Well friends, I just finished watching “The Cessatinist” film. To say it was a really good presentation of what’s at state in the continuationism/cessationism debate is an understatement. The film confirnmed the large amount of research I’ve already accomplished and added to that large volume of material.

This is actually a review of a long comment on the VIMEO site made by an avowed and ardent continuationist for which I wanted to try do an analysis of her reasoning. It might be helpful, but maybe not. Tim Challies did a review concerning the merits of the film and there’s a link to his review at the end of this blog post. So here goes nothing.

I recently purchased The Cessationist movie Deluxe Package available here. I read through comments and came across the comment shown below and found it interesting, in fact interesting enough to record personal thoughts about its contents and share them I’ve broken the long comment into sections as quotations. It was one long praragraph on the VIMEO site. My comments are shown under each separate comment. I hope I have ‘Rightly Divided” them (Some of you will get that.)

“I have a couple agreements with this film and some serious critiques as well.”

I found it interesting (but I’m not sure why), that ‘agreements’ are just a ‘couple’, and the disagreements/’critiques’ are ‘serious’. That tells this old brain that the comment was probably written by someone who watched it as an ardent ‘continuationist’. Years ago I was one (an ardent continuationist) and would haveresponded to the movie with the same tone.

Agreements

“The scriptures are to be our only foundation and that the gift of regeneration by far is the greatest gift and miracle for us.”

I think the reference to scripture as our only foundation might have been referring to “Sola Scriptura”, which is the theological doctrine held by most Protestant Christian denominations, in particular the Lutheran and Reformed traditions, that posits the Bible as the sole infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice. The foundation spoken in the film is the Apostles and Prophets as the foundation of the church, not the foundation of individual believers. And of course regeneration IS the greatest miracle!

“I also agree that Agabus didn’t make a partially incorrect prophecy but a fully accurate prophecy.”

Agabus was the prophet who predicted a great famine in Acts 11, and that Paul would be taken and turned over the Gentiles in Acts 21 when he (Paul) arrived in Jerusalem. The Acts 21 prophecy was discussed in the film, at length. Continuationistshave used the argument that Agabus’ prophecy was partially incorrect. The film offers proof that there were no errors in his prophecy.

I also agree that signs authenticated prophets (but I disagree that authentication was the primary or only purpose).”

I don’t think the film states that the authentication of Prophets and Apostles was the ONLY purpose for the sign gifts, but the implication that they were the PRIMARY purpose is clear. That they served other purposes was not specifically discussed that I could see, but it didn’t need to be talked about. Signs and miracles, by their very nature, also serve other purposes. One source I found 5 additional purposes:

1. Signs Reveal Jesus’ Glory

2. Signs Show us what the Father is like—and Express His love for People

3. Signs Confirm God’s Word

4. Signs are the Manifestation of God’s Kingdom among us

5. Result in People Believing in Jesus

Since there are no actual OT/NT types of prophets in our day, the foundation of the church having been already built, Apostles and Prophets and authenticating sign gifts are not required,

So those are the only agreements mentioned – 3 in a two-hour film.

Disagreements/Serious Critiques

On the disagreement side, one of the most glaring faults of this film is the ridiculous caricatures used in the film. The continual reference to Benny Hinn and Todd Bentley (and the like) as good examples of what most modern charismatics are like is simply unfair and ridiculously careless. It seems like the film is only concerned in confronting a caricature and not concerned with addressing arguments from the other side in an honest/open fashion from more honorable proponents. If you are attempting to convince someone they are wrong you shouldn’t caricature them in the worst possible fashion—that is disingenuous and ineffective.

I didn’t hear a single reference to Benny Hinn and Todd Bently, etc. being good examples of what modern charismatics are like, but rather just the opposite.

Also, the film’s tactic to discredit the more honorable proponents of continuationism (Piper and Brown) seems to be to associate them with those who have done some ridiculous things such as Jim Baker or Todd Bentley.

I saw no “association” between more honorable proponents of continuationism and the Todd Bently’s and JimBaker’s although John Piper did say he was in a ‘wait and see’ mode about Todd Bently, who I thought he should have dismissed outright.

