REFORMED WITNESS
Volume XV, June 2007, Number 6
Signs of the Apostles: The Temporary Gifts of the Holy Spirit
Part I
Rev. Ron Hanko
Pastor of First Protestant Reformed Church (PRC), Edgerton, MNThis is part one of a two part lecture. Part two will be in next month's newsletter. It is one of three lectures from the Office-bearer's Conference at Classis West of the Protestant Reformed Churches, held at Doon PRC, Iowa, on March 6, 2007, concerning the subject:
Pentecost and Pentecostalism
Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. - II Corinthians 12:12.
Introduction
Not everyone would agree on the number of the special gifts of Spirit identified in II Corinthians 12:12 as the signs of an apostle. To the list of gifts in I Corinthians 12:4-11 some would add exorcism, or even snake-handling and drinking of poisons (Mark 16:17,18), others, administration and helps (I Corinthians 12:27-30).[1] But few would disagree that tongues-speaking, prophecy and miracles, especially miracles of healing, are the most important gifts. It is these three gifts that we will be examining, believing that what we learn from Scripture about these gifts will also be true of the other special gifts of the Spirit.
The question whether or not these special gifts continue is sharply divisive. Those who believe that these signs have ceased (cessationists) see the Pentecostals and Charismatics,[2] who believe in their continuance, as being in serious error. Those who believe that these special gifts are still to be found in the church accuse cessationists of being without the Holy Spirit:
A Christian who denies and refuses to see what is plain to be seen re: The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is seeking to do the will of God without the power of God. Holy Ghost power came at Pentecost. Your unbelief and tradition will keep you powerless.[3]
The question is important. It is the question whether or not the church has had and does have the Spirit of God. It concerns Scripture as the inspired and infallible Word of God. It has to do with the foundations of the church: whether the church is built on a firm apostolic foundation against which hell cannot prevail, or whether she is built on a foundation of sand and will be overwhelmed by the forces of evil.
We will show that these special gifts of the Spirit were only temporary and limited to the time of the apostles, and that a belief in their continuance is not only unbiblical but dangerous to the well-being of Christ's church and God's people. The Word of God is clear on these important matters.
We will also show that, even if these gifts have not ceased, the use of them by the majority of Pentecostals and Charismatics is unbiblical. Their tongues are not the tongues of Scripture. Their miracles are not the miracles of Scripture. Their prophecies and revelations are not at all the same as the prophecies and revelations of Scripture. These movements are in serious error; therefore, even if the special gifts of the Spirit have not ceased.
II Corinthians 12:12
We begin with this passage because it has to do with all the special gifts, and answers in a few words the question whether these gifts of the Holy Spirit continue in the church. It does that by calling them the "signs of an apostle," that is the signs which identify an apostle and confirm a man's work as apostolic.
To understand this we must see what Scripture teaches about apostles. We might insist that the special gifts of the Spirit belonged to the age of the apostles and were given only to the apostles, but many in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements will respond by telling us that the apostolic age has not ended. What then is an apostle?
Scripture sets a number of qualifications for an apostle and most would agree with the following list:
- He must have accompanied Jesus during His earthly ministry, which was from His baptism until His Ascension (Acts 1:21-23).
- He must have been a personal witness of the resurrected Lord Jesus (I Corinthians 15:7; I Corinthians 9:1; Acts 1:22; 4:33; 10:39-42).
- He must have received a personal call from Christ to Apostleship and a commission to fulfill its duties (Luke 6:13; Mark 3:14-15).
- He must have had as his field of labor the whole world rather than a local church or group of churches (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15).
In carrying out this personal commission from the Lord Jesus Christ, these Apostles (along with the New Testament prophets) were in the process of laying the foundations of the Church - a historical architectural procedure which is a once-for-all exercise and which cannot be repeated through out every era of Church history (read Ephesians 2:20; Revelation 21:14).[4]
We would add to this that an apostle was the only one who could confer these gifts upon others. There is no record in Scripture of anyone receiving any of these gifts from anyone but an apostle. The story of Philip's work in Samaria (Acts 8:5-25) demonstrates this. Philip was able to perform miracles himself in Samaria, having been given that power through the apostles (Acts 6:5-8), but no one else received the Holy Spirit and His gifts until Peter and John came from Jerusalem. So we read that, "When Simon saw that through the laying of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money," desiring not the Spirit of God, but the special gifts of the Spirit, which only an apostle could bestow.
