I am the worship leader at a Reformed Baptist church, and have been for well over half a decade. What a blessing it has been to prepare songs to encourage the corporate worship of the church--songs that remind us of God Himself, that point to the truths of His Word, and that connect to the sermon soon to be preached. These songs overflow with Scripture or references to it, and put all of us members--or so I pray each week, at least--in the proper mindset to hear and receive the word that our pastor tirelessly delivers. And every so often, the Lord puts a new song in my heart that I am able to bring before the church and use for His glory and the edification of His saints.
Having come from a non-denominational background (in reality, “non-denominational” nowadays is almost always a noncommittal way of saying “charismatic”), I have learned much by being in a Reformed Baptist church. Misconceptions have been corrected; juvenile understandings of various verses have matured and been refined; my taste in worship music has evolved from “what sounds good” to “what is simultaneously doctrinally rich and pleasing to the ears.” I am thankful that the Lord has delivered me from the bondage of doubting my salvation due to the inability to speak in tongues, prophesy, or give a fellow brother a word of knowledge.
But there are some things in my walk that have not quite been reconciled, and perhaps they will not be elucidated until I reach heaven. Many, if not most, Reformed Baptists are cessationists. This is the belief that the miraculous gifts--tongues, healing, prophecy--ceased after the early church age. And why did they cease? The cessationist position is that these gifts were, firstly, employed by God the Son to testify of His Godhood and, secondly, bestowed upon the apostles to identify them with Christ and confirm their authority as leaders of the early church. Most who hold to this position contest that when the apostles died, these miraculous gifts died with them; they point to verses such as 1 Corinthians 13:10 and Hebrews 1:1-2.
I want to take a look at these two verses. For 1 Corinthians 13:10, I will provide the greater context:
•1 Corinthians 13:8-12: "Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known."
Paul assures us that prophecies, tongues, etc. will pass away. When? When the perfect comes. Certain Reformed Baptist preachers (one being Steve Lawson, whom I deeply respect, and whose sermons I consume ravenously) claim that this time of “when the perfect comes” is a reference to the completion of the canon of Scripture. When Paul was writing to the Corinthians, the full New Testament was not yet canonized. Thus, the argument of some cessationists is that once the canon is complete, there is no longer any need for tongues, prophecies, and other gifts, for everything is revealed in the whole counsel of God--the completed Bible.
My problem with this argument is that there is no reference to the canon of Scripture in 1 Corinthians 13, nor any hint that Paul is referring to the gifts disappearing in the near future. Judging by the language used in this verse, it seems that Paul is not looking to the completion of the canon, but to a day when he no longer sees in a mirror dimly (a reference to the partial understanding of certain truths revealed to those who are granted the gift of prophecy); he looks to the day when he will see “face to face” and “know fully.” Surely, even with the full canon of Scripture, there are things we will not know until we meet with Jesus face to face in heaven. This is what I believe Paul is looking forward to. When the day comes that we see the face of our Lord Jesus Christ in Paradise, what need will there be for prophecy? For tongues? For words of knowledge? Our faith will have become sight! The partial understanding that we have on this side of eternity will be fully realized once we have moved beyond the limited perception of these temporal, unspiritual (Romans 7:14) bodies. We will have face-to-face communion with our Lord in the place that is perfect--a place where we cannot sin, and where the answers to many of life’s questions will be revealed.
Now lets us examine the second text.
•Hebrews 1:1-2: "Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world."
I read this verse dozens of times over the years prior to being in a Reformed Baptist church, and not once did I get the sense that this inferred the cessation of prophecy. I did not know this interpretation existed until about five years ago, and even though I have been reminded of this interpretation quite often over the years, it did not sit well with me. After some reflection, I think I know why.
The cessastonist interpretation of Hebrews 1:1-2 hinges upon the following being true:
God spoke to our fathers by the prophets long ago
God has spoken to us by His Son in these last days
*Therefore*
God no longer uses prophets to speak to us
If A and B are true, then C must be true, right?
Not necessarily. If God spoke in the past through the prophets and has spoken through His Son in these last days, does logic demand that God no longer speak through prophets?
