The Crown of Life

Dan Corner

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The Crown Of Life Relates To The Believer's Security

The crown of life is one of three spiritual crowns specifically mentioned in the New Testament. The three spiritual crowns are the crown of righteousness, the crown of glory and the crown of life. The crown of life is the most significant one to study in conjunction with our raging controversy regarding the believer's security because of its usage in Rev. 2:10, one of the only two times it is mentioned by name in the Bible. Rev. 2:10,11 say:

Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you THE CROWN OF LIFE. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.

Little Known Facts About The Crown Of Life

The eternal security errant position regarding the crown of life is concisely presented by H. A. (Henry Allen) Ironside in the booklet, "Eternal Security," published by Loizeaux Brothers:

A crown of life is not salvation; it is reward. There are five crowns ... the crown of life for those who suffer for Christ; .... I might lose all of those crowns and yet not lose my salvation. The Word says, 'If any man's work shall be burned .... he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire' (1 Corinthians 3:15). But I do not want to be saved that way. I want to win the crown of life. 'Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life' (pp. 42,43, bold emphasis mine).

Crown Of Life or Second Death

Close examination of Rev. 2:10,11 reveals the following: (1) Persecution is a "test." (2) To "be faithful, even to the point of death" refers to enduring painful persecution, as a Christian, without disowning Christ. See also Jn. 15:19,20 and 2 Tim. 3:12. (3) While Rev. 2:10 shows what we receive by being FAITHFUL TO THE POINT OF DEATH, verse 11 shows what we miss -- namely being hurt by the "second death." Conversely, if we are NOT faithful to the point of death we will not get the crown of life AND we will also be hurt by the second death! It's one or the other!

Second Death

The next issue that should be settled is, WHAT IS THE "SECOND DEATH"? The following two references both clearly identify the "SECOND DEATH" as one and the same as THE LAKE OF FIRE:

Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. (Rev 20:14)

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. (Rev 21:8)

Now, getting back to Rev. 2:10,11, if we receive the crown of life by being faithful to the very end of our lives we will miss being hurt by the lake of fire, the place where all unsaved people go (Rev. 20:14,15)! There will be NO saved people in this place! To be saved means, for the most part, to be delivered from the lake of fire! Hence, the crown of LIFE will be given to all of the saved. It is NOT a "reward" that only some of the saved will get! The apparel for ALL of the overcomers, therefore, is a clean, white, linen robe (Rev. 6:11; 19:8) and the crown of life. While only some of the redeemed will possess the crown of righteousness and the crown of glory, ALL of the saved will possess the crown of life! The crown of life is specifically mentioned just one other time in the Bible, that is at James 1:12:

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive THE CROWN OF LIFE that God has promised to those that love him.

Get The Details About The Overcomers Did You Know God Tests Us

More Observations About The Crown Of Life

Observations from James 1:12 are: (1) This life is a "test." If we "persevere," which is equated with passing the test, we will ALL receive the crown of life. (2) Those that receive the crown of life are one and the same as those that love God. Now let's interject a correlating verse from James 2:5:

... Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

Logically, we can now say the following:

All who love God inherit the kingdom of God (James 2:5).

All who love God receive the crown of life (James 1:12).

Therefore, ALL who inherit the kingdom of God receive the crown of life.

These Biblical passages refute the teaching that the crown of life is a "reward" that only some will receive. The truth is, all who inherit the kingdom of God receive the crown of life. This is important, for one must also be faithful to the point of death to get it (Rev. 2:10,11). This is what the eternal security teachers refuse to proclaim, for it denounces their position of ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED by stating such for salvation! This means those that start off faithful, but don't endure, won't receive the crown of life or inherit the kingdom of God. Furthermore, the same will be hurt by the second death!

Endure Till The End and Get The Crown Of Life

By the way, there are other verses which are much clearer than Rev. 2:10 which show that we must endure or remain faithful to the "end" of our lives to enter the kingdom! They are:

All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm TO THE END will be saved (Matt. 10:22);

We have come to share in Christ IF we hold firmly TILL THE END the confidence we had at first (Heb. 3:14).

Remember: for final salvation (as well as receiving the crown of life) one must remain faithful to the end and love God. That is the Biblical message, like it or not. Will you receive the crown of life?

By The Numbers - The Untold Story of Muslim Opinions

AMERICAN MUSLIMS CELEBRATE ON 9/11

TRUTH – The New Hate Speech

15 December

By dr. bohdi sanders

TRUTH – The New Hate Speech

I have seen many people calling Donald Trump racist and just ripping him apart for nothing more than being honest and telling the truth. The truth is – The U.S. ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT allow anymore Muslims into the U.S. until we figure out how to PROPERLY distinguish between fundamental or radical Muslims and those who want to assimilate into our culture. Those who do not want to assimilate into our culture, should not be allowed to immigrate to our country. And this goes for ANYONE, not just Muslims.

If someone wants to come to the United States, that person and his family should be 100% ready to be an American, including learning to speak English, supporting American values, and being willing to accept, and be a part of, our culture. If someone is not willing to do these things, then they should not be considered a viable choice to immigrate to the U.S.

We used to know these things. President Theodore Roosevelt stated, “Every immigrant who comes here should be required, within five years, to learn English or leave the country.” This statement came from one of the greatest presidents we have ever had. But just think how the establishment today would respond if Donald Trump were to make a statement like that. He would be called racist, small-minded and un-American. He would have those who have no respect for the 1st Amendment, call for him to be banned from the debates or from being able to speak in public.

If you doubt what I am saying, just consider this – There are several mayors who are calling for Trump to be banned from their cities because of his beliefs. There are “highly intelligent” college students, (yes, I am being facetious) today who are calling for Trump to be censured and banned from their campuses. Politicians and media are calling for Trump to step out of the presidential race because he is willing to be too honest for their taste. They call his views un-American.

If you want to know what is truly un-American, I will tell you. It is truly un-American to try to limit someone’s freedom of speech because you don’t agree with, or don’t like, what he is saying. It is un-American to try to ban someone from expressing his opinion. It is un-American for the American media to refuse to cover the news in a straight-forward, unbiased way, and instead becoming seedy talk show hosts which promote only their own views and try to destroy one candidate or the other, because they disagree with his views. It is un-American for our media to play favorites and try to influence the American voters with half-truths and outright lies. It is un-American for college students to try to ban another American from their campus because they disagree with his beliefs.

This is what is going on today. Our media is corrupt and bias. They view you as nothing more than sheep that need to be guided. They think you are too dumb to make hear the news and make up your own mind about what you have heard; so they edit the news for you and tell you what you should think. They see the average American as uneducated and simple-minded; so instead of giving you the news, they try to tell you what to think, what is right, who to support, and who you should never listen to. THIS is un-American! You are being played!

