Category Archives: Charismatic Issues

Posts about the charismatic movement, the gifts of the Holy Spirit etc

Cessationism Undermines the Bible

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My previous posting about tongues continues a theme which has been developing on this blog in the last few weeks, my argument against the cessationist position that the gifts of the Holy Spirit no longer operate in today’s church. Here I want to make what seems to me one of the most telling arguments against cessationism, which is that it undermines the authority of the Bible.

I am glad that on this matter I can agree with Adrian Warnock, despite our past differences on the position of women in the church. Adrian wrote, arguing against cessationism:

Why, on the one hand, are we at liberty to ignore Paul’s clear commands to the Corinthians to “eagerly desire spiritual gifts” and to “not forbid speaking in tongues” (1 Corinthians 14:39) when, on the other hand, we are expected to accept all of his other commands to local churches as applying to us today? If these two commands do not apply to us, which other of Paul’s commands also do not apply? How are we then meant to decide which of Paul’s commands we are going to obey and which we are going to ignore?

Many of my readers have appreciated my posting on Bible deists, based largely on Jack Deere’s book Surprised by the Voice of God. So I will turn again to this book. In it Deere uses much the same argument as Adrian’s when he explains, in chapter 18, “Unbelief through Theology”, how when he was a cessationist and Bible deist he used to argue against those who claimed that God speaks today apart from Scripture. Here are some extracts from his argument, starting on p.275:

But my opponents were not so easily discouraged. In desperation they searched the New Testament until they came up with some examples of nonapostolic people hearing God’s voice just like the apostles did. They used examples where God spoke very specifically about nonmoral matters. For example, Agabus, a prophet, not an apostle, accurately predicted a famine that “spread over the entire Roman world” (Acts 11:28). This prophecy was particularly embarrassing. It concerned food, or better, the lack of food. It was one of the topics about which I said God didn’t speak. … How could I discard examples like these? It wasn’t easy. My opponents were now shooting bullets that the shield of the apostles couldn’t stop. I needed a bulletproof vest to survive this attack.

Deere continues by finding an argument from “historical necessity” to explain that Agabus’ prophecy was unique. But his opponents rejected this, and so he writes, on pp.276-277 (emphasis is Deere’s):

My bulletproof vest of historical necessity couldn’t protect me against cannon shells. How could I argue that the modern church was no longer faced with “historical necessities” that required answers from the voice of God? … I needed a fortress or else I was going down before these kinds of biblical examples. At this point, I discovered the very fortress I needed. It was impenetrable!Only During the Period of the Open Canon

“You have to understand that these kinds of revelations were given before the Bible was completed. Neither Agabus nor the others had all the completed Bible, which tells us how important unity really is,” I replied. That was the clincher. In these arguments, the phrase I dearly loved was, “that happened during the period of the open canon.” The word “canon” means the list of books that belong in the Bible. The canon was “open” while the New Testament writings were being added to it. Somehow everything was different in this period. It was supernatural, perhaps too supernatural. It was also too subjective. But that was only because it was “the period of the open canon.” What a great phrase! I could demolish any argument with it. Any example could be explained away by that profound phrase. Let God speak as often as he wanted during the period of the open canon. Let him speak to nonapostles, even to absolute dummies, or better yet, even through dumb animals. None of these examples was relevant because they all came from the period of the open canon. Now, however, we had the period of the Bible. And the Bible had replaced all other forms of God’s communication. There weren’t two tracks of revelation – only one, the Bible. So let my opponent use any biblical example from Genesis to Revelation. It didn’t matter if the example had the force of an atomic bomb, I had found a theological fortress that could withstand the blast. “Sorry,” I would say, “your example comes from the time before the Bible was completed. You can’t use it now that we are in the period of the completed Bible.” …

Perhaps by now you’ve come to appreciate the brilliant character of my methodology. No matter what example you brought to me from the Bible I could discount its contemporary relevance. It never occurred to me that these four arguments actually eliminated the use of all biblical examples in theological discussion. Every biblical example must be drawn from the period of the open canon.

This way of arguing actually meant, “I have made up my mind on this matter and I will not allow any verse from the Bible to challenge or correct my position.”