Perhaps some of the difficulty comes from the translation of the text. Let us look at several common translations.
ESV: Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
NIV: In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
NASB: God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
KJV: God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds.
Note that the ESV and NIV both place the word "but" between what happened in the past through the prophets and what has happened in these days through the Son; the NASB and KJV, however, give the sense that Jesus is not one who replaces or supersedes the method of God's transmission of His words (nor does it tell us that prophetic utterance has reached its conclusion; any such interpretation may be inferred) but the sense that Jesus is rather a continuation of the prophets. God used prophets to speak to the forefathers; today He has used His own Son to speak to us. This does not tell us that God will never again speak to prophets, nor does the book of Hebrews indicate that any words spoken subsequent to Jesus’ life on this earth are uninspired by the Holy Spirit. To say that there could be a prophecy extraneous to Jesus (i.e. something that Jesus Himself did not verbalize while on this earth, or a message of which He is not the central focus) does not mean that His words are insufficient for guiding us in life--for did not the same Holy Spirit use Agabus the prophet to warn the church of the famine to come (Acts 11:27-28)? The believers heeded the words of the Spirit and sent relief to the brothers in Judea (v.29). God the Son did not speak forth this specific prophecy, and the prophecy itself was not focused on Him.
Some of my Reformed brethren might bemoan the fact that I quoted from Acts to make a point about prophecy. So let us turn elsewhere: the timeline of the two aforementioned New Testament books. We do not know precisely when Hebrews was written, but most scholars place it some time before 70 A.D. 1 Corinthians, on the other hand, was likely written between 53 and 57 A.D. Thus, some time in the mid-50s A.D., Paul told Corinthian believers, “Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy” (14:1) and “[E]arnestly desire to prophesy, and do not forbid speaking in tongues” (14:39). Are we then expected to presume that the writer of Hebrews was telling his readers that God no longer speaks through prophets? There may have been a gap of a decade between these two books! Did the Holy Spirit, who inspired Paul to tell the Corinthians that they should desire to prophesy, inspire the author of Hebrews shortly afterward to write that prophecy outside of the Son only happened in former days? We must remember that Christians other than the apostles themselves were being encouraged to desire to prophesy, and not to forbid speaking in tongues.
I have heard the argument, “If God gives a prophecy to someone, it should be added to Scripture, and we are told to add nothing to Scripture.” But this logic also seems radically flawed to me. Are we certain that every time God has spoken in history, it has been written in Scripture? What about the prophets who were prophesying in 1 Samuel 19:20? Were their words written down in the Bible for us? No. Does it follow, then, that any word given from God must be canonized in Holy Scripture? Think of the numerous prophets and prophetesses in the Old and New Testament. Do we know everything they prophesied? If we make the case that any prophecy given to man by God must be added to the Bible, then we should expect the Bible to be a lot larger. Can a prophet or prophetess really be called such without having delivered a verified word from God? And yet they are found in many places in His Word.
I have never heard the audible voice of God, and I do not believe I will hear it this side of eternity. When I was part of a non-denominational church, I convinced myself that I spoke in tongues; later, I realized it was all fabricated so that I felt like a “true believer.” If someone approaches me and tells me that the Lord told him to do something, I am immediately skeptical. I do not have the gift of tongues or prophecy. Honestly, even though I suspect that Paul’s charge to “earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy” extends to today’s Christians, I do not find myself much caring to pray for such gifts. But I think we need to take a close look at the verses I have mentioned and ask ourselves if we are reading them carefully, contextually, and logically.
I decided to leave a personal story for the end. In 2008, while attending a church called “The Discovery Church” in my hometown, I decided to put my adequate singing and guitar skills to use and join the worship team. I cannot remember how long this went on, exactly, but it could not have been more than four or five months. I was wracked with anxiety the entire time (performing before others can be scary), and so I abruptly stopped showing up to practices and stopped joining the band during our Sunday services. It was not long before I (wrongly) left that local congregation, ashamed.