Paul would of course appear to be an exception to some of these qualifications, and even he acknowledges that there were differences between himself and the other apostles in that he was one "born out of time" (I Corinthians 15:8). We know that he saw the risen Christ (from the story of Christ's appearance to him on the Damascus road), but what about accompanying Christ during His earthly ministry? As far as we know, he had no contact with Christ's earthly ministry. Nevertheless he had the signs of an apostle and that must mean that he not only had the gifts of the Spirit himself (I Corinthians 14:18) but had conferred them on others (in this case the members of the church of Corinth, to whom he writes). That was the only direct proof of his apostleship they had!
What is even more striking about his reference to being born out of time is that it indicates that the time for apostles to be "born" was already past. He was an apostle, his having conferred the signs on others proved it, but born beyond the time when it was still possible to fulfill the other qualifications for being an apostle of Christ. No other passage shows so clearly that the apostolic age was temporary.
If there are no apostles today, nor even the possibility of having apostles, then it must also be true that II Corinthians 12:12 is teaching that the special signs of the Holy Spirit, which belonged only to the age of the apostles, have not continued. The passage cannot mean anything else.
"Signs of an apostle", therefore, are the signs or gifts which were given to the apostles, belonged especially to the apostles, and marked those who had them as being apostles and could be given to others only by the apostles. This is implicitly recognized even by the Charismatic movement, by its insistence that the apostolic age has not ended. That it has ended can only mean that these signs have not continued in the church.
Hebrews 2:1-4
A second passage that shows the inseparable connection between the special gifts of the Spirit and the Apostolic age is Hebrews 2:1-4. We quote verse 2-4: For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recommence of reward; How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?
These verses make it clear that an apostle is one who personally heard Christ, and that the miracles and other gifts of the Holy Spirit were given to confirm the apostleship of these men and for that purpose alone. One writer puts it this way in reference to the miracles worked by the apostles:
The message to which we must give heed `began to be spoken by the Lord' himself. However, it was `confirmed unto us by them that heard him'. First-hand witnesses or apostles who had personally 'companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us' [Acts 1:21] had a confirming ministry. And Hebrews 2:4 tells us, `God also (was) bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will.' Again New Testament miracles are viewed in Scripture itself as God's stamp of approval upon the message of the apostles, which was an inspired record of the things they had seen and heard while with Jesus.[5]
There is no one who can meet the qualifications for an apostle today. These signs and gifts belonged to the apostles and their age. They do not, therefore, continue. It is as simple as that. The gifts claimed by the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements can only be an imitation of what is described in Scripture, an imitation which cannot have come from the Holy Spirit Himself. This we will see even more clearly as we examine the three most important gifts.
Mark 16:17-18
Mark 16:17,18 is another passage worth looking at. It does not mention prophecy, but does mention tongues-speaking and miracles of healing. It reads: And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
It is difficult to see that one can claim tongues and healings as gifts of the Spirit without also claiming snake-handling and drinking of poisons as gifts, since they are mentioned side-by-side and not in an order that would allow anyone to separate these two from tongues and healings. Yet, with the exception of a few Pentecostal sects in the Appalachians, there are no Pentecostals or Charismatics who are willing to claim these signs. To put it bluntly, they are willing to claim the "safe" signs but not the "unsafe."
If they say that these two signs, snake-handling and drinking deadly liquids, were only temporary, then they destroy the very ground on which they stand with respect to tongues and healings. If they say that snake-handling and drinking poisons are not temporary, then they must claim and practice them also. Their failure to do so is a testimony against them.
It should also be noted that these signs are said to follow those who believe. Mark, however, indicates in verses 19 and 20 that it was the apostles whom these signs followed and to which the passage is referring: So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.
The signs followed the apostles and according to Mark were given for the confirmation of their preaching. That is the issue. That is what the Pentecostals and Charismatics do not accept and what is insisted on by every cessationist.
