall
that demons told true things about Jesus, Paul, Peter, etc.; truths consistent with the
Bible). Of course, it is a necessary condition for a prophecy to be consistent with the
Bible, but it is not a sufficient criterion. We must also test the supernatural
quality of the prophecy. If someone claims that he/she has a gift of the prophecy, then
the person must be in the position to say some information that he/she could not possibly
learn in a natural way. If it is true that some person is speaking direct words of God
then only way to test the origin of the spoken message is to test the
information prophet could not know by himself. If the content of a prophecy has no
information confirming the supernatural origin of the message then the prophecy is not
from God. Neither is this criterion, let us call "supernatural origin
criterion," a sufficient test. It has to be combined with the biblical-consistency
criterion, since it is possible that a prophet of other god (Apollo, Zeus, etc.) speaks
true information, which is acquired in a supernatural way. Both these criteria,
biblical-consistency and supernatural-origin criteria, are jointly sufficient conditions
of the truthfulness of the prophecy. Saying something that will not be fulfilled would
expose a prophet who speaks presumptuously in the name of the Lord. Deuteronomy 18
precisely guarantees this.
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An another observation that emerges under the assumption of the validity of the
Charismatic thesis is the following one. If we have prophecies today then these prophecies
are more relevant for our daily spiritual life than the old written words from the Bible.
Why should I read God's words written 2000 years ago when I have new words of God, which
are directly spoken to us? They are more concrete and practically important than
the words from the Bible, since they are new and more suitable for our modern age. It is
more natural to focus on the new words of God than on the old ones. This practical
attitude downgrades the importance of the Bible as our sufficient and necessary authority
in our daily and practical life. More important question, as I had asked many times:
"why should I not write these prophetic words and add them to the Bible, if they were
truly God's words?
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Why did God give tongues to the early Church and what were those tongues? A person spoke in tongues when the speaker could praise and pray to God in a language the speaker did not learn to use. Therefore, this gift was also supernatural, as other gifts mentioned in the 1 Cor. 12-14. This sign was very common in the early Church. An important thing about this common gift, which is not so talked about, is about the function and the purpose of the gift in the first century in the history of the Church. The important truth about the gift of tongues can be clearly read in the 1 Cor. 14:21-23.
1 Cor. 14:21 In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.
1 Cor. 14:22 Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.
1Cor. 14:23 If therefore the whole Church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?
In the exposition of 1 Corinthian 14:22 I am greatly indebted to G.-F- Rendal and his book "I Speak in Tongues More Than You All." He says something interesting in his exposition:
In 1 Corinthian 14:22 the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, tells us that the sign of speaking in tongues was not for believers, but for unbelievers. Then he turns around in the very next verse and says just the opposite! On the surface it looks as though the Holy Spirit is contradicting Himself when He says, "If therefore the whole Church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad?" No one ever untangled this inextricable paradox for me. It is true that if the non-believers of verse 22, 23 and 24 are indiscriminately from Israel or from the Gentiles, the contradiction remains. But the problem disappears if you accept that Paul had two kinds of non-believers in view.
This exposition erases the contradiction and confirms that the sign of tongues was reserved for this people, the Jews, in order to bring them to believe that the Gentiles were grafted into the body of Christ which is the Church. Thus, the gift of tongues had a twofold purpose:
That is why God did not choose that the gift of invisibility or tele-transportation be the common gifts among the children of God. By the tongues could Peter understand that Cornelius was accepted by God, even if Cornelius was not a Jew. Jews could understand, through tongues, that Gentiles were also saved if they believed in the truth of the Gospel. Both of these purposes have been fulfilled already at the end of the first century. Isaiah 28:11-12 was fulfilled, since Caiphas, the high priest at that time, did not accept Jesus Messiahship. The Temple was thereafter destroyed in 70 AD. It became acceptable truth that other nations could be saved in Christ. Gentiles in the beginning did not know this fact, and it was necessary that the first converted Jews understood the truth and to encourage the Gentiles to accept Christ. Nowadays it is a widespread and accepted truth that everyone, no matter nationality, can become a Christian. Already in the first century Christians were established in other countries, outside the boundaries of Israel. To speak in tongues made only sense where Jews were presented because the sign was for them. Remember that it was a Jew who demanded signs but a Greek who sought after wisdom, ("For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom"; 1Cor. 1:22).