Censorship is wrong. It is used for two purposes – to limit your choices and to influence your thinking. In short, the media, the celebrities, and the politicians tell you what to think. They all see themselves as so much intelligent, more educated, and more enlightened than you, that they have a responsibility to influence how you think, because you are not intelligent enough to think for yourself. This brings us back to the Muslim immigration issue.

Trump is absolutely right. Instead of trying to be politically correct, he is courageous enough to tell the truth, to put his true beliefs out there and allow the American people to decide. He is not the one that is trying to censure what you hear or tell you what to believe. He is standing alone against the Republican establishment, the Democratic establishment, the corrupt media who wants to be your keeper, the Middle East countries who have come out against him, CAIR (which is label a terrorist organization by the way), the politicians who have gotten us into this mess to start with, and all of the other organizations which have attacked him.

He is willing to be honest with you, straight-forward and politically incorrect, and is being attacked from every side because of it. And, do you want to know what the kicker is? Trump is right! We should not allow Syrian immigrants into our country and we should absolutely put a temporary ban on Muslims immigrants until we can figure out how to really weed out the fundamentalists and radicals. He is right about the southern border. He is right about our politicians and their abilities to deal with other countries. He is right about our politicians being bought. Hey, I worked in politics; I can back up this fact myself. I have seen how the political games work.

But those who are in control of this country do no want to lose their power. They want to remain in control no matter what. And to my astonishment, the sheep keep voting them back into power. Congress has a 90% disapproval rating and, get this, a 90% RE-RELECTION RATE! I hate to tell you, but THIS IS ON YOU, THE AMERICAN VOTER.

It is time to take off the blinders. For the first time in my lifetime, you are being offered a legitimate choice to break away from the political stranglehold that the political establishments and the media have over your life. I strongly recommend that you take that chance, because you may never get another one.

It seems that the strongest attacks on Trump have been because of his views on temporarily banning Islamic immigration to the U.S., but he is absolutely right. Don’t believe me, or Trump? There are 100’s of millions of fundamental and radical Muslims who are dangerous to our country and our way of life. Here is a wonderful video put together by a PRACTICING MUSLIM who is willing to give you the truth and back it up with specific numbers. If you really want to know the truth about the Islamic threat involved in continuing to be politically correct when it comes to Islam, then watch  the above video.

DO YOU WANT TO SEE EVIDENCE OF GOD'S POWER AND GLORY OPERATING IN THE WORLD TODAY? THEN GO TO THE LINK BELOW:

Surprised by the Power of the Spirit

by Dr. Jack Deere

2 Timothy 3:5
"having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people".

Were Miracles Meant to Be Temporary?

