Most Christians understand that God continues to reveal himself to humanity. I would say he constantly reveals himself; he’s constantly talking to people. Plenty of Christians have a conversational prayer life with God. As for those who don’t: He works around our hesitancy or ignorance. He’ll drop an idea in our heads, and we might think it’s one of ours, but it’ll be way better, way more fruitful, than any of ours. He’ll give you a dream you can’t forget, or one of his many prophets will tell us something that pokes us right in the conscience… along with the Holy Spirit, who pokes us there an awful lot too.
Every time God answers a prayer, every time he performs a miracle, every time he gives out a message for another person—whether it’s encouragement or divine knowledge—in every interaction, we see more examples of what God can do, and God’s good character. We learn more about God.
True, there are cessationists who insist God stopped doing all that stuff in bible times; who insist the only way we can learn about God is by reading and quoting and studying bible. And I’m not gonna discourage getting to know that bible; it’s how we confirm the God who’s actively doing stuff among us, is the very same Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised to send us. But what evidence do cessationists have that God doesn’t specially reveal himself anymore—that instead he’s forsaken us—other than out-of-context bible verses?
Well none. Just their own prejudices against people who claim they had God-experiences. Just their terror of the very idea that Christianity isn’t under their control at all; that in fact the Holy Spirit has his own agenda, and because they’ve been denying his activity they don’t actually know him as much as they’ve been claiming; and because some of ’em have been calling his activity devilish, turns out they’ve been blaspheming him.
Funny thing is, I grew up among cessationists. And even they will talk about God’s current activity. They’ll talk about looking at nature and deducing God from it. Awesome discoveries from the Hubble and Webb telescopes reveal what God made. Awesome scientific breakthroughs reveal God’s intelligent design. A newborn baby or a really cool sunset both reveal God’s current activity. So if God’s continually revealing himself through nature… then he is continually revealing himself, isn’t he? Gotcha.
It’s gotta be consistent with bible and good fruit.
One of the worries which cessationists have is, let’s be fair, a totally valid one. Every once in a while we’ll hear of a “prophet” who claims God told him something, but his prophecy contradicts scripture. Every so often a “prophet” will declare she’s heard something encouraging from God, but the message is so fleshly, so obviously pandering to people’s greed and fears and prejudices, so unkind, it doesn’t sound like Jesus whatsoever.
Yep, there are phony prophets out there. Plenty of ’em. Plenty who are preaching on behalf of Mammon, or their favorite politician or political party. Cessationists will point to the frauds, and fallaciously claim this proves you can trust not a one of them; that this totally confirms their belief God stopped talking. It only proves these guys are frauds, not that there are no legit prophets anywhere.
Not only do the scriptures not tell us prophecy has ceased, they instruct us on how to discern whether a prophet or prophecy actually comes from God. Why would the Holy Spirit inspire the apostles to tell us how to confirm prophecies, if he was gonna stop doing prophecy?
Cessationists are right to insist we need to know our bibles; we need to know ’em because they show us what God sounds like. If he’s the same God, he’s gonna sound just like the scriptures he inspired. His will and character are gonna be consistent throughout. He’s gonna point to Jesus, same as always. His statements about the secret thoughts of people are specific and 100 percent accurate. His statements about the future will happen, because he knows the future; he’s not speculating or guessing. And importantly, his messages are gonna produce good fruit. Phony, self-serving messages will not.
Cessationists get alarmed whenever prophets and their fans treat these messages as equivalent to bible. Thing is, only a fraudulent prophet is gonna treat their “ministry” that way. Only ignorant Christians are gonna think their messages are scripture. Christianity closed its canon centuries ago. (Only the Mormons think they can still add to it, and the rest of us consider ’em heretic—for lots of reasons; not just ’cause their bible has three testaments.) Legit prophets are gonna be humble, and let their messages be tested and confirmed; not claim they’re another David, Ezekiel, or John, and foolishly think those guys weren’t heavily scrutinized by the believers of their day.
Cessationists are likewise right to be alarmed about the rampant irresponsibility and “charismania” we see among people who believe in prophecy. But as I said, I grew up among cessationists: We should be just as alarmed about the rampant unaccountability and authoritarianism we see among a majority of cessationists. Because they don’t think the Holy Spirit actively interacts with humanity anymore, they aren’t listening to him—and when he talks to them, same as he talks to everybody, they resist him. Which inevitably leads to them not obeying him. So of course you’re gonna find scandal after scandal in cessationist churches, as men of low character worm into positions of authority and abuse it.
Fact is, if your church isn’t following the living God, it’s gonna go wrong. It might have the most eloquent faith statements, and its preachers might regularly affirm historic Christian orthodoxy… but there’s gonna be attitude problems, character problems, inadequate fruit of the Spirit, anger, argumentativeness, divisiveness, and other such works of the flesh. Even Spirit-led churches might go wrong in these ways, but Spirit-resisting churches are kinda predestined to do these things. How could they not?
