Biblical Misunderstandings
Cessationism
Biblical Misunderstandings
Cessationism
Introduction
Cessationism is the theory that signs, wonders and miracles died out with the death of the last of the original apostles towards the end of the first century AD as a part of God's plan for the new church to grow by 'faith' rather than through miraculous events.
When I announced in the mid 2000 teens that I was a cessationist, people who knew me and who read my stories of the things that God was doing 'through' me or rather, with my involvement, just did not believe it. However, the evidence is right there in the New Testament that signs, wonders and healing died out long before the deaths of the apostles.
However, that is NOT the end of the story!
In Matthew 10, Mark 6 and Luke 9 Jesus commissions the disciples to go out in pairs and do ministry among the people just like He had been doing it. From the context in Mark it appears that this was relatively early in His ministry, soon after John the Baptist had been executed. That means that it was also early in the disciples' experience with Jesus. In other words, give people a first-hand experience of the supernatural and they will hunger for more!
In Matthew 10:6-8 He gave their commission:
"Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" = go to your own people, those in your own country;
"And as you go, preach saying, The kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" = tell people that God is going to interact with them;
"Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons" = do those things, just like Jesus did;
"Freely you have received, freely give." = don't charge for God's blessing at your finger tips or from your mouth, be careful about receiving any reward from man for what you are doing.
In Mark 6:7 there is some more detail:
"And He...gave them authority over the unclean spirits" = that was an extension of the authority God gave mankind at Creation over everything visible, now to include things invisible, in the spirit realm.
In Luke 9:1-2 there is a similar commission to the twelve:
"Then Jesus...gave them authority over all demons and to cure all diseases, and He sent them out to announce the kingdom of God and to bring healing" = Now you twelve can do what I have been doing, and see the same results.
And the results?
There is nothing in Matthew but in Mark 6:11-12 we read:
So they went out and preached that men should repent. And they drove out many unclean spirits, and anointed with oil many who were sick, and cured them." = That looks good except for one thing - the anointing oil. There's no evidence that Jesus ever used anointing oil - anointed spit, on several occasions, but not oil. Were they mixing the familiar with the unknown to try to make things easier for them? Still, God obviously wanted them encouraged, because the results of their ministry, as with that of Jesus, only came because the Father was at work.
Luke has a simple report of their success in chapter 9:6
"And departing they went about from village to village, preaching the Gospel and restoring the afflicted to health everywhere."
However, once Holy Spirit settled on them at Pentecost Peter, for one, was fired up. When he and John met a lame man begging outside the temple (Acts 3) he used the same sort of technique that he had seen Jesus use on many occasions.
"And Peter directed his gaze intently at him, and said, Look at us...Then he took hold of the man's right hand with a firm grip and raised him up. And at once his feet and ankle bones became strong." There's nothing wrong with that, nothing at all!
Things only got bigger as word went around about what was happening. Acts 5:12, 15-16 tells a story:
"Now at the hands of the apostles startling signs were being performed among the people...So that they kept carrying out the sick into the streets and placing them on couches that as Peter passed by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. And the people gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those troubled with foul spirits, and they were all cured."
That sounds great, but I see a problem.
The apostles (twelve or so as originally commissioned by Jesus, minus Judas) were doing well, especially Peter. Those were heady days - God was at work.
(In some manuscripts they appear as 72.) These men were commissioned and sent out by Jesus soon after He sent the 12 disciples, whom He called apostles (ones sent out). Luke 10 has the details.
The seventy received the same commission as the twelve:
"Whenever you go into a town...heal the sick in it and say, The kingdom of God has come close to you." (Luke 10:8-9.)
That last statement is a figure of speech called 'litotes' or 'understatement for effect'. Since healing comes directly from God the Father's intervention ("My Father has not stopped working from the beginning" and "It is the Father in Me who does the works") then the kingdom of God has actually come into the presence of the people who are healed and set free.
As noted in Ministry Like Jesus the thirty five pairs of disciples who went out in that second wave had an even greater effect than the twelve sent out in six pairs before them. The adversary, the accuser of the brethren, who day and night is accusing the believers before God in Heaven (Revelations 12:10) flashed down from Heaven to whip his demonioc lieutenants into shape with such ferocity, according to Jesus, that it was like lightning falling.
