Mk 16 shows the signs were for the apostles, hence Paul calls them signs of an apostle. From Acts 8 the apostles could lay their hands upon another person and pass to that person an apostolic sign, yet that person could not pass that sign to another. Only the apostles had the ability to pass apostolic signs. After the last apostle died, no one was left to pass signs. After the last person died that had a sign given to him by an apostle, signs ceased, vanished away. Those signs fulfilled their purpose and no longer are needed. And the reason why no one will come to where I am and empty out the hospital...at my expense.
Dear SeaBass, you shouldn't wait to see before you believe. If the Bible never says that signs, the gifts of the Spirit, and apostolic ministry ceased (rather, it says that they continue until the end of time), then you can't expect to believe that your belief and the lack of evidence in your life is greater than God's Word. You probably never traveled to China, but you believe it exists because you've been told, have seen Chinese people, have seen pictures and videos of China. Yet, if you haven't been there, can you really believe? Yes you can. God's Word says that the five ministries continue till the end of time. If you haven't seen the evidence of them, you should still believe, because God's testimony is greater than man's testimony.
The 'signs' and evidence that the apostolic and God's 'signs' and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are all around you, inside your body, in your home, in the air. You don't know how to see it and so cannot. But you can't deny them because you don't see them; it's like denying that atoms exist because you never saw them. Yet you believe they exist because of the testimony of others. From the inception of the first humans, God was already talking about apostolic ministry before He even sent Jesus to earth. If Jesus was never called an Apostle, you would say, "Jesus wasn't an Apostle; He was God." Yet the Bible calls Him an Apostle, a High Priest, a Prophet, a Pastor, a Teacher, an Evangelist, etc., and so you believe. When Jesus told Nathanael that he only believed that Jesus was the Son of God because he
heard Jesus tell him something supernatural, He concluded,
"You will see even greater things than these. Assuredly I tell you, you will see the heavens opened..." (Jn. 1:43-51).You will do better if you believe by what you've
heard; but if you don't, stick around long enough, and you will
see it.
The Bible bears a lot of witness to the truth. If you can't acknowledge the truth in the Bible, it will be hard to acknowledge it anywhere else. I.e. if you saw someone empty out that hospital of yours with signs and wonders, you would naturally feel a need to stick with what you believe which is that signs and wonders aren't for today. Don't ask me; it's just how it often works. The one verse that closes all debate about what is for today and what isn't (whether apostles or gifts of the Spirit or whatever) is Heb. 1:1-2; however, as Hebrews is a meaty Book, that passage doesn't appeal to those who cannot see spiritually and means nothing to them. Yet,it encapsulates everything in the Bible from Beginning to End and says that while what God did under the Old Covenant was incomplete, what God did in Jesus Christ was complete and as such must continue forever since it was founded on perfection or completion. Look at the passage with me:
"God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son."
In the past, God did some things this way and some things that way; when Jesus (the Perfect) came, He did all things one way which is
in Jesus Christ. As perfect,
all those things (not just some as in the OT) will continue till the end. In the past, God healed some people and didn't heal others (when Jesus mentioned two instances of this fact in Lk. 4, the Jews tried to kill Him); in the past, He sometimes did and sometimes didn't; but in Jesus Christ, everyone was healed, and everything was whole and not in part-- not sometimes. (If you look in the NT, you will notice a very curious thing: there is never a mention where someone came to Jesus or Jesus came across someone with need and didn't heal or deliver them. This continues into the Book of Acts with the testimony,
"and they were all healed" several times. The only time we see that it didn't work was with the disciples and the epileptic (whom Jesus then came and healed or 'completed') and the seven sons of Sceva who weren't Christians. This is partly recorded for us to prove that while 'in the past' it was sometimes and sometimes not,
in Christ, it is meant to be always.) God spoke and operated in different ways in the past; but when Jesus came, He was the only Word:
that means that what He did was the final say. God began things in the past some of which were abandoned (e.g. Hebrew dietary laws; in Christ, everything taken with thanksgiving became sanctified);
but everything that God began in Christ continues forever. This includes signs and wonders, spiritual gifts, and apostles. If Jesus isn't the Final Word, then no one can be; it's either His Word or it's ours or someone else's. I have to believe that what He says is the truth,
even if I never experience it. There's greater stability in that than in believing that things I've never seen or experience exist because men told me so.