No one ever just picked up the Bible, started reading, and then came to the conclusion that God was not doing signs and wonders anymore and that the gifts of the Holy Spirit had passed away. The doctrine of cessationism did not originate from a careful study of the Scriptures. The doctrine of cessationism originated in experience.
The failure to see miracles in one’s own experience and to locate them in past history required an explanation. How do you explain an absence of miracles in your experience when the New Testament is filled with miracles? There are essentially three possibilities. First, there is something wrong with your experience. Second, God has withdrawn miracles because he only intended them to serve temporary purposes. Third, the answer is locked in divine mystery, like the mystery of election or predestination. The first answer would lead you to expect the miraculous when your experience was corrected. The second answer wouldn’t lead you to expect the miraculous at all. The third answer leaves the question open.
As far as I know, no one has ever really attempted to argue for answer three. Since the days of the Reformation, many Protestant theologians have argued for answer two, that the gifts were only temporary in nature. The Reformers had two major reasons for formulating and systematizing theological arguments against contemporary miracles. First, their enemies, the Catholics, appealed to Catholic miracles in support of Catholic doctrine. In effect they said, "We have miracles that show God approves of our doctrine. Furthermore, we have a long history of miracles stretching back to New Testament times. What miracles can you point to that show that God approves of your doctrine?" This attack led the Reformers both to deny the validity of Catholic miracles, past and present, and to formulate theological arguments against contemporary miracles.
But I believe that was not the major reason that the Reformers attempted to use the Scriptures to argue against contemporary miracles. I believe the major reason was their lack of experience of the miraculous. Had they witnessed noteworthy miracles, they would never have attempted to argue that miracles were meant to be temporary.
Thus the Reformers were confronted with a choice: was their lack of experience of the miraculous due to a defect in their experience or to a divinely planned obsolescence of miracles? They chose to believe the latter. They now had the monumental task before them of explaining why God would be so liberal in giving miracles to the first-century church and so stingy with miracles in the centuries that followed. The trick was to prove that miracles were meant only to serve temporary purposes in the first century But how could they prove that?
They essentially had three ways of proving this. The first, and by far the best, was specific biblical statements that God intended miracles to be temporary. The second was theological deduction. This way of arguing is not as strong as specific statements of the Bible, but it is a valid way of proving doctrines. The third line of proof was experience. They could draw conclusions from their own experience or from the experience of others in past history. Thus they could examine the preceding 1,300 years of church history to see if there was firm evidence of the gifts of the Spirit among Christians in the preceding centuries.
The argument from experience is, without a doubt, the weakest of the three kinds of arguments. When we examine past history, we often cannot be sure of the facts or the interpretation of those facts. Moreover, when we look at our own experience we may know the facts but not the reason for the facts. We may know, for example, that we are depressed but not know why we are depressed. Did we do something to bring on the depression? Is it a result of circumstances beyond our control? Thus, even when we can accurately ascertain the facts, we may not understand the reason for those facts.
The Reformers left no doubt which of three kinds of arguments they valued above all the others. Sola Scriptura ("only the Scripture’) was one of the great battle cries of the Reformation. Yet here they faced not only a formidable obstacle but an insurmountable obstacle, for they could not produce one specific text of Scripture that taught that miracles or the spiritual gifts were confined to the New Testament period. Nor has anyone else since then been able to do that.
Having been deprived of the most powerful weapon in their arsenal, specific statements of Scripture, the Reformers were forced to appeal to theological deductions. But how were they ever going to deduce that miracles were intended to be temporary from a book that begins with miracles, persists in miracles, and ends with miracles?
THE PRIMARY CESSATIONIST ARGUMENT
Here is how they did it. The Reformers argued that the primary purpose of New Testament miracles was to authenticate the apostles as trustworthy authors of Holy Scripture. How would this argument prove that miracles were temporary? Because after the apostles had written the New Testament, miracles would have fulfilled their purpose and would no longer be necessary, for now the church would possess forever the miraculously attested written Word of God. This remains the primary argument among modern cessationists.
It would be useless for cessationists to prove that the primary purpose of miracles was to authenticate Jesus. If that were true, then there would be no explanation for why the apostles did miracles. If the primary purpose of miracles was to authenticate the Lord Jesus as the Son of God, why did the apostles have to do miracles? Why couldn’t they just talk about the miracles that Jesus did, as many preachers do today?
Nor can cessationists say that the major purpose of the miraculous was to authenticate the message about Jesus. If that were true, they would have no explanation for why miracles were not still needed to authenticate the message about Jesus. In other words, if the first-century generation of new converts needed miraculous authentication of the gospel message, why wouldn’t the succeeding generations of potential converts need that same miraculous authentication of the message?
The only defensible position is to maintain that miracles authenticated the apostles. If someone asks why only the apostles needed authentication for their witness to be credible and not the succeeding generations of witnesses, the cessationists have an answer ready at hand. The apostles were not just any witnesses. They were unique in that they were the writers of Holy Scripture. Therefore, more would be required to give them credibility than any other witnesses in history. So the purpose of miracles was not simply to authenticate the apostles as reliable witnesses to Jesus. Miracles showed them to be trustworthy teachers of doctrine and ultimately authenticated them as the divinely accredited human authors of Scripture. In practical terms this means that the real purpose of miracles was to authenticate or confirm the Scriptures. Once they had written the Scriptures, miracles would no longer be necessary, for now the church would possess the written Word of God.
In order to make their case, cessationists have to prove two things. First, they have to show that miracles authenticated the apostles. Second, they have to demonstrate that this was the primary purpose of miracles. If it could be shown that miracles did not authenticate the apostles or that there were other equally important purposes behind miracles or the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, then their whole case collapses.
Like most people in my theological circles [Deere is an ex-Dallas Seminary professor, and as such, signed the Dallas theological position of cessationism and dispensationalism, until he felt he could no longer do so, and was forced to leave], I had accepted the cessationists’ explanation of the purpose of miracles, especially as it received its formulation in Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield’s Counterfeit Miracles. Like other fundamentalists, I was sure that I believed this because it was what the Scriptures taught.
When I look back on that period of my life, I know that I did not believe this because the Scriptures taught it. I believed it because I hadn’t seen any miracles, and I needed a biblical justification for my lack of experience. That twenty-minute phone call [recorded earlier in his book as a profound changing point in his spiritual journey] with Dr. White led me to examine the cessationists’ argument with a much more open mind. This time I found the argument to have about as much strength as a sparrow in a hurricane. What I thought was my strongest argument against the contemporary ministry of miraculous gifts turned out to be my "strongest weakness."
After my first conversation with Dr. White, I was determined to look up every reference to healing and miracles in the New Testament to see exactly what it said about the purpose of miracles. I had never done that before! What I found convinced me that healing and miracles were not meant to be temporary.
A CLOSER LOOK AT MIRACLES
The first thing I noticed was that there are very few direct statements in the New Testament regarding the purposes of miracles. I never found a statement to the effect that "God gave miracles in order to . . ." I discovered that the purpose of miracles is sometimes indicated by "function" words accompanying the miracles themselves. Mark, for example, says that miracles "confirm" (Mark 16:20). John says that they "testify" (John 5:36). Peter says that Jesus was "accredited" by miracles (Acts 2:22). At other times the purpose of a miracle must often be inferred from the context or from the results of the miracle.
One clear purpose of miracles was to authenticate the character of Jesus and his relationship with his heavenly Father. In this regard, miracles demonstrate the following: God is with Jesus (John 3:2); Jesus is from God (John 3:2; 9:32-33); God has sent Jesus (John 5:36); Jesus has authority on earth to forgive sins (Mark 2:10-11; Matt. 9:6-7; Luke 5:24-25); Jesus is approved by God (Acts 2:22); the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father (John 10:37-38; 14:11); in Jesus the kingdom of God has come (Matt. 12:28; Luke 11:20); and Jesus is the Messiah (Matt. 11:1-6; Luke 7:18-23) and the Son of God (Matt. 14:25-33).
A second purpose of miracles was to authenticate the message about Jesus. This was the major function of the miracles as far as the ministry of the apostles was concerned. Mark says that the Lord "confirmed his word [that the apostles preached] by the signs that accompanied it" (Mark 16:20).4 When Luke was describing the ministry of Paul and Barnabas at Iconium, he said that the Lord "confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders" (Acts 14:3). Notice that in both of these texts the Lord does not confirm the apostles themselves but rather "his word" or "the message" that the apostles were preaching. Signs and wonders do not testify to the apostles but to the message of salvation preached by the apostles. So the two principal things that are authenticated by miracles are the Lord Jesus and the message about the Lord Jesus.
When I looked up all of these references, I was astounded to discover that not one reference ever said that miracles bore witness to the apostles, confirmed the apostles, or attested to the apostles. In short, miracles do not authenticate the apostles! And if we think about the theology of the New Testament, this makes perfect sense. With the coming of Jesus Christ, God wants all attention directed to his Son. The primary task of the Holy Spirit is to exalt Jesus Christ. God is not interested in bearing witness to his servants but rather to his Son and the message about his Son.
The Argument from 2 Corinthians 12:12
Sometimes people appeal to 2 Corinthians 12:12 as a text that seems to say that signs and wonders authenticate the apostles. The translation of the NIV does give that impression: "The things that mark an apostle - signs, wonders and miracles - were done among you with great perseverance." This translation, however, is inaccurate. A literal translation is, "The signs of an apostle were performed among you in all endurance with signs and wonders and miracles."
In this passage Paul uses "sign" (semeion) in two different ways. The first use of "sign" in the phrase "signs of an apostle" cannot refer to miracles, for then Paul would be saying that "the miracles of an apostle were done among you with signs and wonders and miracles." What would be the point of such a statement? Paul does not say that "the signs of an apostle" are miracles, but rather that "the signs of an apostle" are accompanied by signs, wonders, and miracles. If Paul had meant that the signs of his apostleship were signs and wonders and miracles, then he would have used a different construction in the Greek language.
What then were the signs of Paul’s apostleship? In contrast to the false apostles (2 Cor. 11:13-15), Paul appeals to his suffering as a vindication of his apostleship (2 Cor. 11:16-33, cf. Gal. 6:17; 1 Cor. 4:9-13; 2 Cor. 6:3-10). Hughes suggests that Paul’s blameless life was a sign of his apostleship. Plummer suggests that the effectiveness of Paul’s preaching, that is, the many conversions among those to whom Paul preached, was also a sign of his apostleship. In addition to these signs, Martin adds the call of God (1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1). According to Martin, since miracles can be counterfeited by false apostles,




