Truth Unites - Cessationist: A Critical Evaluation of This Film

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

Gavin Ortlund offers a critical response to Cessationist, a documentary film arguing that miraculous spiritual gifts have ceased. Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

This video is going to be a response to the cessationist documentary. This is a topic I've studied a great deal, and I've worked really hard on this video, particularly, to try to make it compact and organized and hopefully helpful for people. If you find that this serves you and meets needs, please share it with others if you think it will help others as well. What we'll do is just walk through the five biggest cessationist arguments. I'll show clips from the movie for each of them, five of the biggest ones, and then I'll give a response to each of them. Cessationism, if you don't know that term, is the doctrine that the so-called miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, prophecy, healings, etc.

Seased sometime in the past, typically toward the close of the apostolic age. I'm a continuationist. That means I believe the Holy Spirit still gives miraculous spiritual gifts. Two preliminary remarks right out of the gate. First of all, cessationists are my brothers and sisters in Christ. They have the Holy Spirit. But I want to try to make that very clear. I try to take a gospel-centered approach to this topic that is respectful and courteous in how the gifts are expressed, respectful of the differences, and puts the focus on the overarching task that we have in common, which is the Great Commission, the edification of the church, promoting Christ.

My goal is that whenever we talk about spiritual gifts, the focus that people walk away with isn't spiritual gifts per se, but Christ, because spiritual gifts exist to point to him. The second preliminary remark is that there are lots of abuses and errors in relation to spiritual gifts a lot. And there's a temptation to sensationalism at times. Insofar as the film is critiquing real problems, I share those concerns and I stand against those abuses as well. But I think a continuationist position is not only the most faithful to Scripture, but it's actually best positioned to address the abuses as well. And ultimately, essentially here, I just think the arguments in this film for cessationism are deeply problematic, biblically and theologically. The five arguments I'm going to work through are what I will call the Clusters Argument, the Confirmation Argument, the Fading Out Argument, the Foundation Argument, and then the Church History Argument. And then at the end, I'll give my biggest personal grievance about how the film made its case to conclude.

So first, the clusters argument or the three clusters of miracles argument. There were intermittent times in biblical history when God directly, without the use of a person, simply performed a miracle. There were times, three of them in Scripture, when God gave to men the power to work miracles. There is, first of all, the time of Moses and Joshua, 1,400 years before Christ, a period of about 65 years. Then you fast forward to the time of Elijah and Elisha. You're about 800 years before Christ, and there again, you have a period of about 65 years when God was giving men the power to work miracles.

The next period of time like that comes in the time of Jesus and the apostles. And that stems from the beginning of his ministry to, at the very latest, the death of John. There you have another period of 65, 70 years. Those were the three epics. And in each case, it was to confirm those men as his messengers. Miracles, signs, wonders, and especially direct voice of God only occurs in three significant eras, which then was written down and inscripturated in the inspired word of God. He spoke directly to Moses.

But then Moses wrote those things down. Same thing with the prophets. God did many miraculous things, but then those were written down and became inspired scripture. Same thing with Jesus and the Apostles. Many miracles confirming that Jesus was the Son of God, but then the revelation that was given

during that transitional period is what we know today is the New Testament. And between those key eras in the progress of redemptive history, there are long periods in which God did not directly speak to people as a normal, experience, rather he expected them to trust the sufficiency of what he had written. And we are in one of those periods now where we ought to trust the confirmed word that God

has given to us, looking for that blessed hope when Jesus will come again. But we ought to not expect that God will be doing miraculous things, signs, and speaking directly from heaven because we have a sufficient word. Now, if you listen carefully, those three claims were all a little bit different in the details, but none of them are true. Scripture does not limit miracles in general or any particular kinds of miracles to those three periods. On the contrary, if you just read carefully, you see miracles happening a lot outside those three periods. As you listen to my response is one of the things that you'll notice is a lot of the problems and issues that we get into are not really matters of interpretive. They're just matters of fact and chronology.

So on this point, you know, if you just start reading through Genesis, let's exclude the creation and fall accounts. Obviously, there's lots of miracles there. And you keep reading, you've got the translation of Enoch, you've got the flood of Noah, you've got the scattering of human languages with the Tower of Babel. And then when you get into Genesis 12 and all the stories about the patriarchs, you've got lots of miracles, you've got divine appearances,

the three visitors to Abraham, Jacobs wrestling with God. You've got lots of divine speech through both dream and apparently orally. You've got repeated angelic appearances. You've got miraculous pregnancies. You've got the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Lott's wife being turned to salt. All kinds of miracles are Genesis. You look after the time of Moses and there's lots of miracles in Joshua. You think of the Jordan River parting, the walls of Jericho falling, the sun and moon standing still. You get to judges, lots of miracles and judges. You know, Samson's many supernatural feats, for example, the angel of the Lord's presence in the burnt offering of Manoa, many other examples.

First and second, Samuel, lots of miracles, military, supernatural help for military victory. Dagon following before the Ark of the Covenant in 1st Samuel 5. Samuel calling upon the Lord to supernaturally alter the weather, 1 Samuel 12. in the earlier portions of First Kings before you get Elijah, you've got lots of miracles like the Man of God healing Jeroboam's withered hand in First Kings 13, or in later portions of Second Kings after Elisha is gone. You have lots of miracles like the destruction of Sinacarib's

army in response to Hezekiah's prayer. Keep going. You've got lots of miracles in the late portions of the Old Testament, like the book of Daniel, you know, the survival of his friends in the furnace, Daniel and the lion's den, writing on the wall. Lots and lots of examples. This is not an exhaustive list. I'm just giving a few representative examples just to make this point quickly, because I got a lot I want to say in this video. I don't want to lose people, but that gives you a little bit of a flavor for a fuller list. See this video by the guys at Remnant Radio. They do a really good job, and I'll put the link in the video description. But hopefully, just from that alone, hopefully the basic point is clear that you have miracles all throughout the biblical narrative,

not just in those three clusters, and that's true even if you try to limit the definition of miracle. Lots of people will say, well, and I think this was true in one of those three clips I showed, maybe the second one, that there was a qualification that it's miracles through human agency or something like that. But even if, first of all, that's kind of an arbitrary restriction. That would mean that like the virgin birth is not a miracle. But even if you have a restriction like that, it's still not just in those three clusters. You know, you think of the man of God and his healing.