In other words, Deere is effectively showing that his former cessationist position, although on the surface exalting the Bible above fallible human experience, in fact undermines the Bible and robs it of its authority. For his argument about the period of the open canon can be applied not just to biblical examples, but also to explicit biblical teaching. For example, Paul explicitly teaches the Corinthians to “eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy” (1 Corinthians 14:1, TNIV). But if these gifts operated only during the period of the open canon, then this instruction of Paul’s applies only to this period. Yet there is no explicit teaching in the Bible about this limitation. So, in this case, as Adrian wrote:

How are we then meant to decide which of Paul’s commands we are going to obey and which we are going to ignore?

Answering a Pyromaniac on Tongues

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There is an interesting discussion going on mainly between Adrian Warnock and Dan Phillips (one of the Pyromaniacs) about the gift of tongues. Dan argues against Adrian from the cessationist position which I have mentioned in other recent postings, that this gift and all other gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer in operation today.

I made the following comment on part 3 of Dan’s series – I could have demolished more of his arguments, but chose what seemed to be his weakest points:

Dan, a couple of points to clarify some of your very dodgy exegesis.

First, on Acts 2:17-18, you seem to imply that you understand this to refer to the authoring of Scripture. Thus you seem to restrict “all flesh … your sons and daughters … my male servants and female servants” to the Apostles, and the very few others who wrote Scripture. Was the audience restricted to the apostles’ parents? Were any of the Scripture authors anyone’s daughters? Is “all flesh” to be understood as referring to something like a dozen people at most? No, surely the clear intention of Peter, as reported by Luke, is to say that in these last days (or is today a period after the last days?) this prophecy can be applied to everyone, that all can expect to prophesy. This is of course precisely in agreement with what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:1, that all should aspire to prophesy.

And then, referring to 1 Corinthians 14:21-22 and Isaiah 28:11-12, you wrote “The “tongues” Paul writes of are the “tongues” Isaiah wrote of, and those “tongues” are human, foreign languages.” I don’t think so. Look at the context in Isaiah 28. In verses 10 and 13 we have the very words which God uses to speak to his people: צַו לָצָו צַו לָצָו קַו לָקָו קַו לָקָו tsaw latsaw tsaw latsaw qaw laqaw qaw laqaw. These are NOT words in any foreign language, at least as far as I know. Most Bible translations do a disservice by trying to translate the words as if they were Hebrew, although really they are not, they are nonsense syllables (in fact I wouldn’t blame you for suggesting that they are something like some modern charismatic “tongues”!). The point is that they are supposed to be some kind of nonsense baby talk – and (in v.13) they are not supposed to be a comprehensible message, because God’s purpose is that it should not be understood.

This is of course a rather complex issue, but it certainly does not support your contention that biblical tongues are always real human languages. In fact it is probably a counter-example, to go along with other counter-examples such as 1 Corinthians 14:4. And (apart from your suggestion that Paul is saying that speaking in tongues is something one should not do, refuted by v.18) the only argument you have to dismiss the counter-examples is that they contradict Paul’s “own flat-out and in-so-many-words statement that tongues are human languages” – which is in fact not at all “flat-out and in so many words” referring to ALL tongues but a quotation from a rather complex and obscure passage in Isaiah which does not necessarily refer to all tongues or to human languages at all. So, it seems to me, you are using the unclear to explain the clear, the opposite of how you should do exegesis in such circumstances.

In part 2 you wrote, “An ironclad case can be (and has been) made from Scripture that tongues were always supernaturally acquired human languages.” Is this your ironclad case? (Where by the way is there any indication that the tongues of Isaiah 28 were supernaturally acquired?) It seems that your iron cladding is in fact very thin and rusty, and can very easily be demolished by the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, which has supernatural power to destroy strongholds. And since all of what you wrote in part 2 depends on this “ironclad case”, now that that case has collapsed the whole of part 2 has been invalidated. In fact I don’t think much is left of any of your arguments.

And then I wrote the following as a comment on part 4 of the series:

Dan, I won’t make a long comment here like I just made on part 3 (which in fact managed to refute part 2 as well). But I do want to object to your caricature of charismatic services. You wrote:

If you’ve been to many Charismatic services, you don’t need me to go on. You could fill in gaps yourself—how the music is geared and chanted to excite the emotions directly, the preaching aimed at working directly on the emotions, the bodily choreography devised to create a mood and a feeling. It’s sheer psychological manipulation, though in many cases no doubt with the best of intentions.