A little over a year later, still feeling the shame of walking away from that congregation, and feeling increasing self-pity over the fact that I was now a decent singer and guitarist without a congregation where I could exercise my gift, I began to attend a Christian college about an hour’s drive away from my hometown. A period of time was blocked away each week for chapel, where the entire school worshiped together and listened as someone delivered a sermon. One day I was sitting in my chair and waiting for the music to start when a young man (I remember his name, but for the sake of the privacy, let’s call him Jonathan) approached me, seeming a bit nervous.
“Hi, how’s it going?” he greeted me.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I replied, a bit surprised and offended that he had broken into my introverted bubble.
We introduced ourselves, but I already knew his name, because he was fairly well-known at school. He was very outspoken and rather humorous in the class or two we had together.
“I have a question for you,” said Jonathan “and it might sound weird or crazy, but can I just ask you something?”
“Sure….” I said, already wanting to go somewhere else.
“Okay. Um...have you led worship in the past, but walked away from it?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Uh...yeah, I did. I led worship in Vacaville, but got too nervous and stopped doing it.”
Jonathan took a seat beside me and looked relieved. “Oh good, now I know this is from the Lord. The Lord told me that He wants to use you to minister to others with the gift that He has given you. He wants you to produce worship songs for Him and use those songs to encourage believers.” I know that Jonathan said a few other things, as well; the word “stage” came up, though I cannot remember if he said God wanted me to lead others through worship songs on a stage, or if I would one day be on a stage leading worship. I sincerely believe it was the latter, however.
What caught my attention was the fact that Jonathan and I had never sat down and talked before. We were not friends on social media at that time. We did not even have friends in common at college, since I was an introvert and he was an extrovert, and I had not been attending school in that city for very long. But he had known something secret about me that only God, my family, and my friends knew. Sure, there was some uncertainty as evidenced by his words “Oh good, now I know this is from the Lord.” One might think that the young man was venturing a guess. But I recall Jeremiah 32, when the Lord gives the prophet a message: “Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle is coming to you, saying, “
‘Buy for yourself my field which is at Anathoth, for you have the right of redemption to buy it’” (v. 7). Shortly after Jeremiah receives this word from God, his uncle comes to him in the court of the guard and asks him to buy the field at Anathoth. Jeremiah writes, “Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord.” Then he knew. When the event unfolded the way God had told him, he knew it was from God. Perhaps Jonathan, approaching me in the middle of our auditorium that day, had hoped for something to confirm what he claims to have heard from God.
In fear, I attempted to flee from the message that was given me that day, and did not obey it (other than a brief tenure as the worship leader of a spiritual formation group in our college); nonetheless, three years later, I was back in my hometown of Vacaville, leading a church (Victory Christian Life Center) in songs of praise...on a stage. I did not go out of my way to seek out such a church. God brought a close friend into my life, he invited me to his church, I got to know the pastor, the pastor discovered my abilities...and soon I was singing and playing guitar on stage every Sunday morning.
If Jonathan had never spoken to me about God wanting me to lead worship and write songs, I may never have found the impetus to consistently lead songs of praise. I would have retreated in fear again. I would have told the pastor, “I know how to sing and play guitar, but I just write songs for myself and God.” But now I have led worship for seven years, and the songs I write have evolved into corporate worship songs. I give all glory to the Lord for putting His Word on my mind, and for letting it flow out in song to the benefit of the saints. I have seen those words that were proclaimed to me come to fruition.
Being a Reformed Baptist has given me a great temptation to deny what happened that day in college. I have tried to invent every excuse in the book to avoid facing the possibility that God really gave a message to that young man. Some of my brothers and sisters of my denomination might consider me foolish or even immature in my faith for believing that God could give a unique message to someone--a message that does not contain the canon of Scripture--for the edification of the modern church. But the fact remains that Jonathan was right about me, a fellow student he did not know. That is something I cannot explain.
Perhaps it would behoove any man who calls himself a cessationist to look closely again at the New Testament and ask himself if the Christians of the first century operated under the assumption that the miraculous gifts would soon vanish from the earth.