in 1st Kings 13 that we mentioned, Samuel, Samson, others. So the simple fact is you have miracles outside those three clusters, and the biblical text just tells us that plainly. So Jeremiah's prayer in Jeremiah 3220 basically just explicitly says that the signs and wonders associated with Egypt have continued to this day, both in Israel and among all mankind. And so this verse, you know, here's, here's the thing about a verse like Jeremiah 3220. First of all, it sort of just in and of itself

dismantles the clusters argument, but it also shows the danger of arguments from silence. Arguments from silence depend on whether you expect the sources to be silent. We don't have a good reason to suppose that every miracle will be reported in scripture. Consider the book of John, which gives us a lot of miracles for specific. reasons, but then at the very end says, oh, there's lots of other miracles that aren't recorded in this book, and you couldn't even house them in all the books of the world. So this cluster's argument is wrong, both in the assumption that it sort of imposes onto the biblical text, that the Bible is going to give us this exhaustive account of miracles, but also in just

overlooking so many counter examples. So, and that becomes really clear when you talk about the specific miracle of divine speech. Miracles, signs, wonders, and especially direct voice of God only occurs in three significant eras, which then was written down and inscripturated in the inspired word of God. But on the contrary, the direct voice of God happens very frequently outside of these three clusters. You know, you just think of the vast majority of Old Testament scripture. It's not written in connection to either of these clusters of miracles. So Elijah and Elisha lived around the 9th century BC.

Almost all of the prophetical books we have in Scripture come from those who lived well after they were off the scene. And the same is true for much of the historical and wisdom literature in scripture. It's outside of these Moses or Elijah Elijah clusters. Additionally, both in those two time periods and outside of them, much of the direct space, of God was not written down in Scripture. This is an important point, just a flag for now. We're going to come back to it. Not all prophecy is in scripture-rated prophecy, that is written down in scripture. Prophecy was a continuous activity throughout the life of Israel. Amos, the book of Amos says, God did nothing without revealing his secret to his prophets. There's schools, lots of different

schools or companies of prophets. We're going to talk about a little bit later when we get to the foundation argument. So that's the first thing just to say is there's, you know, the basic chronology or the basic, like, just noticing where miracles are happening is wrong. But here's the other problem with the Clusters argument, in my opinion. Insofar as there is irregularity and unevenness to biblical miracles, this argument assumes that the reason for that is divine intention rather than human factors. But in the Psalms, you find this lament of the lack of signs and the lack of prophets as an indication. of God's displeasure, and basically the Psalms then petition God to renew his work among them. Or if you're reading through the book of First Samuel, early on it says that visions are rare.

Now, rare visions is completely different from cessationism, from no visions. But the more basic point is Samuel is raised up to address that problem. So the biblical instincts are different than cessationism. In many passages, you'll basically have this where it's like remembering God's mighty deeds and God's mighty miracles that were happening. And it doesn't cause the author to say, well, it must have been God's will to withdraw that. Rather, they take comfort in those miracles. They say, this is who God is. And often they'll ask God to work in those ways again, afresh in their day.

Psalm 77, a great example of this, lamenting God's absence, basing its hope on what God has done. and because this proves he's the God of miracles. Habakkuk 3, another great example. It's a kind of montage of God's miraculous deeds throughout the history of Israel. And then the petition is, Lord, I've heard of what you did, do it again in our day. So to sum up in response to the clusters argument, there simply aren't three clusters of miracles or even four or five. Miracles are relatively continuous to the extent that they're uneven, it's not because of cessationism. Okay, here's the second argument I want to address.

I'm going to call this the confirmation argument. If we get a little bit more specific, we might ask, what is the gift of miracles or who was a miracle worker? The gift of miracles was a gift given to a supernaturally endowed person. God worked miracles through that individual, confirming that that individual was a spokesman and representative for God. when Moses said, what if they don't believe me? God says, I'm going to give you the power to work miracles so that they will believe you that you're speaking on my behalf. The miracles were given to validate that they are a mouthpiece for God,

that he is a man sent by God to speak on behalf of God. But in order for this argument to be persuasive, you'd need to show that authentication or confirmation or attestation was the only, or at least the primary purpose of miracles. And the reason for that is basically if a given phenomenon has multiple purposes, the removal of one purpose is not a good argument for its cessation, especially when the other purposes all continue. So to give a few metaphors to make this point,

suppose your doctor says that you should eat a healthier diet, and the reason is there are four purposes. Number one, you'll lose weight. Number two, you'll feel better. number three you'll sleep better and number four you will live longer you go on the diet it works all four purposes are being achieved and after six months you've already lost all the weight you want to lose so that purpose ceases but the other three purposes are still going strong you that could be a good reason to continue to be on the diet if those other three reasons are still present that might

induce you to say i want to stay on this diet for these other three reasons or suppose you're going to college and you have four purposes to go to college. Number one, you want to learn. Number two, you think you'll have a better chance of getting a good job. Number three, you want that just social experience and life experience. And number four, you have a really good scholarship, so it's not expensive. And then suppose that during your junior year, you realize basically the major you've chosen makes it basically impossible that college will affect what kind of job you get. Does that mean you should drop out? Not necessarily. If the other three reasons are still strong, if you love the experience, you're learning a ton, you're not paying for it, you might choose to

continue in college for those reasons. Okay, I like using metaphors. People who watch my videos know that. The point is simple. An argument for the cessation of something needs to address all the reasons it exists, not just one of them. And in the Bible, the role of miracles, especially miraculous gifts, is very far. for being reducible to attestation or confirmation. Just to give a few examples. One purpose for miracles is they glorify God. Why did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead?

It is for the glory of God. I also just think Jesus loved Lazarus so much. Same with the turning of the water into wine or the healing of the man born blind in John 9. And John 2 is the water to wine. These miracles glorify God. The Gospel of Matthew records the same response to Jesus' miraculous healings. It causes people to glorify God.

Same with Exodus 14, the hardening of the hearts of the Egyptians so that the miracles associated with the parting of the Red Sea happen. The purpose is for God to get glory over Pharaoh. Another purpose for miracles is compassion. God has compassion on people. You see this in the Ministry of Christ, Matthew 14, for example, or one of my favorites is Mark I I just love to imagine the look on Christ's face in that moment. And it's a happy thought to know Christ has that same compassion for you and me today when we are penitent and come to him in faith.

But Jesus heals because he has pity on people. He cares about people. This is also a reason for the Exodus. God has compassion on his people in Exodus too. We could stack up many more examples of this, by the way. I'm just trying to throw out a few representative examples so we don't get too bogged down. This is not exhaustive. Hopefully you see the point.