Paul is insisting in 12:12a that such signs are not the primary criterion for deciding whether or not a person is an apostle. Instead, he is suggesting that the true signs of apostleship - his life and ministry - are the signs that matter the most. . . . To say that "signs and wonders and mighty works" are the primary signs of apostleship goes against Paul’s teachings of chaps. 1113 (as well as chaps. 1-9).I agree with Martin’s conclusion that "the works of Paul (in 12:12b) are the workings of, and not the proof for, his authentic apostleship."When I really began to ponder the idea that the miracles were given to authenticate the apostles and their ministry, I saw that it was not only unscriptural but illogical. If the primary purpose of signs and wonders and miracles was to confirm the apostles, then why did Stephen and Philip do signs and wonders? If someone says that it was because the apostles laid hands on Stephen and Philip, that doesn’t really answer the question. If the primary purpose of miracles was to authenticate the apostles, then why did any one else have a ministry of signs and wonders or miracles? Why did God give gifts of healing and miracles to the church? (1 Cor. 12:7-10; Gal. 3:5). I have never read or heard of a sufficient answer to that question.
There is yet another serious problem with this whole argument. Let’s review a point made earlier: If Jesus’ miracles were sufficient to authenticate him as the Son of God and to authenticate his message, why did the apostles have to do miracles? The standard reply is that the apostles had to do miracles to show that they were trustworthy witnesses to Jesus Christ and trustworthy teachers of doctrine. But why couldn’t they just preach about the miracles as much of the church does today? Can’t we be regarded as trustworthy witnesses today without doing miracles? If we can, then why did the apostles need miracles? The Reformers replied that the apostles were more than just witnesses, they were inspired writers of inerrant Scripture. Miracles were necessary to confirm their writings as Scripture. This is the assumption lying at the bottom of the whole argument, but is it a biblical assumption? Were miracles necessary to confirm the Scriptures?
Does the Authority of Scripture Rest on Miracles?
None of the writers of Scripture ever appealed to miracles to support their claims that they were writing Scripture. They certainly knew that they were writing Scripture. For instance, Paul wrote, "If anybody thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command" (1 Cor. 14:37, cf. 1 Thess. 4:15). However, Paul did not appeal to the miracles in his ministry to support the fact that he was writing Scripture. Nor did Peter, when he referred to Paul’s writings as Scripture (2 Pet. 3:16).
No text of Scripture says that the authority of Scripture rests on miracles! In reality, it is just the opposite. Scripture tests miracles, but miracles are not a test for Scripture. Moses made this plain long ago. He warned the people that if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams gave them a sign or a wonder, and it came to pass, they were to ignore that miracle if it contradicted what had already been revealed to them (Deut. 13:1-5). If the primary function of miracles was to confirm Scripture, how would anyone judge the miracles of false prophets (Matt. 7:15-23), false christs and their prophets (Matt. 24:24), or the Antichrist (2 Thess. 2:9)?
This theory is also inconsistent with the actual character of the canon of Scripture. We have authors of Scripture who were not apostles and who never did any recorded miracles! These include Mark, Luke, and Jude (the brother of the Lord who wrote the letter of Jude). The book of Hebrews is even anonymous! All of these writers were non-apostles, and none of them have recorded miracles. Do these books have less authority than Paul’s letters? If the authority of Scripture rests on miracles done by its authors, then these writings would of necessity have less authority.
If those who hold this theory respond that Luke was a friend or a partner with Paul in ministry, and that is why his writing is to be viewed as inspired, then they would have to abandon the idea that miracles were needed to confirm Scripture. They would have to add a new criterion for canonicity: friendship or partnership with the apostles. This criterion for canonicity also lacks any direct scriptural support. If they argue that Peter commissioned Mark to write the gospel of Mark, they are now relying on tradition rather than Scripture itself. That puts them in the awkward place of having tradition establish the authority of Scripture rather than Scripture being our ultimate authority.
In any case, we have five works that constitute a very large portion of Scripture - the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, the book of Acts, the letter of Jude, and the book of Hebrews that cannot be explained by the theory that miracles were necessary to authenticate the Bible.
Orthodox theology has long held that the authority of Scripture does not rest on miracles. The authority of Scripture rests on its Author. Although there may be a number of factors that help to convince us of the authority of Scripture, we are ultimately persuaded of its authority by the inward testimony of the Holy Spirit.
Were Miracles Needed to Launch the Church?
Some people teach that miracles were necessary for the gospel message to gain a hearing in the first century They see the miracles and healings of Jesus and the apostles as a sort of rocket booster to get the church "launched" and to get the gospel message an audience. Later, after the church was established and the gospel message had a place among other world religions, then the rocket booster could be jettisoned without any great loss to the church.
Thomas Edgar expresses this view when he writes,




The beginning Church was in a different situation from that of the Church after the first century. By the end of the first century the Church and Christianity were established in the major centers of the known world . . . The initial stages of Christianity, however, had no background from the human perspective. The message was unusual and astounding. A man executed in a very small country was presented as the Son of God, who came to die for all men; to those who trusted in Him, God would surely by grace forgive their sins. Few people outside Israel had ever heard of Jesus. He died before the Church was established. He was executed after a brief career. Such facts at least show the difficulty faced by the early evangelists. Who could accept such a message?
However, the miraculous sign gifts put this whole message in a different perspective, since the miracles were evidence that the message was from God. The situation since the first century has never been the same. Missionaries going to jungle areas are referring to an individual with a reputation in the world, to a recognized religion and religious Figure, as far as the world is concerned. These missionaries come from groups of believers in countries where this religion is prevalent. It may be considered helpful by many to have miraculous confirmation of this gospel today. This may or may not be true, since full and well-testified confirmation has already been given by Christ and the apostles and is still ignored by those who live in countries where it is well known. There can be little doubt, however, that the need for confirmation at the beginning was greater than the need for this today.In other words, the infant church needed miracles to help it grow up, but the mature church no longer needs them. This argument has a contradiction in it which Edgar does not attempt to resolve. If the church in the first century needed miracles for its growth and extension, why would it not need them in the twentieth century? If miracles were beneficial to the church then, why not now? Long ago Warfield charged that this explanation was unscriptural. Indeed, during his whole discussion Edgar does not cite one verse of Scripture to support his theory. Warfield also pointed out that this line of reasoning was illogical and ridiculed it as "helpless."Edgar’s explanation is also false because it substitutes worldly recognition for God’s power. Edgar maintains that after Christianity "had become a recognized group with some reputation" (emphasis mine), it no longer needed the power of miracles. Who would want to trade the miraculous power of God for worldly reputation? Warfield answered a slightly different form of this theory when he wrote, "When the protection of the strongest power on earth was secured [i.e., the Roman empire] the idea seemed to be the power of God was no longer needed." Where in the Scriptures can anyone find support for such an idea?
Finally, there is something else in this argument that is troubling to me. I have already stated that one of the legitimate functions of the miracles of the Lord and the apostles was to authenticate or testify to Jesus and the message about him. But were miracles evernecessary in order for people to believe in the gospel? Edgar writes as though they were, at least in the beginning of the church. Why? According to Edgar the historical obscurity and novelty of the gospel message seemed to have required miracles to prove it. He asks, "Who could accept such a message?"
This is dangerously close to demeaning the inherent power of the gospel message. Surely the gospel which "is the power of God for salvation" was sufficient apart from miracles. Surely God did not have to do miracles in order to achieve his ends.
The greatest miracle in the world is that God loves us and his Son died for us. His love for us is, and forever will remain, an inexplicable mystery. The most amazing supernatural event ever to occur was the incarnation and then the death of the eternal Son in the place of sinful humanity, followed by his bodily resurrection. Surely the greatest wonder is that by faith alone in Jesus Christ we receive the gift of eternal life. Surely the greatest power any human will ever know is the power of the cross of Jesus Christ. Through the cross we not only have forgiveness but also access into God’s glorious presence.
The power of Christ’s death is so great that no Christian has to live under any moral bondage. No Christian has to be at the mercy of lust, anger, sin, fear, death, or Satan. Surely this good news is the greatest news that has ever been given. Surely this message is greater than any miracles accompanying it. Surely the gospel is capable of capturing the hearts of people without requiring any accompanying miracles!
When I was seventeen years old and committed to rebellion, my heart was completely captured by Jesus when I heard a friend tell me about the inexplicable grace of the gospel. I knew nothing of the rest of the New Testament, nothing of the other miracles, and yet that night, December 18, 1965, at 2:00 AM, by faith alone in the Lord Jesus Christ I became a new creation. That is exactly what the apostle Paul said the gospel message would do. He wrote:




