I'm pulling my observations about Tom Schreiner's TGC article defending the cessationist view from their burial in a ton of comments in a previous post and making a separate post about it partly because Prof. Dr. Thomas Schreiner's article makes one of the best cases for a cessationist view, partly because I previously misunderstood his point about the meaning of "the perfect" in 1 Cor 13:10, and partly because I want to expand on points that I made in the comments.
I want to make clear at the outset that neither for me nor for Tom is this a fellowship-breaking issue. It doesn't belong, and shouldn't belong, to the essentials of the faith. I also want to make clear that I think Tom is a great scholar. I use his textbook on Pauline theology when I teach that course and greatly appreciate his commentary on Romans, to name just two of his many helpful works. Not only is Tom a great scholar; he is an even greater human being, one of the greatest examples of a Christ-like life that I have ever had the providential fortune to encounter. He is brilliant, extraordinarily productive, humble, and loving, as godly a human as a human can be. I would trust him with my life. This is a relatively minor disagreement among brothers who deeply value each other.
Tom's case more or less rests on the single verse in Ephesians 2:20 regarding the church "having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets." While I agree that the apostolic office has ended (per Paul's "last of all" in 1 Cor 15:8), it is an unwarranted stretch to argue the same for prophets given that Paul provides no such limitations on the prophetic office elsewhere. Indeed, as we shall see, Tom admits that Paul himself in 1 Cor 13:10 entertained their presence in the community of believers till Christ's return.
Paul clearly viewed the apostolic office as restricted to a tiny minority of believers. That was not his view of prophets or the related gift of speakers in tongues. Indeed, in 1 Cor 14:1 he urges the Corinthians to "be zealous for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy." He obviously didn't think that there were any apostles in the Corinthian church; just as obviously he did believe that there were prophets and tongues-speakers in the Corinthian church. He exhorted the Corinthians to pursue the spiritual gifts, including tongues but especially prophecy; but, for obvious reasons, did not, and would not, exhort his followers to be zealous to become an apostle. Paul simply doesn't treat prophecy as a gift that belongs only to the foundation.
The existence of a group in the foundation doesn't presuppose non-existence outside the foundation. Christ himself is the church's cornerstone but his presence does not lie exclusively in the past. Paul speaks of believers in his own day as having already been built on the foundation of apostles and prophets; yet prophets are still prophesying despite the fact that the foundation to which he speaks has already been laid. Apostles too were still functioning (including Paul) and many writings that would later be assessed by the church as part of a NT canon were yet to be written. So the end of the apostolic has to be derived from some other text than Eph 2:20 (as noted, 1 Cor 15:8).
In short, Eph 2:20 just can't bear the weight that Tom places upon it.
Now, unlike most cessationists, Tom does acknowledge that "the perfect" in 1 Cor 13:10 refers to the Second Coming. I hope my cessationist friends will hear this. Tom knows that the evidence for that conclusion is overwhelming. All other future references in 1 Corinthians point to Christ's return and the resurrection from the dead. There is no thought at the time Paul pens this letter for a completion of a NT canon. Paul operates on the premise (though not categorical assertion, I think) that the time of Christ's return is very soon (1 Cor 7:29-31). Furthermore, Paul's description of this future event as a time when knowledge will no longer be "in part," when we will "know fully just as [we] have been fully known" by God, and will see "face to face" rather than as we know see ("through a mirror, in a riddle") is hard to link to any other time than Christ's return.
Yet, while Tom acknowledges that "the perfect" here refers to the Second Coming, he thinks that Paul teaches here only that tongues and prophecy "could" last till Christ comes back, not that they "will" last till then. "1 Corinthians 13:8-12 permits but doesn’t require the gifts to continue until the second coming." [Note: Earlier I misunderstood Tom as saying that 1 Cor 13:10 could refer to the return of Christ but that it could just as well not. I apologize for that misunderstanding and am now correcting it.]
While I think this is an ingenious attempt at getting around the fact that "the perfect" must refer to Christ's return, I don't think the solution is convincing. Paul saw value in the continuance of other forms of direct revelation until Christ returns because even the witness of Scripture does not cover all circumstances in life that affect individuals and specific communities. Take the prophet Agabus, mentioned twice in Acts, as an example. To the church in Syrian Antioch, the Jerusalem prophet Agabus prophesied that there would be a great famine throughout the world (11:28). The church there took the prophecy seriously enough to plan to send relief to the churches in Judea. Later, Agabus warned Paul when he was at coastal city of Caesarea that if he came to Jerusalem he would be arrested and bound (Acts 21:10-11). These are not the kinds of revelations that Paul could have pulled from general Scripture references at his disposal.
Knowledge will always be "in part" and not "face to face" until we gain resurrection bodies. So Paul believed that prophecy and tongues were needed to fill in that gap a bit (obviously not completely) till the eschaton. I don't see how the completed New Testament canon or the end of the apostolic office renders that need obsolete. Paul's remarks in 1 Cor 13:8-13 clearly state that prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will be "put out of use" and "cease" when, but only when, Christ returns. Till then these gifts remain valuable for the church.
Those who have a high view of biblical authority should not see things differently than Paul, in my view, even if the misuses and abuses of these gifts may have turned them off to their enduring value to the church in the whole time preceding Christ's glorious return.
This post should be read in conjunction with my prior post that makes the case that Paul in 1 Corinthians understood the gift of tongues to be in the first instance a heavenly language directed to God and angels, in distinction to the specialized form of manifestation at Pentecost (human languages directed to other humans).
[Note well: Although I am not a cessationist, this is not to say that there aren't some abuses of the gifts of tongues, prophecy, and healing in the church today (there are). Nor am I indicating that it is biblically correct to say that the "baptism in the Holy Spirit" is a distinct "second blessing" as opposed to the experience that defines conversion (it isn't) or that tongues is some special indicator of spirituality that all believers should practice (it isn't). I don't speak in tongues or prophesy (at least not consciously) or have a special gift of healing so I have no dog in the hunt other than a desire to be grounded biblically; perhaps too a desire to see the church less divided over the question of charismatic gifts. If my arguments do not persuade you, perhaps you can at least acknowledge that they are reasonable positions taken by someone who views Scripture as authoritative for faith and practice.]
No comments:
Post a Comment