Another purpose of miracles is to open doors for the gospel. In Acts chapter 9, when Peter heals Ieneas, people turn to the Lord. Right afterwards, when he raises Tabitha, it has a similar effect. Many believe in the Lord. Now, notice here that the purpose is not simply to confirm or attest Peter as an apostle. It's to confirm the gospel itself. People are believing in Christ because of miracles. So that's an important point that mere confirmation or attestation itself,

not prove cessationism, because there's a need for confirmation of the gospel today, especially in hard-pressed missionary contexts, but really, honestly, in all kinds of places, and actually many historic cessationists have allowed for miraculous spiritual gifts to resume in hard-pressed missionary contexts, more on that in the church history section. Now, we could stack up lots of other purposes of miracles, too, but the point should be clear just from that alone. Now, here's the thing. The multi-purpose nature of miracles is a especially the case with miraculous spiritual gifts, specifically, a subset of the broader category of miracles. Over and over and over, the emphasis of Scripture is edification. Miraculous spiritual

gifts build up the body of Christ. They're encouraging. They help you, you know? First Corinthians 12 through 14 over and over. This is the lengthiest teaching in scripture about spiritual gifts in the context of the local church. And Paul says, when he lists them all, that they are for the common good in chapter 12. And then in chapter 14, this is kind of a motif of the chapter. It regulates all of his instruction. The one who prophesies speaks for upbuilding, encouragement, and consolation. And this just gets repeated. Verse four, verse five, again in verse 26, all are coming together. And it's done for building up. Verse 31, you can all prophesize, so you're all encouraged. The words edification and encouragement just repeated

they're just bombarding you throughout 1 Corinthians 14. If there's anything we say about the gift of prophecy, it's that it's for encouragement and edification. But a verse that comes up here is 2 Corinthians 1212. Miraculous gifts were given during those early years where they were proclaiming, in many cases, for the first time in a region, the events and the significance of Christ's life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

When Paul defends his apostleship in 2 Corinthians 12, he refers to these gifts as the signs of an apostle. Miraculous abilities that either the apostles alone had or there were cases where they could lay hands on someone and give them those gifts. But always in the New Testament, when those miraculous gifts are manifest, it is in the presence of an apostle. Let me put it up on the screen in the ESV, which is typical. it's not an eccentric translation in this regard. A key to notice is the word with. Signs and wonders and mighty works are attendant supportive testimony for Paul's apostleship like the utmost patience he shows here, but it's not exclusively associated

with apostolic attestation. It's kind of overworking this verse to try to say, well, they're just for attesting the apostles, or that's their main focus even. What are the signs of an apostle? It's not just miracles. would just be maybe one small piece of the pie. Signs of apostleship would include the fruit of apostolic ministry. Paul refers to the Corinthians themselves as his letter of recommendation in 2 Corinthians 3-1-2-3. Another sign would be Paul's suffering for the gospel and his perseverance

in the gospel. Paul will talk about the marks on his body as a reason not to mess with him, basically. Don't cause me trouble. The most distinctive, of course, is seeing the resurrected Christ and being commissioned by the resurrected Christ. That's what you. you see in 1 Corinthians 9, for example, where again, Paul refers to the Corinthians as a seal of his apostleship. So apostleship is signified. The signs of an apostle are multiple. It's the fruit of it. You're suffering for the gospel. Being commissioned by Christ, certainly doing signs and wonders can contribute to that apostolic authority as well. But it is really problematic to try to reduce miracles to that. And the simple way to see that is just to look at miracles in the New

Testament and miraculous spiritual gifts specifically. They're not apostolic only. They're widely performed. You've got the 72 commissions to heal the sick in Luke 10. They're at the book of Acts. You have lots of non-ap apostles performing signs and wonders and miracles like Stephen and Philip and Ananias. Now, someone might say, well, these are just people who are associated with the apostles. And I find that kind of forced. But even if that's right, we could just step back and say, okay, basic big picture question. Where do we see miraculous gifts functioning in the New Testament? Start with speaking in tongues. Where do we see it?

Well, let's exclude Mark 16, 17 because of the questionable status of that passage, even though if you were to take it, Jesus is predicting that the gift of tongues will accompany the worldwide reception of the gospel. But leaving that aside, we have four major passages. Acts 2, 10, and 19, and then 1 Corinthians 12 to 14. None of these are really about apostolic attestation. In Acts 2, you've got 120. people gathered there, not just the apostles who are present at the upper room at Pentecost. Acts 10 and 19, you have Cornelius and his family, and then the Ephesian converts, both speaking

in tongues, and then tongues is all throughout, 1st Corinthians 12 through 14. At best, you could say it's attesting the spread of the gospel through barriers and into Gentile groups throughout the book of Acts, but it's not really apostles per se, and that doesn't even work. Attesting the gospel doesn't even really work for 1 Corinthians 12 to 14. I mean, you've got Paul saying, I speak in tongues more than all of you to the Corinthians. This doesn't seem like it's always about an apostolic attestation. It seems like it's a part of lay Christianity in the church in Corinth. Prophecy, even more clearly. Prophecy is all over the book of Acts. It doesn't seem to be focused on the apostles. You've got members of the church at Antioch in Acts 13. You have Judas and Silas after the Jerusalem Council

in Acts 15. You have all. Agabus and others from Jerusalem in Acts 11. You have Phillips four daughters in Acts 21. This doesn't look like a sign of apostleship. This just looks like a spiritual gift more broadly given. And that's certainly what you see when you look at the epistles after the book of Acts, where you've got Paul appealing to the presence of miracles via the spirit among the Galatian churches. You've got Paul commanding the Thessalonians not to despise prophecies and not to quench the spirit. You've got James. You've got James. calling for prayers of healing. And most powerfully, you have 1st Corinthians 12 to 14. I mean, just consider this that Paul envisions all believers participating in the exercise of gifts like prophecy at all the meetings without any view of apostolic attestation. This seems to be a part of ongoing Christianity among lay Christians at local churches. This doesn't seem to be attesting the apostles. But that's not the idea you get from the documentary. in the New Testament. When those miraculous gifts are manifest, it is in the presence of an apostle.

But certainly not. It's very difficult to fathom such a statement in light of, you know, 1 Corinthians 14 alone. Now, because 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 is so powerful and kind of such a hornet's nest for cessationist reasoning, one of the other arguments that comes up is people say, well, 1st Corinthians 14 is an earlier portion of the New Testament and era of the apostolism. era, after that, the gifts started fading away or ceased at a hard point, something like that. This is the third argument I want to address. I'm going to call it the fading away argument. In the era of the Corinthian Church, the foundation was still being laid. They did need the sign gifts. We're not in that era anymore.