I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith" (Rom. 1:16-17).Paul had supreme confidence in the great and glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. He did not put his confidence in miracles, in human ability, or even in human godliness. This message is the most glorious message ever heard by human ears. It is the only answer to the human dilemma.Edgar says, "Who could accept such a message?" For one Lydia and her family had no trouble at all accepting this message as they heard Paul preach it without any accompanying miracles (Acts 16:14-15). In the first century the Holy Spirit was perfectly capable of producing conviction and belief without miracles (John 16:8). John the Baptist’s ministry also brought conviction and repentance, but John did no miracles (John 10:41). Even the world religions and cults have been born and are flourishing without the power of miracles. Do we seriously want to claim anything less for the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
I believe that miracles do have an authenticating function, and later I will argue that they can open wide doors for preaching the gospel and even bring people to repentance. However, the simple preaching of the gospel could do all of these things without miracles at any time in history and can still do them today. When miracles are given by God to authenticate gospel preaching, it is done on the basis of grace, not out of a divine necessity to make up for a deficiency in the gospel message. Miracles are a gracious gift from God which may serve many functions, but we should never isolate one function and view it as the ultimate and necessary purpose of miracles unless we have clear biblical evidence for doing so.
Using the Gospels & Acts to Support Miracles Today
It has been said that we cannot use the Gospels and Acts as evidence that God heals or works miracles today because they are "transition" books. Acts gives us the record of the transition from the Old Testament era to the New Testament era. Acts shows the church in its infancy, its immaturity. Therefore, we cannot determine what is supposed to be normal in church life based on the book of Acts. All we can determine is what was normal in the immaturity of the church. Above all, we cannot draw doctrine from the book of Acts-or so the argument goes. Doctrine for the church is to be drawn from the epistles of Paul.
If this argument were valid, it would actually mean that the Gospels and Acts would tell us nothing about Jesus’ attitude toward healing and miracles today. It would only reflect his attitude at the beginning of the church’s birth. This argument is false for a number of reasons.
First, theologians have always used the Gospels and Acts for doctrine. For example, since Calvin’s day Reformed theologians have been delighted to use John 6:44 and Acts 13:48 to prove the doctrine of unconditional election. Likewise, dispensationalists appeal to the Gospels and to Acts to support their dispensationalism. John 1:17 is used by dispensationalists to prove there is a clear distinction between the dispensations of law and grace. Professors of missions and evangelists regularly use the Gospels and Acts to teach doctrines of missions and evangelism. The Gospels and Acts are major sources for our doctrine of Christology They are primary sources for the study of how the New Testament uses the Old Testament. The book of Acts is also crucial in determining what we believe about church government (cf. Acts 20:17ff.). It is simply not true that we cannot use the Gospels and Acts for doctrine. Everyone does it.
What this argument really means is that we may not use the Gospels and Acts to determine doctrine about supernatural events in the life of the church today. In other words, people who use this argument are actually employing an antisupernatural hermeneutic when they read the book of Acts.
Let me explain what I mean by this and then illustrate it.
Hermeneutics is the science of interpretation. It deals with the rules of interpretation, that is, how we ought to interpret the Scriptures (or any written text, for that matter). An antisupernatural hermeneutic is a system of interpretation that eliminates the supernatural elements of the Bible. German liberal theologians such as Bultmann did this by "demythologizing" the New Testament miracles. They claimed the miracles did not occur at all; they were stories invented to give expression to myths that had been current in the ancient Near East. Conservative writers who would never dream of treating the Scriptures in this cavalier manner have another way of employing an antisupernatural hermeneutic. They have a system of reading the Bible which says that all the miracles occurred back then, but they are not meant for today.
For example, when one of my students would tell me he wanted to become a missionary and plant churches because he was inspired to do this as he read Paul’s story in the book of Acts, I would give him my blessing. I had no problem believing that God would use Paul’s story in Acts to inspire a student to become a missionary and plant churches. I thought this was a valid use of Scripture. But if that same student were to tell me that after reading the book of Acts he wanted God to use him in a healing ministry, I would have immediately corrected him. I would have told him that this was a false use of the Scripture. In other words, I employed a system of interpretation that said, "You are free to copy the nonmiraculous elements in the Gospels and Acts, but you are not free to copy the miraculous elements."
I was reading the Gospels and Acts through the lens of an antisupernatural hermeneutic. Every time I came upon a miraculous story, these lenses agreed that the story happened, but they filtered out any present-day miraculous application of that passage.
How does one justify this antisupernatural hermeneutic? Where in the Scriptures are we told to read the Bible like this? Where in the Scriptures are we given a hermeneutic that says you may copy the things that are nonmiraculous, but you cannot copy or expect the miraculous events for today?
This argument is false for a second reason. In the ancient world, especially in the ancient Near Eastern world of which the Bible is a part, the most common way to communicate theology was to tell a story. Stories were written to communicate theological doctrine. Sometimes modern writers treat the Gospels and Acts as if they were nothing more than "newspaper" accounts of what happened. They are definitely more than this; they are themselves theologies. When Luke wrote his Gospel and the book of Acts, he selected all of his material very carefully to teach definite theological truths to his audience.
This is still common today in the East. I just returned from a large conference in Singapore, and one of the pastors there told me that it was very common for one of the Chinese Christian fathers in his church to answer his child’s theological question with a story. When we think about how much both the Old and New Testament consist of narrative literature, we are forced to conclude that God also liked this method of teaching theology.
In my copy of the King James New Testament, the Gospels and Acts take up 205 pages, the Pauline Epistles 87 pages, other epistles 34 pages, and Revelation 22 pages. The Gospels and Acts make up 59 percent of the New Testament. All of the Epistles together make up 35 percent. If the argument were true that we cannot use the Gospels and Acts as sources of doctrine, that would mean we would have to discard virtually 59 percent of the New Testament as doctrinally worthless. That would give us only 35 percent of the New Testament from which to determine our doctrines!
Of course, nobody really believes this. They only mean you cannot use the Gospels and Acts to determine the relevance of miracles for the church’s present ministry, and this is a completely arbitrary decision. It is not based on the teaching of the Bible but rather on a personal prejudice.
A third reason that this argument is false is because it contradicts Scripture. The apostle Paul said that "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine[!], for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16 KJV). Paul said all Scripture - not just the Epistles but the Gospels and Acts - is profitable for teaching.
The argument contradicts Scripture in another way. At least six times in Paul’s writings he either commands Christians to follow his example as he follows Christ’s example, or he approves of those who follow his example (1 Cor. 4:16-17; 11:1; Phil. 3:17; 4:9; 1 Thess. 1:6; 2 Thess. 3:9). Paul did not make a distinction between those elements in his life that were miraculous and those that are not viewed as miraculous. Paul copied Christ. Christ had miraculous elements in his life, and so did Paul. Are we only to imitate those nonmiraculous elements in the lives of Jesus and Paul? Are they simply to be examples for moral living but not for miraculous ministry? Paul makes no such distinction when he exhorts us to imitate him.
We must remember that the only inspired record we have, or ever will have of church history is the book of Acts! This is the only period of church history where we can be absolutely sure that our record is one hundred percent accurate. It is the only period of church history where we can be absolutely certain of God’s opinion of the church’s life and ministry.
The book of Acts is the best source that we have to demonstrate what normal church life is supposed to look like when the Holy Spirit is present and working in the church. Here we find a church that has passion for God, is willing to sacrifice - even to the point of martyrdom - and is a miracle-working church. Why would we think that God wants the church to be something different today? Would anyone seriously rather have the church in Calvin’s day or the church in twentieth-century America as the model of normal church life?
Remember a point mentioned earlier: If you take a new convert, who prior to his conversion knew nothing about the history of Christianity or the New Testament, and you lock him in a room with a Bible for a week, he will come out believing that he is a member of a body that is passionately in love with the Lord Jesus Christ and a body that consistently experiences miracles and works miracles. It would take a clever theologian with no experience of the miraculous to convince this young convert differently.
Whatever purposes we assign to the miracles of the New Testament, period, we cannot say that God did them out of necessity to make up for deficiencies surrounding the initial preaching of the gospel. The healings and miracles were entirely gracious on God’s part. The gospel could have and would have been believed apart from any miracles. Nor can we say that God did miracles to authenticate the apostles or to prove the authority of Scripture.
Yet the entire New Testament - including the Gospels and Acts-reveals that God did do miracles, he did heal people, and he had important purposes for these activities.

