A Case Against Cessationism 3 (Edited by ChatGPT)

  

In the preceding two posts (blog and podcasts), the questions in relation to 1 Corinthians 13:8–10 and the difference between biblical prophecy and non-biblical prophecy are addressed. Thus, two of the issues raised by those who believe in the cessation of some spiritual gifts could be addressed. Today, another issue raised by those advocating cessationism is addressed, and that is related to the character and history of those who experience and claim to experience spiritual gifts. The million-dollar question is this: could gifts of the Spirit be doubted because of the character defects and failures of those who claim to have spiritual gifts?

 

First, failure and character defect by themselves are not indicators of apostasy. We all are humans and imperfect as a result, and we will make mistakes here and there. Can we find anyone without sin and error, except Jesus Christ? We all fail here and there, and if anyone thinks failure and mistake are indicators of apostasy, he must be blind, unable to see himself. Live without error and mistake before you can demand perfection from others. If you make no mistake, you must be hiding in your comfort zone rather than working. You are not Jesus to be without error.

 

People who are given gifts of the Holy Spirit can make mistakes and errors. But let us focus not on errors and mistakes in general, but on major mistakes and errors. Because advocates of spiritual gifts, and those who are taken to be “generals” of spiritual infancy — I wish we learned to be foot soldiers of God, but we try to play the role of generals as children like to play roles (it is an infancy thing) — do make major blunders. I am not saying all those who claim to have spiritual gifts are from God, but I am sure people of God with spiritual gifts can have major blunders.

 

There are two sources of such blunders. One is the problem of Egypt, which remains inside us, and another is disobedience to the Spirit of God. Take the judges of Israel. They are anointed by God, because the Bible cannot lie, yet what kind of people were they? Since the people of Israel who came from Egypt did not walk right with God, and the people were left alone without spiritual guides and leaders who could keep them from idol worship, God did pick judges here and there with major character defects and complete ignorance of the Law of God to rule the people. Those people are not perfect representatives of God, but they are temporary levees between the dirty water of God’s people (Israel) and the much dirtier water of the devil around the people of God.

 

There are also character defects among those who are gifted by the Holy Spirit that are not personal failures but collective failures. Many charismatic people are influenced by evil theology — Word of Faith, prosperity gospel, and dominance theology. Would you expect perfection from such people? Even those who are Jesus-like and who glow Jesus in different cultures will have stains of such evil theology in their lives, which distort Jesus otherwise. They have no deep interest in material life (at least they are not obsessed with it), are not interested in power and dominance, and they are heavenly people, but they are John the Baptists — as they think that the Lord has to come as a conquering king, not as a lamb made for slaughter for our sake.

 

Is John not a prophet of God? Is he not the one who came before the Lord to prepare the way? Did he not declare that Jesus is the Lamb of God? But why did he doubt the Lord? He grew up under the wrong influences. He drank from the dirty water of the people, and he did not understand what he was speaking when he said, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” because his mouth was speaking the word of God but his mind was living by his culture.

 

If you grow up in a culture of white supremacist and think black people are inferior, you may not allow them to sit with white people. Does it mean God is not working with you? God teaches us what we can understand and grows us step by step, from generation to generation, into all truth. The assembly also grows into the image of Jesus from glory to glory, and this is a process. In the meantime, people will have influences from their culture and upbringing that are not corrected, although God is still working with them in other dimensions. So some failures are collective failures related to the level of our spiritual growth process. If we can see ourselves apart from our culture, it is surprising how much of our theology is not biblical. But there is a time for all things. There is a time to be a child, and there is a time to be an adult. When my kids dance to worldly music, I just laugh with them. But there will be an age when we will have the talk, and there will be a time when they will accept that worldly music is sinful and should be avoided.

 

Another problem is our disobedience. Think of King Saul, who was anointed by God but became an enemy of God. He started with the Holy Spirit but ended with an evil spirit. What is the difference, and why did God give him an evil spirit? Because he was not obedient to the will of God. Many giants of the faith start well with the work of the Holy Spirit, but as they become disobedient, they are often given deceiving spirits, and we know how they end.

 

As we know God, God expects better honor. As the blind see and the cripple walk through the work of God in us, God expects us to be mesmerized by Him — to think of who God is and to realize that God can do miracles through trash beings like us. We should look down on ourselves and lift God up in our lives. We should be hungry to know Him, to obey Him, and to serve Him. But we become generals, and we become Pharisees. Rather than taking the lower seat, we demand the better seat; rather than honoring the worthless, we demand honor; rather than being made in the image of God, we make God in our image. When God glorifies us, we have political ideas, business ideas, and social ideas — but what about slave ideas? Let us take the lower seat and sink into insignificance while we glorify God. But we never do. Instead, we even try to build towns of our own, and it is known how that ends.

So God will try to correct us, but at some point God will leave us with deceiving spirits. That is why, as our rise was magnificent, our fallout — as we are established on sand rather than the cornerstone — becomes a giant blast and crash. This is why, because a person of God failed and had major failures, to claim that all their history is of the devil is unbiblical. After all, the disobedience of Israel is clear evidence that though they were disobedient, sinful, and idol-worshiping people, this did not disqualify them from being the people of God.