There is no mention in the second half of the first century of signs and wonders and miracles once you pass the book of First Corinthians. is no more mention of any miracles being performed by any apostle. He writes nine letters to different churches, six different churches after First Corinthians. You look at the pastoral epistles written for the ongoing life of the church, First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus, instructing pastors how to conduct life in the church. And there's no mention of the miraculous gifts.

You have this lessening of the miraculous as the canon of scripture. scripture moves toward its completion. Now, there's a couple problems here. First of all, remember the lesson we already learned from Jeremiah 3220 and John 2030. The Bible doesn't have to record every miracle. You can't assume that if something isn't being reported, it's not happening. You could make this same kind of fading away argument about the Lord's Supper. You could say, well, the Lord's Supper is referenced by Christ, and then you have instruction

in First Corinthians, but then it sort of fades from view, at least in terms of explicit references. but that doesn't mean we come along and say, okay, people must have stopped celebrating the Lord's Supper. Arguments from silence are only powerful to the extent you expect the material not to be silent, but it's totally unsurprising that we have less miracles reported when there's just less material altogether. After all the narrative books are done with, and you have less information altogether about what local churches are looking like. Of course, the later books will have less information. You know, the New Testament, these epistles are fairly ad hoc. There's lots of things they don't talk about. So just as we're commanded in Scripture to pray for the sick in James 5 and

pursue prophecy in 1st Corinthians 14, I would say those commandments are still operative just as the command to take the Lord's supper is still operative. It doesn't need to keep getting repeated, you know, as you go forward into the 60s AD. But so that's one thing. But even more basically, Again, a lot of my concerns are going to be matters of basic fact and chronology, not complicated interpretation. And I'm not trying to do a gotcha or be disrespectful, but I'm burdened that people get the truth because people watching this documentary. That's why I could say, if you could help me share this video, because it's not going to get nearly the amount of views as that documentary, but that documentary has some real problems. I mean, just think about it. So the more basic problem beyond the argument from silence here is just the chronology is just wrong.

You do have miracles after 1st Corinthians was written and miraculous spiritual gifts as well. So, for example, just keep reading in the book of Acts. You get to the very last chapter of Acts, chronicling events probably around 60 AD, where there's a shipwreck on Malta and Paul is bitten by a poisonous snake, a viper, and it causes the local people to conclude that he was a god because he survives this. And someone might say that this is, not 60 AD is years after 1st Corinthians was written, and even after 2nd Corinthians was written. And people might say, well, that wasn't a real miracle.

It wasn't a poisonous snake. I think the expectation of the local people that he would die shows it was miraculous because there was enough to convince them he was a God. And this would fit with the expectation from passages like Mark 1618 about getting bitten by poisonous snakes and not dying. Nonetheless, if you discount that one, fine. Just keep reading a few verses later, Paul heals the father of Publius, who is the chief man on the island, and then in response to that, everybody else on the island who gets sick

comes and gets healed. Leave a little room for hyperbole. Maybe there was some guy that Luke doesn't record who is still sick or something. But the point is, clearly miracles are still happening here in 60 AD. In the era of the Corinthian Church, the foundation was still being laid. They did need the sign gifts. We're not in that era anymore. There is no mention in the second half of the first century of signs and wonders and miracles once you pass the book of First Corinthians. There is no more mention of any miracles being performed by any apostle. I'm not trying to get a gotcha here, but I just want people to see the truth.

I want people to be discerning about what they're hearing. I'm just grieved that a lot of people are going to watch this documentary and they're going to assume these claims are true and they're not going to do their homework and really critically evaluate what's being claimed here. The entire island of Malta was miraculously healed in 60 AD well after this supposed foundation period was laid. Okay, and that's true also for the later epistles of the New Testament. He writes nine letters to different churches,

six different churches after First Corinthians. You look at the pastoral epistles written for the ongoing life of the church, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, instructing pastors how to conduct life in the church. And there's no mention of the miraculous gifts. You have this lessening of the miraculous as the canon of Scripture moves toward its completion. But again, this is not correct.

You have the gift of prophecy in the book of Romans, which most people would say was written soon after 1st Corinthians. Paul says, if we have the gift of prophecy, let us use it. You have in 1st Peter written way later, to the 60s, this reference to whoever speaks, if it's a gift from God and it's to speak as one who speaks the oracles of God. That's probably referring to the gift of prophecy. You have to kind of filter that through a very Presbyterian lens to see that as just a matter of preaching as we think of it today. It seems to be speaking the oracles of God. No offense to my Presbyterian friends.

I love Presbyterians. But basically, and then you have lots of, I mean, you have miracles author of the book of Revelation. So depending on when you date that book in terms of what it's referencing, 1 Timothy 4-14, we're not told when this happens, when Timothy is given this prophecy and a gift from the elders. So, you know, there's a lot of assumptions here, but basically the chronology is just not wrong. The chronology is just wrong. Okay, there are miracles. You can't try to say, oh, the miracles stopped at some point during the apostolic age.

The other problem is there's a claim here that the gift of healing when it was operative, it was kind of, you know, it could function so powerfully that no one needs to stay sick at all. You have in acts, for example, Paul would send pieces of fabric out. People would be healed by that. That's not happening anymore. And it wasn't happening in Paul's time either, because when he learned that Timothy had a stomach ailment, he writes to him and says, take a little wine, for your stomach seat. He doesn't send him a handkerchief. There's no expectation that some healer is going to come and heal Timothy. Paul and Philippians when he was so overtaken almost by grief because of the sickness of his dear friend. And certainly if the apostle Paul still had this miraculous gift of healing, he could have done something about it, but instead he recognized there's no, there's no sense

in which that's still happening, even at the time of Philippians. And then this claim came up later in the film as well. If somebody says, do you really have the gift of teaching, go ahead, teach us something. I mean, I'm not going to balk at that. I'm going to say, sure, let's sit down and open the word. You know, do you have the gift of encouragement? Well, encourage me. I'm not going to say, well, you know, God doesn't need to prove himself.

We think God heals. We think God does the miraculous. He just doesn't do it through these agents to whom he gives the power to work at will like that. If you claim to have the gift of healing, if asked to go ahead and demonstrate that, it really should be no problem to go empty the children's hospitals or look at just a dear brother who sits in a wheelchair or a sister sits in a wheelchair in that space in the aisle in church every week. If I could just make them walk, I would, right? And if there is compassion in your heart to help a fellow believer walk upright, heal the man.