DO YOU WANT TO SEE EVIDENCE OF GOD'S POWER AND GLORY OPERATING IN THE  WORLD TODAY? THEN GO TO THE LINK BELOW:

Shocking whirlwind appears after prayer during church service..



FOR FURTHER STUDY ON THE ERRONEOUS DOCTRINE OF CESSATIONISM  WHICH ORIGINATED WITH THE FOUNDERS OF THE REFORMATION I RECOMMEND THE FOLLOWING BOOK WRITTEN BY DR. JACK DEERE:

Evidence Proving Cessationism is a False Doctrine.

Cessationism through church history

ChristArt

Spencer D Gear

In my Contending Earnestly for the Faith[2] letter (March 2010, p. 25) I wrote that the following Christian leaders were cessationists (the gifts of the Spirit ceased when the Scriptures were complete). These include Athanasius, Luther, Calvin, Matthew Henry, C.H. Spurgeon, Charles Hodge, and a multitude of current leaders such as John Macarthur & Norman Geisler.
The editor’s note at the end of the letter stated: “I am not sure that you are quite right in labelling C. H. Spurgeon and possibly some of the others, whom you have named, as ‘cessationists’” (p. 26).
Let’s check the evidence. What did the people I mentioned believe about continuation or cessation of spiritual gifts?
John Piper, an outstanding expositor of the Scriptures from Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, MN, and founder of Desiring God Ministries, wrote: “Virtually all the great pastors and teachers of history that I admire and that have fed me over the years belong to the … group who believe that signs and wonders were only for the apostolic age (John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, Benjamin Warfield, my own father). But I am not fully persuaded by their case”.[3] This is some of the evidence of cessationism from the history of the church.

Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (north Africa) from 328 until his death in 373, was known for his tireless defense of the deity of Christ against the heresy of Arianism at the Council of Nicaea in 325. It is believed that he wrote his “Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit” while he was exiled in the desert between 356-361.[4] In those letters he wrote of “the blessed Paul who … did not divide the Trinity as you do, but taught its unity when he wrote to the Corinthians about spiritual gifts and summed them all up by referring them to the one God and Father, saying ‘there are different gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who works all of them in everyone’ (1 Cor. 12:4-6). For that which the Spirit imparts to each is provided from the Father through the Son. Everything that belongs to the Father belongs to the Son (Jn 16:15, 17:10); thus what is given by the Son in the Spirit is the Father’s gifts”.[5]

In context of his writing to Serapion, Athanasius makes no direct commitment either way to continuation or cessation that I was able to locate. However, his quoting from 1 Cor. 12:4-6, and using the present tense, “that which the Spirit imparts to each”, does not seem to point to these gifts as having ceased. However, it is by inference only. I have not been able to find a direct quote from Athanasius affirming either way.
However, another early church father, Chrysostom (347-407), a name that means “golden mouth” as he was an eloquent speaker, had a cessationist perspective. He was a contemporary of Athanasius’s later life, was Archbishop of Constantinople and defender of orthodoxy. He wrote of spiritual gifts as being obscure in his understanding. In his homily on 1 Cor. 12:1-2, He wrote, “This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place. And why do they not happen now? Why look now, the cause too of the obscurity has produced us again another question: namely, why did they then happen, and now do so no more?[6]
One of the greatest church fathers was St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo in northern Africa. He wrote that “in the earliest times, ‘the Holy Ghost fell upon them that believed: and they spake with tongues’, which they had not learned, ‘as the Spirit gave them utterance’. These were signs adapted to the time. For there behooved to be that betokening of the Holy Spirit in all tongues, to shew that the Gospel of God was to run through all tongues over the whole earth. That thing was done for a betokening, and it passed away”.[7]
In his later life, Augustine returned to a belief in the Lord’s supernatural ability to heal. I have documented this in my article, “The man who dared to change his mind about divine healing”.[8]

Martin Luther, from whom we Protestants owe a great deal in his leadership of the 16^th century Reformation. His teaching was a mixed bag concerning his statements on the gifts of the Spirit. He wrote of the continuation of gifts: “When you depart lay your hands upon the man again and say, These signs shall follow them that believe; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover‘“.[9] But he also wrote as a cessationist in his commentary on Galatians 4:1-9, “Paul explained the purpose of these miraculous gifts of the Spirit in I Corinthians 14:22, ‘Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.’ Once the Church had been established and properly advertised by these miracles, the visible appearance of the Holy Ghost ceased”.[10] Which perspective belongs to Luther’s theology?