 

Besides, the failure we pick may not be their failure but our prejudice. If we reject them as apostate, we will believe every evil thing about them but reject most good things about them. Take any known person in this age who has enemies. Is everything said about him or her — the good and the bad — truthful? Supporters downplay the evil, while enemies uphold only the evil. Yet only God knows the truth. And do you know what God ordered His servant — whether he did accurate work or not, as only God knows the truth — to do? He was told to write all the good, the bad, and the evil stories of those kids of faith declared to be generals of faith by other infants. So unless careful historical analysis is done by independent people, and unless that history follows proper historical scrutiny and is properly reviewed and affirmed, it is wise to withhold judgment — unless God gives us truth that we cannot doubt.

 

Let us take the house of David and evaluate them as enemies would. So we attack them with both their evil and the slander of the devil. David was welcomed into the house of King Saul but rebelled against his king because he wanted the crown for himself. Even though the king gave him his daughter and the king’s son loved him like his own, he still wanted the crown. By going to the temple, he broke the law by eating food given only to priests of God. He demanded payment from a rich man, and when the man refused, the man died for mysterious reasons and David took his wife.

 

When he joined the Philistines, he was ready to attack his own people by joining their kings. He killed a soldier to take his wife. When God gave him a choice between his own suffering and the suffering of the people, he chose that the people should suffer for his sin. His son raped his sister. Another son killed him. This son rebelled against his father, slept with his father’s women, and his father killed him. Another son, who claimed to be wise, introduced idol worship into the land and killed his brother. All his descendants were idol worshipers and sinful people, except a few. They were an oppressive family without wisdom of statecraft or holiness, yet they claimed to be anointed by God to rule Israel forever. This is what an enemy would think.

 

Much of the above story is a false presentation of history, but it is what enemies are most likely to believe. Did not Shimei call David a man of blood and a killer of his king? But even if we focus on the truth — that David took a man’s wife and killed him for it, that David chose the suffering of the people to save himself, that David broke his promise by killing his enemy through his son though he promised not to touch him, and that his children became very evil — still, their sins were not minor. Yet they were anointed by God. God does not approve their sin, but their sin does not disprove their anointing either. They simply fell from the grace of God. The same is true with other workers of God. Many do fall from the grace of God here and there.

 

We should remember that when the Holy Spirit was given by Jesus, the workers were ready and their service was almost perfect. But when we came from dead religions (Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy), we started from Egypt, and the worst Egypt was always inside us. We are running away from Rome, but Rome is inside us. That is why the growth of the church was a slow process. Luther introduced good changes, but there were things he could not understand. Then Calvin made modifications — and errors too. Then another made another correction, and slowly, by climbing up from the pit of hell that is Rome, we began to climb up. At some point, the gifts of the Holy Spirit were introduced, but still we were not ready. Egypt was inside us. Rome was inside us.

 

That is why I have seen people with great names within the charismatic movement — ignoring the horse of the devil and the seeds of the devil — fall into great sins. Prosperity gospel and Word of Faith teachings are cultural things. They are their shame. I have seen one person talking about how an old woman gave him money, and it was thuggish in essence, and this is their shame. They also behave in disobedience here and there. Looking at their character, I am sure evil spirits were given to them at some point in their lives. The fruit is witness to that. But do they die? That depends on the fruit. Do they become more Jesus or less Jesus? That is the issue. This is the measure I use. If Jesus slowly dominates, that is holy. If the devil takes over, that is evil. So focus on the fruit. Jesus said to watch the fruit, and my advice to those with big names but poor fruit is this: they should grow Jesus in them and kill the devil out.

 

Is Billy Graham without sin and failure? Dear ones, when I read his books, what I judge is that this man was holy for an American. There are cultural things he could not understand as an American, but still he was a good man. Yet ecumenism is not a simple sin, and that was his major blunder. Now ask why his fruit was not sustained and why his work faded away — it was because of disobedience. That great man of God had a major sin, and that was ecumenism. This cannot be sustained. But is he his sin, even though it was not a small one? What about his good work and his defense of the gospel and the Lord? Let us judge everyone by the fruit of the Spirit in this way. Because our judgment does not hurt anyone but us, as God will judge us in the same way. Yet there is God who judges rightly, and He knows who is who.

 

So the claim that major or minor failure is an indicator of the devil is a questionable criterion. First, it may be cultural failure, as people often grow in evil theologies like Word of Faith, prosperity gospel, dominance theology, cessationism, and so on. Second, they may start right and finish wrong, like King Saul. They may have major sin in the middle, like King David. They may start wrong but finish right, like Saul of Tarsus, Paul. But if the person remains with God, evil will fade away and good will take over, because God is good and looks like Jesus. I believe cessationism is evil, but I am sure it is a cultural and experiential thing. The soldiers in those camps are misinformed, but they are real soldiers of God. They are fighting charismatic chaos, but also the work of the Holy Spirit in the process. I hope they grow out of those errors. Amen.