But this assumes that if a person has a genuine gift of healing, they can exercise it almost at will to sort of heal anybody at any time. And if you just think about what spiritual gifts are and how the other spiritual gifts function, you see, that's a very problematic assumption. Just because someone has a gift doesn't mean they're able to exercise that gift without bounds, without restrictions, irrespective of other factors at play. That's not how spiritual gifts work. That's not even what we see in the scripture about healing from Christ and the apostles. There are plenty of times where only one person or some people are healed rather than all people are healed. Are we going to say Christ and the apostles lack compassion for the ones they didn't heal?

You know, the most famous example of this is Christ himself in his hometown, where it says he could do no mighty work there except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. So to sum up, there's simply no reason to think that miraculous spiritual gifts start fading out at some point during the apostolic age. It's an argument from silence that could just as easily prove that the Lord's Supper faded out. And more basically, it just overlooks – it's like the Cluster's argument. It just overlooks a lot of counter-examples, you know, like the healings on the island of Malta or the references to the spiritual gift of prophecy in Romans 12 and 1st Peter 4. Okay, that leads to the fourth argument. This, the foundation argument. This is a better argument. Referring to the entire apostolic age as a foundation makes a lot more sense than trying to say there's some foundational period within the apostolic age, like after 1st Corinthians versus before 1st Corinthians or something like that.

So let's hear this argument. In the Apostle Paul's letter to the Church of Ephesus, he uses the metaphor of a spiritual temple to describe the church. and he says in chapter 2, verse 20, that it is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone. So as God was establishing the foundation of the church upon the person and work of Christ, he called men known as apostles and prophets

to be foundation builders. As his apostles, there's the foundation of the church. What they say, Christ says, what they assert about his ministry is true. The stone that the devil is the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone of the church. Jesus chose the apostles to further reveal the mystery of the church. And finally, God provided various other prophets within the church while the New Testament

was still being written. This is the foundation of the church, according to Paul in Ephesians 2.20, the Apostles and Prophets with Christ as the chief cornerstone. It does make any sense to think that the foundation of a building goes all the way to the roof. It's the foundation. This is an historical assertion that the Apostolate was limited to the foundation period of church history. I'll keep playing right where I left off there in just a second, but just to say one thing right out of the gate is we continuationists can certainly agree

that there is a unique foundational period. while the apostles are still alive and while scripture is being written. What we would say is we just don't limit miraculous spiritual gifts to that period. There are some things that are limited, but not like the gift of speaking in tongues. But before making that case, let me let it play a little further for how the documentary connects the foundation argument with this idea of the closure of the canon. When you see the early discussions about the canon and which books are cannot, as we would say. One of the tests of canonicity was, does this book have apostolic origin,

or is it given a kind of stamp of approval by the apostles? Now, why is that? It's because the apostles had certain promises granted to them by the Lord Jesus Christ, and those promises related to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in their speaking and in their writing. And so the reason why we can say with confidence that the canon is closed, is because we no longer have those apostles. Now, my response to this is that this argument doesn't recognize different usages of the terms apostle and prophet. We continuationists do affirm the closure of the canon, the cessation of inscripturalated prophecy, and the unique authority of the 13 apostles, the 12 minus Judas plus Matthias plus Paul.

the words prophet and apostle are used in different senses in scripture itself. Not all prophecy was scriptural prophecy. Not all occurrences of the Greek word apostolos, translated among other things, apostle, are referring to the 13 apostles or the office of apostleship. Now, someone might be skeptical of what I'm saying. Let me build my case here. Because when we affirm the continuation of these spiritual gifts, we're not opposing that there is a unique foundational period with respect to the apostles and the scripture being written. But let me make my case. If we just look at how these terms are used in the scripture, we'll just go in turn. First, let's talk about prophecy in the scripture. Now, I do agree that some continuationists have articulated this unhelpfully.

Some have argued that Wayne Grudom makes this case that the Old Testament prophecy was a thus sayeth the Lord kind of prophecy, but in the New Testament it's a different kind of prophecy. I would disagree with that. I don't think putting the contrast between Old Testament versus New Testament is helpful, and it does merit responses like this. No new definition of prophecy is given by Jesus Christ. No new definition of prophecy can be found any place in the New Testament. It's better to observe, in my opinion, that in both Old and New Testament, you have different expressions of prophecy.

And so there is this kind of prophecy in both Old Testament and New Testament that is more widespread and is more spontaneous. It looks a lot more like the New Testament gift of prophecy. It's more charismatic. You could call it more ecstatic. It's like the spirit falls and people just start spontaneously prophesying. So to give some examples, in Numbers 11, as soon as the spirit falls on the 70 elders, they prophesy, but not for very long, but two of them do continue to prophesy as the spirit rests upon them. Joshua is concerned that Moses might be, that Moses might be jealous. And Moses says, no, I wish all God's people would prophesy. Of course, that's what is then prophesied to happen. And Joel, too, it happens in Acts 2. We'll get to that later.

Later on, in 1 Samuel 10, when Saul is anointed as king, Samuel prophesies to him that he will prophesy when he meets a group of prophets that have the harp, tambourine, flute, and liar. It's exactly what happens. The Spirit of God rushes upon him. This also seems more spontaneous and charismatic. I love these verbs, you know. It's not like it rushes on him or like it rests, the spirit rests upon people in Numbers 11. Same thing in 1 Samuel 19. Saul is hunting for David. Amazing passage. Let me just read this. Listen to this. Try to picture this happening. What kind of prophecy is being pictured here? Then Saul sent messengers to take David. And when they saw the company of prophets, more on them in a moment, prophesying and Samuel standing as head over them, the Spirit of God came upon the

messengers of Saul, and they also prophesied. When it was told Saul, he sent other messengers, and they also prophesied. And Saul sent messengers again the third time, and they also prophesied. Then he himself went to Rama, and came, I'm going to skip some of these places, basically he gets there, and the Spirit of God came upon him also, and as he went, he prophesied until he came to Nyoth in Rama, and he too stripped off his clothes, and he too prophesied before Samuel, and lay naked all that day and all that night. This, again, seems like a more spontaneous expression of prophecy. You see what's happening here. Anybody who goes, the spirit falls and they start prophesying. Now, this kind of prophesying also seems more widespread. We saw the reference to the company of

prophets there in 1st Samuel 1920, sometimes translated school of prophets or the sons of prophets. They will come up again in 2nd Kings 2, where you'll see there's a school of prophets in Bethel, another school of prophets in Jericho, and another school of prophets near the Jordan River that has at least 50 people. And then in Chapter 4 in Gilgal, Elisha miraculously makes a stew edible for a group of prophets there, a company of prophets there. So it seems like there's these various companies of prophets or schools of prophets. Now, earlier in 1 Samuel 10, we saw the reference to the group of prophets that had the harp, tambourine, flute, and lyre. One of the interesting things about this strand of Old Testament prophecy is that it is often associated with music. So, for example, when David is organizing his musicians, there's a reference to Jeduthan who prophes with lyre, harps, and symbols.