Another leader of the Reformation, John Calvin, wrote that “the gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the new preaching of the Gospel marvelous forever… It now has nothing to do with us, to whom the administering of such powers has not been committed”.[11]
In his commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, writing of Mark 16:17[12] (“and these signs shall follow them that believe”), Calvin wrote, “When he says that believers will receive this gift, we must not understand this as applying to every one of them; for we know that gifts were distributed variously, so that the power of working miracles was possessed by only a few persons…. Though Christ does not expressly state whether he intends this gift [of miracles] to be temporary, or to remain perpetually in the Church, yet it is more probable that miracles were promised only for a time, in order to give lustre to the gospel while it was new or in a state of obscurity”.[13]
Calvin seemed somewhat arbitrary when he wrote of the gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in Ephesians 4. He believed that “only the last two [pastors and teachers] have an ordinary office in the church; the Lord raised up the first three at the beginning of his Kingdom, and now and again revives them as the need of the times demands”.[14] The functions of apostles, prophets and evangelists “were not established in the church as permanent ones, but only for that time during which churches were to be erected where none existed before, or where they were to be carried over from Moses to Christ. Still, I do not deny that the Lord has sometimes at a later period raised up apostles, or at least evangelists in their place, as has happened in our own [Reformation] day.”[15]
How would Calvin interpret John 14:12, which states: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father” (KJV)?
In his commentary on the Gospel of John, Calvin wrote of John 14:12:

“ And shall do greater works than these. Many are perplexed by the statement of Christ, that the Apostles would do greater works than he had done I pass by the other answers which have been usually given to it, and satisfy myself with this single answer. First, we must understand what Christ means; namely, that the power by which he proves himself to be the Son of God, is so far from being confined to his bodily presence, that it must be clearly demonstrated by many and striking proofs, when he is absent. Now the ascension of Christ was soon afterwards followed by a wonderful conversion of the world, in which the Divinity of Christ was more powerfully displayed than while he dwelt among men. Thus, we see that the proof of his Divinity was not confined to the person of Christ, but was diffused through the whole body of the Church.
Because I go to the Father. This is the reason why the disciples would do greater things than Christ himself. It is because, when he has entered into the possession of his kingdom, he will more fully demonstrate his power from heaven.[16]

One of the problems that I see with Calvin’s interpretation is that he makes John 14:12 as applicable only to “the Apostles”, meaning Christ’s apostles of the first century. They would see “many and striking proofs” when they no longer had Christ’s bodily presence and he had returned to the Father.
The “greater works” were spoken to the Twelve, but Philip specifically. However, John 14:12 states that ” He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also”. It does not state that the greater works would be done by the Apostles, but by “he that believeth on me”. That sounds very comprehensive and not limited to the Twelve. D. A. Carson says it well: “Jesus’ ‘works’ may include more than his miracles; they never exclude them”.[17] The “greater works” is not easy to understand as it is unlikely that Christ was referring to “more works” as though the church would do more of them, as there was a common Greek word for “more”.
It is hardly likely that “greater works” could refer to greater examples of the supernatural. What could be greater than the raising of Lazarus from the dead? The meaning seems to point to the fact that Jesus was returning to the Father and that those who believed in Jesus, the church, would become the new order through which God’s miraculous gifts would be channelled, by the Holy Spirit’s ministry. But the meaning is not crystal clear to me.

St. Augustine of Hippo, in the fifth century interpreted the “greater works” as:

“What works was He then referring to, but the words He was speaking? They were hearing and believing, and their faith was the fruit of those very words: howbeit, when the disciples preached the gospel, it was not small numbers like themselves, but nations also that believed; and such, doubtless, are greater works. And yet He said not, Greater works than these shall ye do, to lead us to suppose that it was only the apostles who would do so; for He added, “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.” Is the case then so, that he that believeth on Christ doeth the same works as Christ, or even greater than He did? Points like these are not to be treated in a cursory way, nor ought they to be hurriedly disposed of”.[18]

A theologian such as Norman Geisler gets over this difficulty with his cessationist interpretation, “Jesus did promise that miracles would continue after His time, but not after the time of the apostles. In fact, it was specifically to the apostles with Him in the Upper Room that he made His promise that they would do greater miracles than He did (John 14:12; cf. 13:5ff)”.[19]
The Encyclopedia of Religion says that “both Luther and Calvin wrote that the age of miracles was over and that their occurrence should not be expected”.[20] This is a questionable statement, based on the above information.
What of Matthew Henry (1662-1714), the British Presbyterian Bible commentator? He stated in his concise commentary on 1 Cor. 12:12-26 that “spiritual gifts were extraordinary powers bestowed in the first ages, to convince unbelievers, and to spread the gospel”.[21]
Revivalist and theologian, Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), wrote,

“The extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, such as the gift of tongues, of miracles, of prophecy, &c., are called extraordinary, because they are such as are not given in the ordinary course of God’s providence. They are not bestowed in the way of God’s ordinary providential dealing with his children, but only on extraordinary occasions, as they were bestowed on the prophets and apostles to enable them to reveal the mind and will of God before the canon of Scripture was complete, and so on the primitive Church, in order to the founding and establishing of it in the world. But since the canon of the Scripture has been completed, and the Christian Church fully founded and established, these extraordinary gifts have ceased”.[22]

Revivalist George Whitefield (1714-70) asked, “What need is there of miracles, such as healing sick bodies and restoring sight to blind eyes, when we see greater miracles done every day by the power of God’s Word?”[23]
John Owen, 17^th century British non-conformist theologian and Puritan, wrote: “Gifts which in their own nature exceed the whole power of all our faculties” [tongues, prophecy, healing powers] belong to “that dispensation of the Spirit [which] is long since ceased, and where it is now pretended unto by any, it may justly be suspected as an enthusiastical delusion”.[24]
One of the champions of cessationism was B. B. Warfield, professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, 1887-1921. He is regarded by some conservative Presbyterians as the last of the great Princeton theologians before the split of the church in 1929. In his article, “Cessation of the Charismata”, he wrote that

“the theologians of the post-Reformation era, a very clear-headed body of men, taught with great distinctness that the charismata ceased with the Apostolic age. But this teaching gradually gave way, pretty generally throughout the Protestant churches, but especially in England, to the view that they continued for a while in the post-Apostolic period, and only slowly died out like a light fading by increasing distance from its source”.[25]

C. H. Spurgeon the prominent 19^th century Baptist preacher and pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, for 38 years, wrote that