We don't know what happened to the 70, but they don't appear to get a mention in Acts, just the twelve. Perhaps they were there, or some of them were there, in some measure, but I cannot help wondering if we are not already seeing the centralising of ministry under a limiting leadership. The concentration of spectacular results under Peter suggests that others were not coming out in the same strength.
Perhaps the earlier, restrictive influence of John and James, who told a man performing deliverance that, because he was not actually following Jesus with them, he was not allowed to minister in that way, had continued in spite of Jesus' correction of that attitude? (See Mark 9:38-39.)
While Paul had never followed Jesus during the Master's lifetime and seen how He worked, he evidently learned what was involved in healing like Jesus.
In Acts 14:8-10 Paul was preaching at Lystra. In the crowd was a young man listening to him who had never walked, a cripple from birth.
(Paul) gazing intently at him and observing that he had faith to be healed, shouted at him, saying, "Stand erect on your feet! And he leapt up and walked."
In Acts 19:11-12 we read:
"And God did unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons which had touched his skin were carried away and put upon the sick, and their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them."
That is distinctly God at work without Paul's direct participation, a demonstration of Passive Authority.
There was also a young man named Eutychus who fell out of an upstairs window while listening to Paul teaching. He was picked up dead, but after Paul bent over him, embraced him and said, "Don't be alarmed, he is alive" he was taken home alive. That was Active Authority at work, along the lines that Jesus practised.
Yet, after his arrest and while on his way to Rome to appear before Caesar, when Paul encountered a sick man on the island of Crete he stopped using his authority, he stopped speaking to mountains.
"And it happened that the father of Publius was sick in bed...Paul went to see him, and after praying and laying his hands on him he healed him."
There is no evidence in Scripture that Jesus ever prayed for someone before, during or after ministry. There is no need to ask God to do what He (the Father) is perfectly willing and ready to do. Instead, He used private prayer to prepare for ministry, or to thank His Father publicly for what He (the Father) was about to do miraculously.
It's interesting that Luke changes his language here as well, (perhaps a marker from Holy Spirit?) and describes Paul as having healed the man, rather than God having done it. The man was healed, however, and other people on the island kept coming and were cured.
If we go back to each commissioning of the 12 and then the 70 disciples we never see Jesus asking anyone to ever pray for the sick. That's not the way He did it, that's not the way the disciples did it at that time. Prayer is asking God to do something, and there is no need to ask Him to do what He is waiting for us to set in motion.
We know from the book of Acts and the book of James that the miraculous, certainly in the way that Jesus taught it, seemed to slow. I am going to suggest that that was not a part of God's plan, but a part of man's lack of faith.
If we go back to what Jesus said about dealing with problems (speaking to mountains) the key component is the very small amount of faith that is required to actually speak to the problem. Perhaps after failing to see a result from speaking people resort to prayer, asking God to intervene.
I have no doubt this is what happened with that first generation of disciples. The occasional failure to see an immediate result, or perhaps personal failures outside of ministry allowed people to lose heart at doing ministry like Jesus. Within 20 years of Jesus' ascension, and well before the end of the first century, well before the death of all the first disciples, His method for doing ministry had been changed around completely.
In what follows please know that I hold James, the younger brother of Jesus, in high regard. He had a difficult job to do in a very difficult time. He came in as an apostle at a very difficult stage, having rejected his older brother's ministry while Jesus was on Earth. Jesus appeared to him after His resurrection, and James became a leader in the early church.
The book of James is filled with great wisdom and spiritual truth, but there's something, no, two things near the end which stand out as being contrary to anything Jesus taught and practised. Three things, actually.
"Is any one among you afflicted - ill-treated, suffering evil? He should pray." James 5:13a
Maybe. Maybe instead he or she should SAY what needs to happen. We have seen those things (Sickness and Pain) move (actually leave) when people speak to them. Sometimes that alone is enough, sometimes the person needs to confess or deal with an unresolved situation, just like in Jesus' day.
"Is anyone glad at heart? He should sing praise." James 5:13b. Great advice!.
"Is anyone among you sick? He should call in the church elders, and they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord's name."