And then there's reference to others who prophesy under the direction of the king. So what does it mean when you're prophesying with symbols? I mean, if you walk into church and you see someone else bringing their tambourines into church, you're probably expecting something a little more on the charismatic side from this person, right? Another interesting feature is that in both Old and New Testament, you have lots of female prophets. In the Old Testament, Deborah, Holda, Miriam, Noah Daya, etc. In the New Testament, we mentioned Phillips' four daughters in Acts 21. We also have in 1st Corinthians 11, Paul assuming that men and women are praying and prophesying,

both men and women in the church gathering. And then, of course, Acts 2, which is the fulfillment of Moses' desire from Numbers 11 and the prophecy of Joel 2, where prophecy is for the sons and daughters alike. Men and women are both prophesying. Now, most of the men in this film are very strict complementarians. I doubt they will be comfortable with the nature and number of female prophetesses all throughout Scripture. if indeed they maintain there is only one register of prophetic authority. But this is what comes up. Here's how they conceive of what all prophecy seems to be.

The prophet became God's functional mouth by which God would speak. God used the man as an instrument to immediately deliver his exact message. Not by bypassing the prophet's mind, but by preserving the exact words that God intended for him to speak. A true prophet could not speak error in the name of the Lord because God supernaturally protects his own message. Now it's certainly true that prophecies of Scripture convey a kind of word-for-word correspondence. I think you see that in 2nd Peter 1, 20 to 21, for example. I've done some other work on that in talking about the nature of Scripture.

But if all prophecy is of the same kind, just think how weird this becomes. You know, it's not just men and women and how widespread it is and how much isn't recorded in Scripture. how spontaneous and ecstatic it is. Think about this. In 1st Corinthians 14, where Paul is encouraging all of the Corinthians to seek the gift of prophecy and to bring that spiritual gift to bear in their gatherings in verse 26 and then in verse 31, all of them prophesy one by one so that all may be encouraged by it. If 2 Peter 121 and 20 and 1st Corinthians 4.31 are talking about the exact same thing, then Paul is encouraging all the Corinthians to speak words that are potentially the same as Scripture. Every single member of the congregation is now like Isaiah or Jeremiah or something like that.

Far better to recognize that when we're talking about the spiritual gift of prophecy, this is a more ecstatic, charismatic expression of what prophecy is. This is democratized among all God's people. It's not the same thing. It's not what is bound up with the foundational period. during which the apostles are writing scripture. Now let's talk about the apostles because Ephesians 220 referenced the prophets and apostles there, both of them together. We continuationists agree that apostles as an office, in the technical sense of that,

ceased. Most of us, you might find some people out there, but usually when we talk about apostles, you just have to recognize there's a non-technical meaning of this word as well. So the Greek word apostolos is not invented in the New Testament. It's used, I remember in my Greek class reading through Herodotus, 5th century BC. He's using this word all the time. It's a common word. It just means messenger, herald, ambassador, envoy, something like that. New Testament takes that term and gives it a more specific technical meaning to refer to this office, you know, these 12 people Jesus calls, and then you got, as I said, Matthias and Paul. But the older, more literal meaning of Apostolos is used all the time. Just mean a messenger. Okay?

Epaphroditis and Philippians 225 is an apostolos of the Philippian Church, NIV and ESV translate messenger. 2 Corinthians 823, Paul's co-workers who are traveling with Titus are called apostoloi. ESV says messengers, NIV says representatives. Now, I've done a lot more work on this whole thing of apostleship, just to condense it down. If you want the fuller case, see this article that I wrote on the Truth Unites website. You can read my full case.

But basically what we would say is when it comes to apostolism, loss listed as a spiritual gift. Okay. What happens in as it is in Ephesians 411 and first Corinthians 1228, you can't just assume that's talking about like the 12 or the office and it actually makes a lot more sense to see it as a spiritual gift. Now in my article I make the full case basically I'd say just based upon what spiritual gifts are. Spiritual gifts are abilities or skills wrought by the Holy Spirit widely distributed among Christians for the sake of building up in edification and advancement of God's kingdom among local churches and so forth. Apostleship in the technical sense is not a good fit for that, but something like an ambassador,

an envoy, a messenger that fits perfectly with the other things listed in spiritual gifts lists. See my article for the full case there. But the point is basically this. We as continuationists agree the apostolic age is unique. The apostles proper are unique while scripture is being written. That's a unique time. unrivaled authority, but that doesn't entail the cessation of spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts, like speaking in tongues, the New Testament gift of prophecy, healings, word of wisdom, word of knowledge,

etc. Discerning of spirits, that's an important one. These are not bound up with apostolic and scriptural authority. Rather, spiritual gifts are manifestations of the spirit's work that is distinctive of the new covenant era. These attest the in-breaking of God's kingdom, which does not end after the apostles die. The Holy Spirit doesn't simply inaugurate God's kingdom and then fade out of view when the apostles die. The kingdom of God is still advancing today. So a passage like 1st Corinthians 14 is just as applicable to today as 1st Corinthians 11 or 7 or 15. Spiritual gifts are not about the foundation. Spiritual gifts are characteristic of the entirety of the church age inaugurated at Pentecost. All right, people are gathering here at the church as I'm recording something,

so I've got to wrap this up soon. I'll go fast. Final argument, church history argument, here's what they have to say. And so when you get to, for example, John Chrysostom in the east and Augustine, around that same time period in the West, both Chrysostom and Augustine are very clear that they believe that the extraordinary miraculous sign gifts ceased after the end of the apostolic age. And that was the de facto view of Bible-believing Christians throughout really all of subsequent church history, including the Reformation. The view of the church has been decidedly cessationist. Now, concerning Augustine, what is not mentioned is the fact that Augustine changed his mind and softened his cessationism to a degree.

