Gagnon on cessationism

Robert A. J. Gagnon Gregg Allison, here is the TGC article by Tom Schreiner to which you referred. As I mentioned, I have very high regard for Tom and count him as a dear friend. Tom has made as good a case as can be made by a NT scholar for cessationism. Nevertheless, it is not in my view a convincing case. His case more or less rests on the single verse in Eph 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) it is an unwanted stretch to argue the same for prophets given that Paul gives no such qualifications on the prophetic office elsewhere. 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. 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. 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. 

In short, Eph 2:20 just can't bear the weight that Tom places upon it. Tom says that "the perfect" in 1 Cor 13:10 could refer to the return of Christ but says that it could just as well not. Yet every future reference in 1 Cor refers to the eschaton. It is unrealistic to expect that his readers would have understood a reference to anything else.

Paul makes the hyperbole argument for 1 Cor 13:1's reference to tongues as a reference to the language of angels. This isn't convincing, for reasons that I have already stated to Tim Bates in these comments.

So while Tom is a great scholar, I think this is a case of a great scholar holding a view that is not convincing.