That conflicts with anything Jesus ever did or said.
i) Jesus ran an egalitarian system - everybody was equal, anybody could minister like He did. If someone is sick you should be able to call in anyone, if you cannot shift it yourself. There is no need to pretend that elders or pastors or bishops have more authority than someone without a position. If they do it is because they are practising more.
We have seen a little girl of six tell pain to go from her stomach in such a quiet voice we could scarcely hear her, but God heard, God was listening, God was waiting for us to present ministry like Jesus did, and her pain went immediately.
On another occasion two pre-teen boys followed a group of adults into a church for a quick session on healing, after seeing people on the street get healed. As I explained how to remove pain or sickness by holding a hand near the problem area, I noticed them suddenly break into big smiles. They had not waited for me to finish the explanation and start the process, but they did it for themselves, and their pain went immediately. That's how God does it.
ii) When did Jesus ever pray over a sick person? I keep offering big money at conferences to anyone who can show Jesus actually praying for someone, either before, during or after ministry. The verse doesn't exist. There's not even a suggestion of it. If He didn't need to, we don't. He said to do ministry like He did it (John 14:12), and that we would see even greater success than He had seen!
Prayer is wonderful. It's a great tool, but it's the wrong tool to use when ministering healing or setting someone free*. It's like trying to hammer in a nail with a saw, or like trying to shorten a piece of wood with a hammer.
I have asked pastors at conferences what sort of success they see when they pray for people. Generally they say 2 out of 5, or less than that. If you do ministry like Jesus you can expect to see 97-100% of people healed or set free or receiving from God on the spot. The other 3% will generally occur within the next few days. We don't hear back from everyone later, though.
iii) To do something in someone's name means to do it like they would do it. In John 5:43 Jesus said, "I have come in My Father's name," which meant that He did everything as if His Father was there, doing it Himself. He kept saying that, according to John's Gospel - you can see those verses again here.
Accordingly, James' instruction about "anointing him (the sick or afflicted person) with oil in the Lord's name" is simply not possible, because Jesus doesn't seem to have ever anointed anyone with oil. With spit (saliva), twice, yes, but not with oil.
Why would someone use oil, when oil is an Old Covenant symbol representing Holy Spirit? Holy Spirit is here, with us, in us, according to Jesus, not just in the person ministering, but in every believer.
It's true that when the disciples went out to minister after Jesus taught them, according to Mark 6:13, "they drove out many unclean spirits, and anointed with oil many who were sick, and cured them." At that time Holy Spirit had not yet been released upon the Earth, and they probably felt more comfortable using a tool, albeit unnecessarily, which was familiar to them.
James went on:
"And the prayer of faith will save him that is sick, and the Lord will restore him."
I have seen, as have many others, a sick person anointed with oil and prayed over, who did not survive the ministry presented to them.
Jesus didn't do that (pray a 'prayer of faith' over someone), ever.
Just imagine the boat in the storm under these circumstances. Jesus wakes up, sees the wind and the waves and says, "Gather 'round boys. Let's join hands and pray about this." But that is exactly what many people are being taught.
* When Jesus dealt with a demonic spirit that the disciples could not shift (Matthew 17:21) He said, "This kind only goes out by prayer and fasting." Jesus was not saying that either prayer or fasting, or even both would remove a recalcitrant spirit. The prayer and fasting is meant to be applied before or outside of the event so that the person ministering can hear clearly from Holy Spirit, to know what to do or what to command no matter what comes up. See "The Keys of the Kingdom" here.
It has been estimated that the book of James was written between 40 and 50 AD, that is, within ten to twenty years after Jesus left. It seems evident, from reading the book of Acts especially, that James and the others back in Jerusalem were intent on confining and institutionalising the early church. It quickly went from the flat, 'everyone is equal with everything in common' system shown at the end of Acts 2, to a hierarchical system with leaders at various levels.
Unfortunately, James never moved with Jesus. In fact, there are three distinct occasions when members of Jesus' earthly family and friends actually strongly opposed or wanted to interfere what He was doing.
There is a concerning event recorded in Mark 3:21. Jesus and His disciples are trapped in a house, so crowded that they cannot even take food.
"And when those beside Him heard this, they went out to take Him by force, for they kept saying, He is beside Himself (out of His mind)."