We might also note the rather unusual language used by Mark. Twice he speaks of these signs "following." That suggests that they are neither essential nor necessary, but only something that accompanied the progress of the gospel as preached by the apostles. They were in modem language a kind of hitchhiker on the early road followed by the gospel as it made its triumphant progress through the nations.
Miracles
In looking at the actual gifts of the Spirit, we begin with the working of miracles, but only because it is this gift which is most readily accepted as continuing beyond the time of the apostles. There are those who will have nothing to do with tongues or with new revelations who hesitate to deny that the miracles continue to happen through the agency of men. This we deny. We do not deny that miracles continue. What we and every other cessationist denies is that miracles continue to be worked by men.
Believing that all God does is miraculous and beyond our understanding, we have no difficulty with the idea that God continues to do miracles today both in the natural and in the spiritual realm - that He sometimes heals the body, when humanly speaking there is no hope for healing, and that He does other things that defy human explanation. Salvation itself is a great miracle! We agree with MacArthur:
I do not automatically discount all claims of supernatural healings just because some are false. But I am convinced that dramatic, miraculous, immediate intervention by God is quite rare - and never dependent on some supposedly gifted person who acts as an agent of healing. Genuine healings may come as a result of prayer and most often involve simple natural processes. Other times, God speeds up the recovery mechanisms and restores a sick person to health in a way that medicine cannot explain. Sometime he overrules a medical prognosis and allows someone to recover from a normally debilitating disease. Healings like that can come in response to prayer and the sovereign will of God and can happen at any time. But the gift of healing, the ability to heal others, special anointings for healing ministry, healings that can be "claimed," and other typical faith-healing techniques have no biblical sanction in the post-apostolic era.[6]
Luther says, speaking of the "greater works" that the Christian does:
But which works of the Christian accomplish this? We see nothing special that they do beyond what others do, especially since the day of miracles is past. Miracles, of course, are still the least significant works, since they are only physical and are performed for only a few people. But let us consider the true, great works of which Christ speaks here - works which are done with the power of God, which accomplish everything, which are still performed and must be performed daily as long as the world stands. Christians have the Gospel ... by means of which they convert people, snatch souls from the clutches of the devil, wrest them from hell and death, and bring them to heaven.[7]
It is not miracles that we and other cessationists deny, but the continuation of the spiritual gift of "working of miracles" (I Corinthians 12:10).
There are several things we wish to emphasize about miracles worked by human agents. First, even in Scripture these were not common occurrences, but appeared at certain times in the history of the church both in the Old Testament and New Testament as confirmation of new eras of revelation. John MacArthur speaks for every cessationist when he says:
Most biblical miracles happened in three relatively brief periods of Biblical history: in the days of Moses and Joshua, during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha and in the time of Christ and the apostles. None of these periods lasted much more than a hundred years. Each of them saw a proliferation of miracles unheard of in other eras. Even during those three time periods, however, miracles were not exactly the order of the day. The miracles that happened involved men who were extraordinary messengers from God - Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, Jesus and the apostles.
Aside from those three intervals, the only supernatural events recorded in Scripture were isolated incidents... For the most part, however, supernatural events like those did not characterize God's dealings with his people.[8]
Morrison even goes a step farther and suggests that those who performed miracles did not do so ordinarily, but only as a result of the direct prompting of the Holy Spirit and only then, in very limited circumstances:
It is of great significance that the `gifts of healings' and the `workings of miracles' are referred to in the plural in the Greek texts (I Corinthians 12:9-10,28). This is because all occurrences of healings and miracles were separate gift-events which took place through the immediate impetus of the Holy Spirit. A person did not receive `the gift of healing' on a permanent basis, so that he became a professional `healer' and could heal at will, as it were. Every time a healing or a miracle took place, the one through whom the healing or miracle was performed received a specific prompting from the Holy Spirit to carry out the act.[9]
He cites the examples of the healing of the lame man at the temple gate by Peter (Acts 3:1-10), the healing of the demon-possessed slave-girl by Paul in Philippi (Acts 16:16-19) and the raising of Dorcas by Peter in Caesarea (Acts 9:40). He insists that this it what Hebrews 2:4 means when it says: "God bearing them witness... with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to His own will." We believe that he is correct.