On the topic of prophecy: they delve a little into Wayne Grudem’s interpretation but then quickly dismiss it by quoting OT passages and claiming it’s a new interpretation without thoroughly examining the possibilities that what Paul describes as prophecy in the NT may actually be something different in many cases than what went on in the OT. The film dismisses this topic too quickly.

The film’s treatment of Wayne Grudem’s (and others) definition of NT prophecy not needing to be exactly what is given the prophet to speak was IMO accurate. The OT passages concerning true and false prophets are valid. The cute graphics in the film that depicted how God speaks through prophets in the OT and how it changed in the NT were spot on.

Another problem is that the film claims miracles were only manifested to authenticate prophets and apostles until the words were recorded. This is false. Jesus also performed miracles because of compassion (Matthew 14:14). Miracles were a manifestation of his love (but, to be clear, not the only way he shows love of course).

Again, the film never made that claim, at least that I could see (discussed earlier). The film focused on the authentication of the Prophet or Apostle that performed a miracle, as well as the issue of the need for Apostles and Prophets in the church, Apostles and Prophets were foundational but once that foundation was built and Jesus established as the cornerstone and the canon of scripture was established there was longer a need for them. Now, scripture itself is all we need to live a godly life and do the works God intended for us (2 Tim 3:16-17).

Also, confronting the “3 epochs” claim, books such as psalms, proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Esther—were these written by a prophet who was confirmed and by signs and wonders? Should we take these books from the canon since they were not properly authenticated?

REALLY bad argument. The issue is not who wrote certain books, but whether or not signs and wonders are recorded IN the books. For instance, Moses is credited with writing the first five books of the OT the first four of which contain miracles signs and wonders. Furthermore, not all OT books written by Prophets contain the miraculous. A list of OT miracles can be found here. There are 83 miracles performed by men in the OT and over 80 in the NT (different sources might differ on the totals). That there are three relatively short periods in the Bible is a sound argument: The three periods when men had the power to perform miracles are: Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Jesus and the Apostles. Each period was about 65 – 70 years. The contention that signs and wonders performed by men were normal everyday occurrences is simply not true. Moses lived during the 13^th & 14^th centuries BC so the span of miracles from Moses’ Day to Christ and the Apostles is about 1,500 years.

In summation, I believe the idea that the gifts have been stopped only comes from speculation and fear of abuses—not clear, plain scriptural teaching. You should not preach a doctrine that you are willing to divide over that is based on mere speculation and tradition. What the scriptures do clearly teach, however, are that there are indeed spiritual gifts, not that they ceased. Continuationism is the result of the plain reading of the text. It’s ironic how my Calvinist friends decide to read Romans 9 very literally but when it comes to the gifts of the Spirit they are caught doing some serious scriptural gymnastics to try and prove their cessassionism point.”

The claim: “the idea that the gifts have been stopped only comes from speculation and fear of abuses” is completely without merit. The support provided for cessationism in the film was well thought out, meticulous, scriptural and/or based on actual experience(s). It is my opinion that for the most part, we believe what we WANT to believe, and there are many who want to believe that signs and wonders should be a normal part of life in the church, so they find passages that, if taken out of their biblical context (immediate and throughout the Bible) seem to prove what they want to believe.

The NT and OT both contain spiritual gifts. The NT spiritual gifts can be categorized, generally speaking, as being miraculous signs & wonders, primarily to authenticate the message/messenger or serving/ministry gifts for the building up of the body of Christ.

I don’t think for a moment that the film was produced to ‘prove’ cessationism based on a desire to prove a presupposition/assumption, but to carefully examine scripture and teach what is actually contained therein concerning the topic(s) at hand.

The comment about her ‘Calvinist’ friends was a cheap shot. She could have at least told us what about Romans 9 doesn’t need to be taken literally. IMHO.

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If you are interested, Tim Challies published a review of the film primarily to see if it presented the cases for cessationism and continuationism at: Cessationist: The Film | Tim Challies.