>>>The Bible doesn't leave us hanging and we don't need more prophets. God has provided all the prophecy we need and Jesus Christ is the FINAL WORD!<<
The Bible is clear that there were prophets after the ascension. Christ even received a gift of prophets at the ascension. So the fact that God spoke in the past by prophets and in the last days has spoken by His Son clearly does not mean there would be no more prophets. If it did mean there was no more prophetic revelation, why would you consider that verse in Hebrews to be authoritative?<<<
J Edwards wrote, >>The miraculous gifts ceased with the Apostolic Age. Hebrews 2:3-4 assumes that the sign gifts had for the most part ceased. Further, it offers evidence of the purpose of the sign gifts: to confirm that God was doing something new. Hebrews reveals the fact that there is a new and final revelation in Christ (Heb 1:1-2). He is the One to whom the whole OT points. The author of Hebrews makes an argument on Scripture over against experience. What is the author’s evidence? The audience’s past experience is their present evidence! If the gifts were continuing then one would expect the argument to be stated much differently (i.e. the continuing of the gifts).<<
Hebrews does not say anything about miracles having ceased. It only points out that when the Gospel was first preached among the readers, it was preached with signs and wonders. To try to read cessationism into this is eisegesis pure and simple.
What we might see in this is a pattern that when the Gospel is preached in new areas or to a new group of people, it is sometimes accompanied by signs and wonders. This happened on many occasions in Acts. Of course, the Hebrews are a unique people in God’s dealings.
J Edwards wrote >>>Now Hebrews was written in app 68 AD. The gifts were already on the way out. However, if the miraculous gifts of the NC age had continued in the church, one would expect an unbroken line of occurrences from apostolic times to the present. There is none. Except for a brief mention of the gifts in 150 AD, the history of the church it pretty silent on these sign gifts. The Montanist movement (a teaching that prized ecstatic and apocalyptic prophecy) was a revival of spiritual gifts after they “biblically” ceased. The fact that the church condemned this movement is significant! They had first hand memory of the true Charismatic gifts and saw the difference(s)! Montanism (Please read, The Church's Debt to Heretics, by Rufus M. Jones) was condemned because it represented heresy! There is no new revelation!<<<
The issue here is that the New Testament does not teach that the gifts were ‘on the way out.’ If we date the books and look at supernatural activity, they don’t just dwindle out of time. In fact, the last book on a lot of charts, which would be Revelation, is a spectacular visionary experience complete with visions of Christ and angelic visitations.
And as for Montanus, I suggest you read the Britanica Micropedia article on it from… maybe 98 or 99. The author of the article rightly argued that the church in Montanus’ day believed in the gift of prophecy, and that was not the issue. Montanus and his followers apparently had a very ‘ecstatic’ style of prophecy that was different from what the churches were used to. Montanus was generally accepted as a heretic after he appointed rival bishops.
Eusebius relates an account of a debate between a Christian and a Montanist at a time when the Montanists were apparently not claiming to prophecy. The Montanist told of Montanus’ two women co-workers prophecies—Maximillia and the other one. He said they were prophets like Philips’ daughters. The Christian argued against the Montanist by pointing out that prophecy had ceased among them, whereas the apostles [Paul, apparently] argued that prophecy would continue until the Lord returned. (Possibly an interpretation of I Corinthians 13.)
And supernatural experiences like this, including prophecy, did not just show up once in 150 AD. Justin argued that there were prophets in the church. Ireneaus told of revelatory gifts in his own day, which you can also read about in Eusebius Ecclesiastical history when you look up the Montanist debate in the previous paragraph, if you are interested.
(You say 150. For Ireneaus, that sounds early, and late for Justin, so I am not sure what you are talking about.) I am no expert in this area. Before you state dogmatically that there is no reference to gifts after the first century, it would be good for the sake of integrity for you to actually look up all references to such gifts. If you want a compilation with commentary of all such gifts, you could look at The Spirit and the Church: Volume I Antiquity by Burgess. The book is 2 or 300 pages or so in length, and there are a lot of quotes to go through. I think he might have given a somewhat sympathetic treatment of Montanism, but it has been a while, and I may be mistaken. And if I recall correctly, St. Anthanasius had a reputation as a prophet, if you are interested.
There were a few people who promoted cessationists views, perhaps to try some reason to explain the lack of the supernatural in their own day, men like Chyrsostom, and I recall reading the younger Augustine made similar arguments, before he saw some supernatural occurences and started promoting them.
Robin wrote,
>> There is no record in church history from the period immediately following the Apostles that there were other apostles afterwards; and no record of anyone other than an Apostle who conveyed the "gifts of the Spirit" to others by the laying on of hands, or by prayer, etc. And no record that anyone receiving such gifting at the hands of an Apostle ever passed the giftings on to others. <<
You are mistaken. The Didache calls certain contemporary itinerant ministers ‘apostles.’ Many date it to the late first or early second century.
Gifts could be passed on through the laying on of the apostles hands. They could also be conferred through prophecy. And God could just give them to whomever He willed. He did not have to give them through the laying on of hands of the apostles. I can show you an example in scripture if you need one.
Paul was made an apostle, apparently, without the laying on of hands of the 12 apostles. There is no record of the 12 laying hands on Barnabas to make him an apostle. (Acts 14:4.)
>>The revelation gifts (described in 1 Corinthians 12-14) were an eschatological event that persisted for forty years from the ascension of Jesus to the destruction of the temple in AD 70. They were covenant signs to the Jews of Jesus' generation that the old (Mosaic) covenant was ended because Christ had fulfilled the entire law.<<
I would like to address this point also raised by J Edwards in more detail later. I will just say that I don’t see how one can read the idea that Paul is trying to argue that tongues was a temporary sign for the Jews exclusively into I Corinthians 14 without using some pretty convoluted reasoning. Paul was arguing that tongues was a ‘sign to them that believe not’. Just as in the OT case, when tongues were spoken, and yet for all that, the listeners would not hear, just as in the OT.
Also, if tongues were a sign for the Jews or the destruction of the temple, that is not a good case that they have ceased because there is clearly another purpose for tongues aside from being a sign—edification of the speaker, and with interpretation edification of the church.
If they used to use knifes to cut the ends off the buggy whips, does that mean when they stopped making buggy whips, they did away with the knife? No, because knives serve other purposes as well. Why would trying to argue away one function of a multi-function gift mean the gift had ceased?