We must also say something about the purpose of biblical miracles. They were never performed "on demand" or at random, but for a good reason. But before we look at the purpose of miracles in Scripture, it must be pointed out that the miracles claimed by the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements do not follow the pattern of miracles in Scripture, are different from the miracles worked by Christ and the apostles and are therefore suspect. Not worked according to the pattern of Scripture, they cannot be the work of the Holy Spirit. Whether they are real miracles or not, and if real, where they come from is another question and a question that is really beside the point.
Many objections to the miracles that are claimed today are proposed by those who have examined them. The principle objections are (1) that the healings claimed by Charismatics are generally of a non-organic nature, i.e., they are of such things as weak eyesight, intestinal complaints, etc., but not of diseases that visibly and permanently cripple the body, unlike the miracles of Christ and the apostles;[10] (2) that when claims are made for the healing of organic illnesses, these are always claimed in circumstances where no proof is available so that they cannot be verified, whereas the miracles of Christ and the apostles were in many cases verified by the testimony of their enemies (e.g., the raising of Lazarus, the healing of the lame man at the gate of the temple and the deliverance of the demon-possessed slave girl in Philippi); (3) that Christ and the apostles' healings were complete both in that they never failed to heal and that those who were healed were healed completely, unlike the "incomplete" miracles of today's faith-healers; and (4) that modern healings are always done today in carefully controlled environments, whereas the miracles of Christ and the apostles were done spontaneously and in a completely uncontrolled environment.
This alone is proof that those who claim to do miracles as a gift of the Spirit are lying. Their miracles are not the miracles of Scripture and are not, therefore, from God.
Morrison issues a unanswerable challenge to every modern miracle-worker:
Here is a challenge to any readers who may imagine that they can lay claim to a personal ongoing `healing ministry' today: Don't just minister in your tent meeting, conference or prayer seminar, waiting for all those misled people to line up in front of you. Instead, go out in the casualty departments of your local hospitals on a Saturday night and bring instantaneous organic healing to the battered and broken victims of the brawls and accidents that present themselves there for treatment. Then nip up to to the surgical wards and lay your hands on the amputees, everything-ectomies and hopeless cases, so that their limbs and entrails will be restored to them whole. When those places have been emptied, find your local `Institute for the Blind' and bring some colour into their lives for the first time with your remarkable `healing' powers. Then bus over to the offices for one of the societies for the handicapped and get them to take you out to their many training centres, where you can restore those withered and calipered limbs on the spot. If you still want to show you have a `proven anointed' ministry, find some local authority Special Schools and make that Down's Syndrome melt away from those pleading little faces. And if you still have any energy left, take a taxi across to the local mortuary and bring some of its frigid occupants out with you for a breath of fresh air and a good meal.
If you lay claim to a `healing ministry', the Word of God challenges you to do all these things today. Why wait? For those are the kinds of healings which the Lord Jesus and the Apostles carried out in the course of their ministry... Not only did they have a 100% success rate, but nothing was too difficult for them to tackle. If you believe you should be healing just like Jesus, then anything less than the same success rate and instantaneity of His healing is a complete sham. By all means call yourself a 'faith-healer' or even a Shaman, but do not make the false claim that you are doing the works of Jesus.[11]
The inescapable conclusion is that the miracles claimed today are not the miracles of Scripture. Whether they be real but lying miracles, therefore, or only trickery, is not the issue. Unlike the miracles of the prophets and apostles and of Christ Himself, they do not come from God, and that is all that matters.
Be that as it may, the most important thing is that miracles were for the sole purpose of authenticating some of Old Testament prophets at importance junctures in Israel's history, as well as the work of Christ Himself and of the apostles. They were not an evangelistic tool or means of conversion as many Charismatics believe. Jesus makes that clear in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." They were not performed simply out of pity for those who were suffering. Jesus healed only one man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-9). Nor were they ever used for personal reasons.