A second reason that we should believe that tongues had ceased is the following one. The gift of speaking in tongues and the gift of prophecy belongs to the same type of gifts. Both gifts belong to the Gifts of Inspiration (tongues, prophecy and interpretation). As such, God speaks directly through the speaker. So, in some sense, speaking in tongues are prophecies as well. Therefore, the gift of speaking in tongues ended at the same time when the gift of prophecy ended to manifest in the Church. Since prophecies came to its end after the completion of the Bible, we do not have anymore gift of speaking in tongues. Furthermore, the manifestations of tongues were followed by the manifestations of other Charismatic gifts, and not only with the manifestation of prophecy. Even the majority of Charismatics would concede this observation. It is a common belief among many Pentecostals that tongues is a foundation for the occurrence of other Charismatic gifts, since they believe that tongues are sign for the baptism in the Holy Spirit. If that were the case then we would expect that the gift of prophecy should be manifested in the Church nowadays unless tongues ceased in the second century. Thus we would seriously be inconsistent with the idea that the Bible is our only authority that is sufficient for our spiritual life, as explained when we dealt with that special gift of prophecy. The whole idea of the Charismatic movement is that God is manifesting His Grace through the gifts of the Spirit in the same way He did in the Apostolic period. However, if some gifts are not present in the Church nowadays, e.g. gift of prophecy, why should we then expect that the gift of speaking in tongues is present at all? The problem would be readily seen in the third reason below.
A third reason is the following observation. The Churches in the apostolic days had
manifested all occurrences of the nine gifts, distributed among many persons in the
Church. Every gift was like a member of the body, so every gift was important, for
edifying the Church. If gifts did not ended yet, then why do not all nine gifts
manifest in the local Charismatic/Pentecostal churches? I only had seen tongues and
prophecies, (gifts that is so easy to fake), but never a person who had a gift of healing.
Unless gifts ceased indeed, then every Church should manifests all nine supernatural
gifts, as it was the case in every apostolic Church in the first century. Even the
Church of Corinth had all nine gifts of the Spirit, in spite of the immaturity of many
members in the Church.
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I admit that it is quite consistent to hold that supernatural gifts are also for modern days, using the Bible as the basis of justification. The Bible does not tell us that gifts shall end after the completion of the Canon. It is precisely the very reason why we do discuss around this issue. If it was clearly stated either pro or contra Charismatic thesis then we would not discuss it. So, who are right, for only one of us is right on this issue? My claim is that the Noncharismatic camp on this issue is right because of the fact that a Charismatic meets more problems in defending her position than a Noncharismatic. The only difficulty a Noncharismatic has is that it is not written clearly that gifts shall cease. Neither has a Charismatic support from the New Testament that gifts shall not end until Jesus Second Coming.
The passage which indicates that gifts will end after the completion of the Bible is 1 Cor. 13:8-13. The word "perfect" can mean something that is whole. There are two Greek words connected to the word "perfect," which are relevant for our discussion. One is teleios and the second one is teleioo. Paul used the first and not the second one. The first one is applied for some process, like growth of a child, which is also confirmed with Paul using the analogy of a child's growth into the maturity. It conveys the idea of completion, that something becomes whole after some growth and process. The second one is applied for some instantaneous events, like the Second Coming of Jesus. It was not the second word used in the text of 1 Corinthian 13. Because of this fact it is plausible to assume that 1 Cor. 13:8-13 is referring to some process like writing and completion of the Canon, and not to the Second Coming of Christ. Observe also the mentioning of "know in part" referring to our partial knowledge of God's revelation. At that time, when 1 Cor 13:8-11 was written, early Christians had only parts of the New Testament finished, not having yet the whole. The first Charismatic difficulty is a continuation of the exposition of 1 Cor. 13:8-11, which deals with the significance of the word "cease", translated from the Greek "pauo".
Why do I maintain that a Charismatic has more difficulties? It is because she would meet serious difficulties to answer following questions. After stating those questions, it will follow their explanations.
Explanation for the above questions:
An another important note about the meaning of "having a gift of the Spirit," should be mentioned. To say that a person P does possess a gift means that P could use it when he/she wants it. If someone had a gift of healing then the person could use the gift when he/she finds it appropriate to use. If someone had prayed for a sick so that the sick person became healed then it would not necessary mean that he/she who prayed had a gift of healing. It could happen that when he/she prayed for someone else it would not be any healing. This is not the case with someone who had the gift. A gifted person could in principle use it whenever he/she wanted.
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