This thread is regarding the doctrine of cessationism. It has been covered before, but I thought it was necessary to have a seperate thread for this.
There are common statements made regarding cessationism that I thought I'd like to address:
1- 'You are limiting/denying the power of the Holy Spirit.'
Generally, a cessationist still believes -- according to scripture---the Holy Spirit empowers, directs, guides, rebukes, encourages, is fully God, can be hurt and grieves, is personal, seals a believer, dwells in the midst of a local church in their various functions, and more.
They also generally believe-- according to scripture-- faith, hope and love are spiritual gifts that remain. Some also have partial cessationism with ministry gifts remaining, which altho I believe have also passed... I don't have much of an issue with if people are into these, since they are very similar to being God given talented at something.
The main thing though is the perfect thing, or that which is perfect.. causes the gifts to have been completed and finished. If this is the closed canon, with the death of the apostles and destruction of the temple.. then it isn't limiting or denying the Holy Spirit's power.
It is honouring that God has chosen to finish something He wanted for a time and completed it.
2- 'We have knowledge now, so the gifts can't have ceased.'
This one should be obvious, because the context of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14 is the supernatural gift of knowledge. This is not general knowledge.. it's supernaturally empowered, special, exceptional. So we still have general knowledge now of course.
3- 'The gifts are not being readily shown now because of a lack of faith'
The fact is most churches actually are not cessationists and believe in following all the gifts. Cessationists are not the majority. So not enough faith is not linked to the gifts not being shown.
The other part of this--in scripture-- is when God was using the gifts through people, it wasn't always about the level of their faith. It was God working, objectively, through people with these gifts. Many demonstrations of power and signs to show His work through His people to accomplish particular purposes. When they operated in the gifts-- they just DID IT! Because it was God doing it!
I think there are more things people bring up.. it would be good to know more.
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