We don't know from the Greek whether these ones ('those beside Him') were family or friends. But we know from the following verses that Jesus was coming under attack early in His ministry.
"And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, He is possessed by Beelzebub, and by the prince of demons He is casting out demons." Mark 3:22.
Jesus easily refuted that malicious allegation. Then we see the intervention of His family a few verses later, in Mark 3:31. The incidents recorded in Matthew 12:46-50, Mark 3:31-35 and Luke 8:19-21 appear to be the same event
"Then His mother and His brothers came, and standing outside they sent word to Him, calling Him."
Jesus ignored them and continued teaching.
John records a disturbing encounter between Jesus and His brothers, in chapter 7:1-10. John sets the scene in verse 1:
"After this Jesus went from place to place in Galilee; for He would not travel in Judea, for the Jews sought to kill Him."
That's quite clear, but look at what happens next.
"Now the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was drawing near, So His brothers said to Him, Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples there may also see the works that you do. For no one does anything in secret when he wishes to be conspicuous. If You do these things show Yourself openly. For His brothers did not believe in Him either." Verses 2-5.
Clearly, Jesus' brothers had no respect for Him. They regarded Him as one of their own, not as the Son of God, so in their eyes He was clearly out of line. He continued to be an embarassment to them. As a result they decided to goad Him to go into a dangerous place, with a high possibility that He might be killed.
Jesus recognised this, of course; we can tell from His next words, in the next verse:
"Whereupon Jesus said to them, My time has not come yet; but any time is suitable for you and your opportunity is always here." Verse 6.
He knew He had to die, but this was not the time or the place - He had more work to do, in His Father's name.
a) he never saw the unique methods that Jesus used and taught to bring healing;
b) he did not realise (or maybe ignored) that Jesus taught that anyone could do the same sort of works that He did;
c) he did not realise (or maybe ignored) that absolutely anyone who believed in Jesus could see the same sort of results as He did.
AD 27-30 Jesus establishes and demonstrates continually that healing is freely available through using His hands, commands, actions or declarations. His default method was overwhelmingly 'say to this mountain'. (See a sequential listing in Say to This Mountain - here and here and here.)
There is no evidence in Scripture that Jesus ever prayed for someone during ministry. Why would He ask His Father for something that He could already see being done?
AD 40-50 James, who never saw Jesus at work, writes that prayer from elders and anointing with oil is the approved/valuable/reliable way to produce healing. In just 10 to 20 years Jesus' methods were being officially discarded; perhaps they had already fallen into disuse.
AD 55 Paul teaches the Corinthian church about Holy Spirit manifestations (an overflow of Holy Spirit within us) and points out that they are always under our control (1 Corinthians 14:32) - (we can start and stop them as we choose). Included are scary things like faith, miracles, healing, tongues and more.
AD58 After Paul is arrested in Jerusalem and sent to Rome in chains, on the island of Crete he prays for the father of Publius to be healed, instead of using a direct command.
AD 60 Paul writes from prison in Rome to the Church at Ephesus. In chapter 4 he describes how each believer has been given one or more of the so-called ministry gifts: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers - verses 7, 11 - with the intention to fully equip the believers to do the work of the ministry - verse12.
Unfortunately, few believe this, and while some churches pay lip service to training believers, the majority are not taught about what God has placed within them, and few take up the opportunities God provides to use the unnatural gifts that have been placed inside us all.
Cessationism is not the removal of spiritual gifts by God. There is no timeline for operation of spiritual gifts or manifestations given anywhere in Scripture, there is no schedule given for when they must or will stop.
The traditional idea about cessationism - that God withdrew the special miracle-working gifting from mankind - is contrary to the nature of God as revealed in Scripture. "For God's gifts and His call are irrevocable - He never withdraws them once they have been given." Romans 11:29 AMP
Miracles and healings stopped because believers did not believe or did not follow the words and methods of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospels.
As Jesus said, "If anyone believes in Me, the works I do, they will do also."
Note that a building (the result) is only erected by much work (the works and methods needed to get the result). John 14:12 (quoted above) seems to be emphasising the method (the works) for achieving signs, wonders and miracles (the result).
For additional material, see here.