“those gifts of the Holy Spirit which are at this time vouchsafed to the church of God are every way as valuable as those earlier miraculous gifts which are departed from us… As you would certainly inquire whether you had the gifts of healing and miracle-working, if such gifts were now given to believers, much more should you inquire whether you have those more permanent gifts of the Spirit which are this day open to you all, by the which you shall work no physical miracle, but shall achieve spiritual wonders of the grander sort”.[26]

In my preparation of this article, I engaged in email discussion with my friend, Philip Powell, who alerted me to several incidents in the life of C. H. Spurgeon which indicate that he was not a cessationist. Spurgeon provided these descriptions and an explanation, as supplied by Philip Powell (I have located the following quotes from other sources):

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) was the prominent Baptist preacher in England during the 19th century, who spoke of a “sermon at Exeter Hall in which he suddenly broke off from his subject, and pointing in a certain direction, said, `Young man, those gloves you are wearing have not been paid for: you have stolen them from your employer’. At the close of the service, a young man, looking very pale and greatly agitated, came to the room, which was used as a vestry, and begged for a private interview with Spurgeon. On being admitted, he placed a pair of gloves upon the table, and tearfully said, `It’s the first time I have robbed my master, and I will never do it again. You won’t expose me, sir, will you? It would kill my mother if she heard that I had become a thief’.” (see HERE)
“On another occasion while he was preaching, Spurgeon said there was a man in the gallery who had a bottle of gin in his pocket. This not only startled the man in the gallery who had the gin, but it also led to his conversion.” (see HERE)
Spurgeon gives further examples of his prophetic ministry:
“While preaching in the hall, on one occasion, I deliberately pointed to a man in the midst of the crowd, and said, `There is a man sitting there, who is a shoemaker; he keeps his shop open on Sundays, it was open last Sabbath morning, he took nine pence, and there was four pence profit out of it; his soul is sold to Satan for four pence!’ A city missionary, when going his rounds, met with this man, and seeing that he was reading one of my sermons, he asked the question, `Do you know Mr Spurgeon?’ `Yes,’ replied the man `I have every reason to know him, I have been to hear him; and under his preaching, by God’s grace I have become a new creature in Christ Jesus. Shall I tell you how it happened? I went to the Music Hall, and took my seat in the middle of the place: Mr Spurgeon looked at me as if he knew me, and in his sermon he pointed to me, and told the congregation that I was a shoemaker, and that I kept my shop open on Sundays; and I did, sir. I should not have minded that; but he also said that I took nine pence the Sunday before, and that there was four pence profit; but how he should know that, I could not tell. Then it struck me that it was God who had spoken to my soul through him, so I shut up my shop the next Sunday. At first, I was afraid to go again to hear him, lest he should tell the people more about me; but afterwards I went, and the Lord met with me, and saved my soul.'” (See HERE)
How does Spurgeon explain this prophetic ministry?
“I could tell as many as a dozen similar cases in which I pointed at somebody in the hall without having the slightest knowledge of the person, or any idea that what I said was right, except that I believed I was moved by the Spirit to say it; and so striking has been my description that the persons have gone away, and said to their friends, `Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did; beyond a doubt, he must have been sent of God to my soul, or else he could not have described me so exactly.’ And not only so, but I have known many instances in which the thoughts of men have been revealed from the pulpit. I have sometimes seen persons nudge their neighbours with their elbow, because they had got a smart hit, and they have been heard to say, when they were going out, `The preacher told us just what we said to one another when we went in at the door.'” (See HERE)

Noted Reformed theologian and defender of the orthodox faith at Princeton Theological Seminary, Charles Hodge (1797-1878), wrote in his commentary on 1 Corinthians that “[the word of] knowledge and prophecy are to cease. They are partial or imperfect”.[27]
The contemporary, famed Bible expositor from Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, CA, John MacArthur Jr is renowned for his promotion of cessationism. In his exposé of the charismatic movement inCharismatic Chaos, he stated, “I am convinced by history, theology, and the Bible that tongues ceased in the apostolic age. And when it happened they terminated altogether. The contemporary charismatic movement does not represent a revival of biblical tongues. It is an aberration similar to the practice of counterfeit tongues at Corinth”.[28]

A leading contemporary exegete, theologian and apologist, Norman Geisler, teaches that “even though tongues are mentioned in the New Testament, it is possible that tongues are no longer for us…. Since apostles existed only in the New Testament (Acts 1:22) and since there were supernatural sign gifts given to apostles (2 Cor. 12:12), it follows that these sign gifts ceased with the apostles in the first century”.[29]
Cessationism is not a new development of the anti-charismatic movement. It has been evident throughout church history. However, there is another side to the cessationist arguments and it was provided by a very early theologian of the church.

Irenaeus was born in the first half of the second century (his birth date has been suggested between 115-125) and died towards the end of that century. As one of the first great theologians of the church, he was a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of the apostle John. Irenaeus became bishop of Lyons, Gaul (France today).
Irenaeus assures us that the supernatural gifts of the Spirit had not disappeared by the end of the second century. He wrote in a leading refutation of Gnosticism, Against Heresies (written about 180):

“Those who are in truth His disciples, receiving grace from Him, do in His name perform [miracles], so as to promote the welfare of other men, according to the gift which each one has received from Him. For some do certainly and truly drive out devils, so that those who have thus been cleansed from evil spirits frequently both believe [in Christ], and join themselves to the Church. Others have foreknowledge of things to come: they see visions, and utter prophetic expressions. Others still, heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole. Yea, moreover, as I have said, the dead even have been raised up, and remained among us for many years. And what shall I more say? It is not possible to name the number of the gifts which the Church, [scattered] throughout the whole world, has received from God, in the name of Jesus Christ”.[30]

So Irenaeus knew of the practice of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit in his day. Thus, they did not cease with the death of the Twelve and the formation of the New Testament canon of Scripture. It is estimated that the last book of the New Testament was written about AD 95-96 (the Book of Revelation). Thus, Irenaeus refutes John MacArthur’s statement that “once the Word of God was inscripturated, the sign gifts were no longer needed and they ceased”.[31] Irenaeus clearly shows the existence of sign gifts in the church over 100 years after the completion of the canon of Scripture.
Irenaeus also provided us with the earliest undisputed authority for the authorship of the four Gospels: Matthew issued his Gospel among the Hebrews; Mark was the disciple and interpreter of Peter; Luke was a companion of Paul and recorded a Gospel preached by Paul; John, a disciple of the Lord, published his Gospel while he was in Ephesus in Asia.[32]
With John Piper and Irenaeus, I am not persuaded by the arguments of the cessationists. For a defence of the continuation of the gifts of the Spirit, I recommend Jack Deere’s article, “Were miracles meant to be temporary?“[33]

 BELOW IS A VIDEO FROM SID ROTH'S PROGRAM ABOUT SPEAKING IN TONGUES

A Pastor's Thoughts from John McArthur's Strange Fire Conference by Shan...