This is probably an accurate description of some charismatic services. It is certainly not an accurate description of all of them. In particular, your description of charismatic preaching is so wide of the mark as to be libellous. You can for example download and listen to the sermons from my charismatic Anglican church (I recommend the recent series on Acts by Mones Farah), or Adrian Warnock’s sermons (which I admit I haven’t listened to myself). Listen and then tell us if these are really “aimed at working directly on the emotions … sheer psychological manipulation“.

I am sure that Adrian and I, as well as very many other charismatics, would agree on teaching that Christians need a proper balance between the Spirit and the Word, avoiding both the over-emphasis on the Spirit of your caricature charismatics and the over-emphasis on the Word of many cessationists. This is the main point I was trying to make in my own recent posting on Bible deists, especially the final passage quoted from the former cessationist Jack Deere who, it seems to me, has now found something like the right balance.

I am repeating these comments here for a clearer record, in other words so that Dan cannot just delete them if he can’t answer them, and also to bring others into this discussion.

Bible Deists

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I have just finished reading Surprised by the Voice of God by Dr Jack Deere, from which I quoted in my posting God is Testing Our Availability. In this book Deere, a pastor and once a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, explains how he moved from the position that God speaks only through the Bible to an expectation that God speaks to his people today, if only they will listen to him.

The chapter which struck me most is called Confessions of a Bible Deist (chapter 17). This relates to some of the themes I explored in my series The Scholarly and Fundamentalist Approaches to the Bible, and especially in Part 6: Conclusions.

For some of you I may need to explain first that a deist is someone who believes that God made the universe but since then has stood back and let it get on on its own. They are perhaps the scoffers of whom Peter prophesied that they would say: “everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation” (2 Peter 3:4, TNIV). It should be clear to all that this is not at all the Christian perspective, although some deists outwardly conform to Christianity. Deism was well known in the 18th century (many of the founding fathers of the USA were deists), and it is still common today. Freemasonry is in fact fundamentally a deistic religion, although its incompatibility with Christianity is made clear only to those who get into it deeply. Deere notes that the 18th century deists worshipped human reason, and it seems to be true today at least that deists give a higher place to human reason than to divine revelation.

Some Christians today, although not quite deists, hold to what is in practice an almost deistic position, that since the days of Jesus and the apostles God has let the world get on on its own, and will intervene again only at the end of time. Some who hold this kind of position are theological liberals. But others are what Deere calls “Bible deists”. Deere describes them as follows (pp. 251-253) (emphasis in all of these quotes is as in the original):

The Bible deists of today worship the Bible. Bible deists have great difficulty separating Christ and the Bible. Unconsciously in their minds the Bible and Christ merge into one entity. Christ cannot speak or be known apart from the Bible. …Bible deists preach and teach the Bible rather than Christ. They do not understand how it is possible to preach the Bible without preaching Christ. Their highest goal is the impartation of biblical knowledge. …

The Bible deist talks a lot about the sufficiency of Scripture. For him [PK: what about her? – but then most Bible deists don’t let women teach Scripture] the sufficiency of Scripture means that the Bible is the only way God speaks to us today. … Although the Bible deist loudly proclaims the sufficiency of Scripture, in reality, he is proclaiming the sufficiency of his own interpretation of the Scripture. Bible deists aren’t alone in this error. …

So it is extremely difficult for Bible deists to concede that they themselves might be presently holding an erronoeus interpretation. They refer to their opponents’ interpretations as “taken out of context,” or as a failure to apply consistent hermeneutical principles. Or, in some cases, where they have little respect for their opponents, they chalk up their opponents’ views to just plain sloppy thinking. …

The Bible deist is so confident in the sufficiency of his interpretation that it is difficult for him to be corrected by experience.

How does Deere know about Bible deists? Because he used to be one, as he admits. (So was I, for my first few years as a Christian before I experienced the power of the Holy Spirit – but that story needs to wait for another time.) Deere notes (pp. 254-255):

I had another motive for being a Bible deist and resisting subjective revelatory experiences. I wanted to preserve the unique authority of the Bible. I was afraid that if any form of divine communication other than the Bible were allowed, we would weaken the Bible’s authority and eventually be led away from the Lord. …

My heart was filled with fear of God – not the biblical fear of God, but a fear of intimacy with him. I wanted a personal relationship with God, but I didn’t want an intimate one. …

So I decided that my primary relationship would be to a book, not to a Person. … With Bible deism, I could be in control.

