The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Is all revelation found in scripture

Cessationists affirm that God works providentially in His people’s lives but deny that God speaks direct new revelation to His people. God’s Word is living and active, and the Holy Spirit leads and empowers His people to apply His word to the specific and varied aspect of their lives. “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God... that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16). Scripture is sufficient.

The charismatic view of continuing revelation is, in my opinion, mistaken, and it leads to significant troubles. Chief among these is that new revelation acts as a parallel authority which challenges, and often undermines, the unique role of God’s Word in the believer’s life. To illustrate by way of an actual example: A man “prophesies” while praying over a young widowed woman. He encourages her that God would soon give her the desire of her heart, namely a husband. This “prophetic” word purports to reveal, in a very personal and specific way, God’s will for this woman’s future.

Is this form of guidance helpful, harmless, or harmful? If God’s Word is both definitive and sufficient to equip the widow of God for every good work, this other “word” has significant potential for harm. God has already spoken, and is speaking, to the widow’s situation in Scripture. The Apostle Paul encourages widows to, among other things, trust in God, continue in prayer, and avoid living for their pleasures (1Tim 5:5,6). God instructs this widow to give her attention to godly behaviour and draw comfort and strength, not from her knowledge of what the future will hold—like a husband, but from His promises to care for her.

The “prophecy” distracts the widow from God’s Word. This is apt to be true even if she is determined to hold the prophecy in subjection to Scripture. While she may know that Scripture is infallible Revelation and the “prophetic word” is perhaps only partially accurate, the fact that the prophecy is specific to her situation elevates its importance and displaces Scripture.

A final concern is that belief in new fallible revelations may, over time, undermine the faith of God’s people in His infallible Word. Don Basham, a prominent charismatic leader, now deceased, wrote that “My personal experience has been that I’ve heard eight or ten times as many erroneous prediction prophecies as valid ones...”6 Other charismatic leaders I’ve spoken to concur with this. At best, “prophecy” that is often false is confusing for God’s people. More serious yet, if God’s message to us is delivered in such an unreliable manner today, how sure can we be that His Word was faithfully delivered to us in Scripture? Is it possible that Moses, Jeremiah, or Paul were, like so-called modern “prophets,” only “fairly accurate”?

Perhaps the burden of proof demanded of the cessationist should be addressed to the charismatic. No verse in the Bible explicitly states: “Prophecy [or revelation] will cease with the completion of redemption and the closure of the canon.” However, neither is there one explicit statement in Scripture confirming the closing of the canon. Charismatics accept the closed canon (as do all orthodox believers), but reject the cessation of revelation. But on what basis do they accept the former and reject the latter? It seems that these two issues—the completion of the canon and the completion of revelation—are indeed the same issue. They seem to “stand or fall together.” If revelatory prophecy, apostleship, and tongues continue, God is still authoritatively speaking and thus on what basis do we believe the canon is complete? We either have a complete and sufficient Scripture or we have continuing revelation. We cannot have both.