If the prophetic gift has ceased then Paul got it wrong when in canonized scripture (1 Corinthians 14) he instructed believers to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, ESPECIALLY the gift of prophecy.

I think the question we have to ask is why wouldn’t these things keep on? The direct scriptural comments about the matter are very sketchy. Moreover, we recall the fellow in the gospels who was casting out demons in the name of Christ, even though he was not a follower. Christ didn’t seem to feel it necessary to say the guy was a fraud, so maybe he wasn’t.

I’m not comfortable with limiting the ways the Spirit might see fit to work in our world. I figure that’s entirely His decision.

I think the argument that when prophets have spoken there has been new revelation recorded in scripture is sound but not conclusive. All we know of prophets, even the nonconsequencial ones, are recorded in some way in scripture. For the 400 years from Malachi to John the baptist there were no prophets that we know of because there was no new scripture being written. Theyy seem to go hand in hand. But the real reason I do not believe there are any new prophets is the same reason I do not believe there are any new priest, nor any new Kings over God’s people the way there were priest, prophets, and kings of Israel,. That reason is that Jesus fulfilled the role of prophet, priest and King. He is still priest and King forever, so why would we think He still maintains these two roles and not the role of prophet? To sum it up, one would have to usurp Jesus’ position to be King, priest, and prophet. Suporting this is the fact that scripture is not being written. This last point is a sign of the cesation of prophets. There may be people who are given a word (by whom it comes is debatable) but this does not mean they become prophets like Isaiah or Malachi, et cetera.

First, I want to apologize for commenting three times in a row here. But I really need to make a correction to my last comment. Please ignore what I said there about the quote from the “Apostolic Confessions”. I did some more reading on that document after I posted that comment and it seems that it is questionable if it carries much weight or not. It is supposedly a compilation of writings from the end of the first century into some point in the fourth century. Some claim they are valuable history, others claim they they were edited and rewritten by some one that may very well have been a follower of the Arian heresy. So a quote from this source may or may not provide a truly historical picture. And even if it is accurate, there is such a large time frame covered in the compilation that I don’t believe it would be useful in this discussion at all.

I have an interesting book, “A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs” that is a collection of quotes by Christians in the pre-nicene period. They are categorized by subject matter so it is easy to locate quotes and beliefs on a given subject.

I have just done some looking in this book and came up with these interesting facts:

Justin Martyr spoke of gifts from God including foreknowledge and healing as happening currently. This was about 160 A.D.

Iraneus around A.D. 180 speaks of the dead being raised in answer to prayer and people being healed by disciples laying hands on them.

Origen in about 248 A.D. speaks of people being healed in the name of Jesus although he does say that these things have diminished in frequency since the time of the Apostles.

So according to the witness of these folks, these things were still going on in the middle of the of the third century.

And there is a lengthy quote from the Apostolic Constitutions which was supposedly compiled in about A.D. 390 which speaks of signs and wonders, casting out demons and raising the dead, words of knowledge, etc. as being in the present tense.

cornellmachiavelli,

You said, “I originally thought the sign gifts ceased some time BEFORE the composition of Hebrews (see Wallace’s article) and 2 Timothy (since Paul no longer possessed his sign gift of healing, 4.20).” That sounds to me like you still believe that Paul’s gift of healing had stopped in II Timothy 4:20. Is that not what you were saying there? That statement and that statement only was what I was commenting on in my question to you. If you take a close look at what I wrote, the Bible itself proves that is not the case.

Now you have stated agin in your last comment that Paul’s ability to heal ceased before he died. Again I would ask, how did you come to that conclusion? Are you basing it on something other then the II Timothy verse that I have already discussed? I can’t think of any Scripture that would make that plain.

cherylu,

Reread my post carefully. You will see that I agree with you. You were responding to something “I originally thought.”

In fact, your very observation is one of the reasons I put the cessation of healing to the death of the last first generation Christian. Paul’s ability to heal ceased before he died, so I can’t be sure of my tentative conclusion. We need to bear in mind that the sign gifts served a confirmatory purpose (as we saw in Heb 2.3,4). These sign gifts where also confirmatory of the Apostolic Office (2 Cor 12, the signs of an apostle…). Since the Apostle John died around AD 100, I have to allow for that. I would not argue with anyone who claimed the sign gifts (the messianic gifts) ceased at the very moment of John’s death, since the sign gifts served a confirmatory purpose, and that confirmatory purpose included the confirmation of the gift of Apostle… primarily.

CQ

[...] nor a traditional Cessationist, has written an interesting piece at Reclaiming the Mind – “If there are Modern Day Prophets, then the Canon is Still Open,” which is part of his “stupid statements” series. Patton more or less points out that a [...]

My mind is really going.

Via a Google search, I found that I had asked this same question on B-Greek about theopneustos, mentioning that I had read this alternate meaning somewhere I couldn’t at the time remember – on July 25, 2006!!

So here I am nearly 4 years later still wondering where I read it….

Lisa:

I don’t believe it was that P&P thread where I read a different meaning for theopneustos. In fact, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on P&P, and it may not have even been on the Internet; rather, it was a book I was skimming, I think.

But I really don’t remember.