Deere goes on to say (p. 257):

One of the most serious flaws in Bible deism is the confidence the Bible deist places in his abilities to interpret the Bible. He assumes that the greater his knowledge of the Bible, the more accurate his interpretations are. This follows logically from a hermeneutical axiom the Bible deist often quotes: The Bible is the key to its own interpretation. In other words, the Bible interprets the Bible the best. Wrong! It takes more than the Bible to interpret the Bible.The Author of the Bible is the best interpreter of the Bible. In fact, he is the only reliable interpreter.

And if the Spirit’s illumination is the key to interpreting the Bible, isn’t the Bible deist’s confidence in his own interpretive abilities arrogant and foolhardy? How does one persuade God to illumine the Bible? Does God give illumination to the ones who know Hebrew and Greek the best? To the ones who read and memorize Scripture the most? What if the condition of one’s heart is more important for understanding the Bible than the abilities of one’s mind? Is it possible that the illumination of the Holy Spirit to understand Scripture might be given on a basis other than education or mental abilities?

I could quote a lot more of this, but better still you should read the book. I will summarise just one more section. Deere looks at the story of the Emmaus Road in Luke 24, and concludes (pp. 263-264):

During dinner, “their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?’ ” (vv. 31-32). God supernaturally “opened” the disciples’ eyes to recognize Jesus. He wasn’t making dumb people smart. He was letting these two disciples see who the Lord Jesus really was. …Unless the Lord Jesus opens our eyes, we will never really see him. The disciples used the same word whenever they said that Jesus “opened the Scriptures to us.” Unless Jesus opens the Scriptures, we will miss much of their truth. We can read and memorize the Bible without Jesus. We can teach the Bible without him. But our hearts will never burn with passion until he becomes our teacher and enters into the interpretive process with us.

Now it seems to me that Bible deists include both those who use the fundamentalist approach to the Bible and those who use the scholarly approach. What they have in common is that they reject the role of the Holy Spirit in interpreting and applying the Bible to contemporary life. Some of them are cessationists, as defined in The Scholarly and Fundamentalist Approaches to the Bible, Part 6: Conclusions, but there may be others who accept some gifts of the Holy Spirit but do not in practice accept that he speaks today to guide in the interpretation of Scripture.

It seems to me that Bible deists are missing out on a huge amount of what it means to be a Christian. For it seems that, while they may assert that the have a relationship with God, they are missing out on the real benefits of such a relationship, the intimacy in which we not only speak to God but hear him speaking to us. Well, that is the theme of a lot of the rest of Deere’s book. I am sad for what Bible deists miss out on for themselves. But they can also do real harm to others, for as Deere writes at the end of this chapter (p. 268):

When someone thinks they have mastered the Bible, or mastered it relative to others in their circle, they inevitably become corrupted through the pride of knowledge. Remember, “knowledge puffs up” (1 Cor. 8:1). … Instead of operating as the sword of the Spirit, the Bible in the hands of the Bible deist becomes the bludgeon of the bully. They use the authority gained by their superior knowledge of the Bible to bully the less knowledgeable.

To this I would add only that sometimes this supposedly superior knowledge of the Bible is in fact very superficial, of the fundamentalist kind in which verses are wrenched out of context. Even where lip service is paid to Hebrew and Greek it is clear that the interpretation is in fact dependent on a misleading English translation.

Let me finish with the following from Deere, which is more or less the end of his book (p. 358):

Somewhere along the way, though, the church has encouraged a silent divorce between the Word and the Spirit. Divorces are painful, both for the children and the parents. One parent usually gets custody of the children, and the other only gets to visit occasionally. It breaks the hearts of the parents, and the children are usually worse off because of the arrangement. Many in the church today are content to live with only one parent. They live with the Word, and the Spirit only has limited visiting rights. He just gets to see and touch the kids once in a while. Some of his kids don’t even recognize him any more. Some have become afraid of him. Others in the church live with the Spirit and only allow the Word sporadic visits. The Spirit doesn’t want to raise the kids without the Word. He can see how unruly they’re becoming, but he won’t force them to do what they must choose with their hearts.So the church has become a divided family growing up with separate parents. One set of kids is proud of their education, and the other set of kids is proud of their freedom. Both think they’re better than the other.

The parents are brokenhearted. Because unlike most divorces, they didn’t choose this divorce. Their kids did. And the Word and the Spirit have had to both honor and endure that choice.