MacArthur says:
In Philippians 2:25-27 Paul mentioned his good friend Epaphroditus, who had been very sick. Paul had previously displayed the gift of healing. Why did he not simply heal Epaphroditus? Perhaps the gift was no longer operational. Or perhaps Paul simply refused to pervert the gift by using it for his own ends. Either way, healing Epaphroditus was beyond the purpose of the gift of healing. The gift was not given to keep Christians healthy. It was to be a sign to unbelievers to convince them that the gospel was divine truth.
We find a similar case in II Timothy 4:20, where Paul mentioned that he had left Trophimus sick at Miletus. Why should Paul leave one of his good Christian friends sick? Why didn't he heal him? Because that was not the purpose of the healing gift. (See also I Timothy 5:23 and II Corinthians 12:7)[12]
He explains:
Why do we seldom hear of the gift of healing being used in the hospital hallways? Why aren't more healers using their gifts on the streets in India and Bangladesh? Why aren't they in the leper colonies and AIDS hospices where masses of people are racked by disease?
It is not happening. Why? Because those who claim the gift of healing do not really have it. The gift of healing was a temporary sign for the authenticating of the Scriptures as the Word of God. Once that authenticity was established, the gift of healing ceased.[13]
The fact that miracles were a matter of authentication in the ministry of Jesus is clear from Jesus' reference to them when asked by John's disciples if He were truly the Messiah (Matthew 11:2-6). John says of Jesus' miracles that they were done and recorded "that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name" (John 20:30, 31). Hebrews 2:1-4 says the same of the miracles performed by the apostles.
This means that miracles are secondary to the Word. In Charismatic circles the opposite is often true. The miracles become an end in themselves. Thus the proliferation of services for healing, and the endless "healings" that take place at such services make the Word of God take second place or no place at all.
Miracles, therefore, are always associated with prophecy:
It is an inescapable conclusion of Biblical study that no true servant of Christ will be given power to work miracles unless he is directly associated with prophecy. Whenever we see men working miracles by the Spirit of God, we will expect an inspired communication of God's words to attend them. Miracles are God's attestation to the divine mission of those who bring his fresh revelations to us. We are compelled to look upon the men who work wonders and transmit the ability to others not merely as preachers, but as the very prophets of God.[14]
Have miracles worked by human agents ceased? Only if prophecy has also ceased. The Pentecostals and Charismatics would say that prophecy has not ceased and that miracles continue to be the attestation of prophecy and prophets. We must; therefore, examine the matter of prophecy more closely. (To be continued...)
Footnotes
- These gifts of the Spirit are defined at this site as: "special abilities provided by the Holy Spirit to Christians for the purpose of building up the body of Christ". - back to article -
- The names "Pentecostal" and "Charismatic" are not completely interchangeable. While most Charismatics would not object to being identified as Pentecostals, many Pentecostals would object to be identified as Charismatics. Generally speaking, those who identify themselves as Pentecostals today are those who show some concern for the teaching of Scripture regarding the gifts and their use, while those who are identified as Charismatics are those among whom the worst excesses of these movements are found. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, for example, the name "Charismatic" is associated with Roman Catholicism. - back to article -
- Personal letter from a correspondent
in County Clare, Ireland, dated March 19th, 1995.
- back to article - - Alan Morrison, The Serpent and
the Cross (Birmingham, UK: K & M Books, 1994), 493-94.
- back to article - - Walter J. Chantry, Signs of the Apostles: An Examination of the New Pentecostalism (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973), 23. - back to article -
- MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos, 210. - back to article -
- Martin Luther, Luther's Works, vol. 24 (St. Louis: Concordia, ), 79; quoted in Chantry, Signs of the Apostles, 66-67. - back to article -
- John F. MacArthur, Jr., Charismatic
Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), 112.
- back to article - - Morrison, The Serpent and the Cross, 501. - back to article -
- MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos, 206, gives the following definition: "In simple terms, a functional disease might be a sore arm. An organic disease would be a withered arm or no arm at all. A psychogenic disease would be thinking your arm was sore." - back to article -
- Morrison, The Serpent and the Cross, 503-04. - back to article -
- MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos, 205. - back to article -
- MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos, 202-03. - back to article -
- Chantry, Signs of the Apostles, 25-26. - back to article -
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