He does seem to be a cessationist on my reading from his retractions with respect to speaking in tongues. But his ministry in Milan and his observations of elsewhere, he just saw so many miracles and healings that it convinced him. He wrote a chapter in the city of God later in his life, which is called of miracles which were wrought that the world might believe in Christ and which have not ceased since the world believed. And he gives story after story after story. You can read this online. City of God, 22, 8. And just, you know, read through all these miracles and healings that he's describing. At one point, he basically says, you know, he gives so many examples, and he says, what am I to do? I am so pressed by the promise of finishing this work

that I cannot record all the miracles I know. And he's talking about how people would be disappointed that he didn't include their miracle, you know. In Michael Green's wonderful book, Evangelism in the early church, he talks about how Augustine's change of mind influences his own movement away from a kind of hard cessationism. So that's, you know, it's unfortunate that was kind of glossed over. you also, what's not mentioned in the film also is the many explicit continuationists early on prior to Augustine and Chrysostom. Justin Martyr and his dialogue with Trifo talks about how God grants gifts to those who become disciples of Christ and he includes the gift of healing. He interprets this as the result of the ascension of Christ from Ephesians 4, how Christ has gone up and so sent the spirit down and these gifts are a manifestation of the ascension of Christ and so forth. beautiful passage there in Ephesians 4. And then later he includes the gift of prophecy as well

as transferring from the Jewish people and continuing up to the present time. Later in the second century, Ironaeus talks about miracles that Christ performed. And then he says, 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 four knowledge 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. Yay, moreover, as I have said, the dead even have been raised up

and remained among us for many years. So the question we could ask, I mean, you have to understand. Justin Martyr in the early second century and Ironaeus in the late second century, these are important theologians. You might think of these as to kind of stand out second century Christians. So we could ask, are they lying? Are they mistaken? You know, what do we do with testimonies like this that right after the apostles are gone, people trustworthy Christians are saying, the dead have been raised, you know?

Now, even if they're wrong or mistaken somehow, you could say they're certainly not theologically cessationist. And the thing is, there's so many examples like this. The claim that was made in the documentary is so misleading for viewers. There was this claim that the de facto view of Bible-believing Christians all throughout church history, including the reformation, is cessationism. That is simply wrong. I mean, even just looking at the reformers themselves, the reformers, especially in the reform tradition, there has been more cessationism. The counter-reformers appealed to miracles.

Some of the Protestants adopted cessationist kinds of reasoning. as a response to that, but even in the reform tradition, to which a lot of the contributors, and probably all of them, for the film, belong. There's been a lot of continuationism. Take Martin Luther himself. He opposed fanatical claims of Frederick gifting, but he still affirmed that the sign gifts of the New Testament did not cease. We must allow these words to remain and not gloss them away, as some have done, who said that these gifts were manifestations of the spirit in the beginning of the Christian era and that now they have ceased. That is not right for the same powers in the church still, and though it is not exercised, that does not matter. We have the power to do such

signs. You'll not find a quote like that in the documentary. Maybe he changed his mind later in his life. I've never found evidence of that. In the documentary, you're not going to learn about so many countertestimonies. You're just going to hear this claim that, oh, you know, all Bible-believing Christians, this was the de facto view among Bible-believing Christians. Just think of the countertestim. I'll give another example. John Knox and Samuel Rutherford, two leading reformed theologians in Scotland, were explicit and affirming the continuation of the gift of prophecy. Rutherford distinguished this gift of predictive prophecy from inscriptured revelation, which he said ceased with the closure of the canon. And he identified a number of individuals, including John Knox himself,

who have foretold things to come even since the ceasing of the canon of the word. In my previous video on spiritual gifts, I recount the experience of Charles Spurgeon, which is basically, even though Spurgeon didn't think of it as prophecy that I can tell, it's exactly what Paul envisions in 1st, Corinthians 14, 25 to 26. Exactly to a T. It's like what Spurgeon is recounting is 1st Corinthians 14, 25, and 26. You can see that video. I'll try to put up a slide where that accused you up, but that gives you a flavor of it. But you check on that video. It's in one of the timestamps. Shouldn't be hard to find. I'll put it. that video in the video description, a link to it. Furthermore, even among those reformed theologians who are cessationists, it's a completely different kind of cessationism that's being put forward in this film. In this film, it's the idea that there's a hard end to prophecy and revelatory spiritual gifts because the canon is closed. That generally hasn't been, you find that a little, not much. That's not John Calvin's view. John Calvin actually allowed for the gifts. He didn't think they were normative, but he allowed for them as the need of the times demands. And I've said a lot more in my

theological triage book about him. And basically, he says God raises these up. And he says, it's happened in our own day that God has raised them up. He's talking about prophecy. John Owen, similar position. He said, basically, yeah, they're not normative, but God raises them up. So that's a very different species of cessationism than what you're getting in the film. So that those kind of nuances get unfortunately lost. So in some, statements about cessationism being the de facto view of Bible-believing Christians throughout post-Augustinian church history and after John Chrysostom are just wrong. By making an overstatement like that, and then by ignoring the countervailing evidence, it misleads viewers about the truth, unfortunately. I assume it's not intentional, but I'm making my video because

I want to protest for the truth here. Okay, to finish off, here's my biggest grievance with the film, there is at times what borders on a kind of guilt-by-association tactic. The film fails to distinguish more theologically responsible continuationists, on the one hand, with, on the other hand, prosperity teachers who have a known track record of deception and majorly controversial statements and teachings and actions. So they really go after people like John Piper, Don Carson, Sam Storms, Wayne Grudham, and try to reduce the difference between them. and people like Kenneth Copeland or Benny Hinn and other prosperity teachers associated with the health and wealth movement. Piper Storms and Grudem and Carson describe themselves as open but cautious.

So here you have guys with at least some reformed inclination. They have been working really hard to say they believe in a close canon and so. Sola Scriptura, even though they also want to say that in some sense they believe in the continuation of prophecy in tongues. Once you open the door to the modern charismatic teachings, how is your urge and your prompting of the Spirit of God different than Benny Hen? And who's to say who's right in the issue? You may not understand this.

I don't either. But when the Lord talks to me, I obey him. It's just that simple. I'm not suggesting that anyone who claims to be a reformed charismatic. should be classified in the same category as a Benny Hen. But Benny Hen's positions are very much connected to the idea that God is still speaking today. So if someone says God spoke to me, it becomes the ace of spades and it trumps everything. So it's like saying, well, yeah, we're not saying Don Carson and John Piper are classified the same as Benny Hin, but since they all believe

in God still speaking, who can really distinguish between them? They have the same kind of root error and so forth. And, you know, how do we distinguish that one is right and one is wrong and this kind of thing? But for people like Piper and Storms and people like that, God's speech doesn't function as an ace of spades. They're much more theologically responsible. I see someone like Sam Storms in his treatment of this topic just laboring to be biblical, whether you agree with him or not. He is just, you know, really well, he's arguing well from the text of scripture. He's not saying God spoke to me and therefore that's an ace of spades. He's trying to point you to scripture. Also, Don Carson and John Piper and these people don't live

in five million dollar mansions. They don't fly their own private jets. They don't have the same problematic track record that is easily able to be seen if you Google these other word of faith, health and wealth preachers. So the association here is very unfair. Now the other certain that came up is, well, if both a Sam Storms and a Benny Hinn believe God speaks today, who are we, how do we distinguish them? You know, who says which one is right and wrong? Once you open the door to the modern charismatic teachings, how is your urge and your prompting of the Spirit of God different than Benny Hinn and who's to say who's right in the issue? But the biblical approach to distinguishing good and bad profit is given to us in Matthew 7, 15 through 20. We are called to be

discerning on the basis of fruit. The good tree produces good fruit, the bad tree produces bad fruit, and so forth. John Stott has a great exposition on this. I found this helpful in preaching on this passage recently. He says, basically fruit has to do with character and conduct, but also our teaching and the overall net effect of our ministry for good or ill. And we get that for Matthew 12 as well, where there's an exorcism which reveals good fruit. And the same principle is articulated in response to the Pharisees not receiving this exorcism. In Galatians 5, we're given a list of the fruits of the spirit versus the works of the flesh that can help us in making evaluations on the basis of fruit. So the biblical call is to be discerning. You know, when first Thessalonians 5 says,

don't despise prophecies. It immediately says, but test all things. We test prophecies by Scripture. by the gospel? Does it honor Christ? Does it bear good fruit? Does it advance God's kingdom? Is it on the side of the angels or on the side of the demons? And you have to have discernment. What we shouldn't do is simply reject all prophecies as though they're all the same. That's unbiblical. That's not what Matthew 7 says to do. And so the attempt to find a common link here between the John Piper and Sam Storm's types of the world and the Benny Hins is very unhelpful. If you think about it, a similar argument could be made against Christianity wholesale. People can look at these worst expressions of the prosperity gospel and try to associate

that with all preachers of Christ. So we have to make distinctions between good and bad. Another occasion where I have this worry about a kind of borderline guilt by association tactic is this idea that continuationists aren't really Protestants because we don't really believe in Sola Scriptura. To be in Rome with Roman pontiff who believes that he's speaking on behalf of the Spirit. And in doing so is bearing the Word of God. To be there is not to be Protestant and biblical. And to be an Anabaptist, the charismatic of his day, or someone who believes that the Holy Spirit is speaking through all sorts of people outside the Word of God and thus bury the Word of God is also not to be Protestant. In other words, to believe in Sola Scriptura is to be a cessationist.

That's fundamental to Protestantism. Thus, if you are not a cessationist, you are not. not historically a Protestant. This is problematic for several reasons. Number one, it would mean not only are, you know, Don Carson and John Piper are not historic Protestants, but John Knox and Samuel Rutherford aren't either, and even Martin Luther himself by this criterion. I'll give you another Luther quote,

referencing the sign gifts in Mark 16, which includes speaking in tongues. He says, where there is a Christian, there is still the power to work these signs if it is necessary. Whether the filmmakers are simply unaware of how many historic Protestants have been continuationists, or whether it just somehow didn't come through. Either way, this is really problematic because a lot of viewers are going to undiscerningly soak this in and think, wow, if I want to be a historic Protestant who upholds Sola Scripura, then I must be a cessationist.

And that is really problematic. I would maintain that basically the reason I'm a continuationist is because of Sola Scriptura. I am committed with every fiber of my being to the scripture. and the Bible talks about spiritual gifts a lot. And this is why it's frustrating when people accuse us continuationists of arguing from experience. It really isn't that. I'm trying to be faithful to Scripture. Scripture, I just think these arguments for cessationism, as we've seen, are not very good. They get a lot of facts wrong.

They read so much into the text. The Bible itself doesn't encourage cessationism. If you just read through it, like put it like this, if you gave the scripture, to someone who didn't have any background expectations, I don't, I think this, the miraculous spiritual gifts would just be seen as part and parcel with New Testament Christianity. And maybe sometime I'll make a fuller case from Ephesians 4 and particularly for, and 1st Corinthians 13, for why I think it's actually explicit that the timing of the cessation of miraculous spiritual gifts is the second coming of Christ and not before then. So to sum up, number one, again, while I strongly disagree with the assertions

made in this film and I have concerns that they're very misleading to people with respect to the truth. I do want to reiterate that cessationists are brothers and sisters in Christ. Many cessationists I've known are far more filled with the Holy Spirit than I am. Secondly, I also want to acknowledge there are real abuses out there. I'm not trying to just give a blanket affirmation of all continuationism of whatever ilk. Ultimately, however, this film did not make a good case for cessationism. There's lots of problematic claims, and on critical review, each of these arguments is not convincing biblically or theologically. At times, that's not even a matter of interpretation so much as just

fact and chronology. And the failure to distinguish different kinds of continuationism is unhelpful. In contrast to the message of that film, here's what I would encourage for Christians. Follow the text of scripture. Test all things by their spiritual fruit. Keep the focus on Jesus Christ. the focus on the gospel, what is honoring to Christ? And then with that frame of heart and mind, be open-hearted to how the Holy Spirit will work. He does give dreams. He does heal. He does give prophetic words of encouragement, and they are incredibly encouraging and consoling and edifying. He is the helper and counselor, and part of that helping and counseling work is through these miraculous spiritual gifts. These things are real. And that would be my encouragement. And I would

encourage you to pray prayers like Acts 4, 29 to 30, ask for boldness while we ask for God to stretch out his hand to heal and do signs and wonders to the glory of Jesus. I think we should pray prayers like that today. Who knows how the Lord might answer them? Thanks for watching everybody. If you like this video, please help me share it. I don't think this will get as many views as the documentary, but help me get the word out about this because I'm really burdened about this and this topic. It's important. It matters. And if you are interested in learning more about Truth Unites, check out my website. You can sign up for the newsletter there. You can learn more about the ministry, and you can support it there if you're interested in doing that.

Thanks for watching, everybody.