Have the Miraculous Gifts of the Spirit Ceased?

Have the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased for today? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer, along with my good friend, Pastor Adriel Sanchez. And this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day.

You can call us right now with your question at 833-THE-CORE. First up today, we have a good news story to share with you. When 95-year-old World War II veteran Johnny Demas lost his full-time caregiver and wife of 67 years, there didn't seem to be many options, other than to move him out of his house and into a nursing home. But instead, his grandson Roger devised a plan. He moved grandpa Johnny from Illinois to the U.S. for the first time. Last year, they decided to embark on an epic journey around the U.S.A. in their motorhome, visiting all the places on their grandfather's bucket list.

They explored and experienced as much as they could together from Mardi Gras to Las Vegas. Most importantly, they got to visit several World War II museums where they say grandpa Johnny was treated like a rock star. Wow, that is so cool. Isn't that neat?

Just think about that. What a loving, self-sacrificial move from his grandson to say, you know what, I don't want grandpa to be in one of those facilities. I want to bring him to live with us and then to treat him to that ride around the country. What a cool thing. What an adventure. I hope that my grandkids do the same thing for me someday. I hope I can still walk when I'm 95. Well, let's get to our first question of the day.

This is a call that came in from Gaylene. I want to know, do you have to wait on the Holy Spirit to come upon you to be a witness? Because I know in my own self, I can't do it on my own. And I just want to know about that question, how to walk in the Spirit and keep walking in the Spirit. Please give me that answer back.

Thanks. Hey Gaylene, I really appreciate that question. And what an important question it is for each of us as followers of Jesus Christ to be able to answer. I mean, what does it mean to walk in the Spirit? And at what point can I be a witness for Jesus Christ? Do I need to wait on some sort of special blessing that the Holy Spirit's going to give me, and then I can go and testify to what Jesus has done?

One thing that you did say that is 100% true is that we can't do it in and of ourselves. The grace of God is what we desperately need, and the boldness of the Holy Spirit. I think even after the Day of Pentecost, when the Spirit of God had fallen upon the disciples, and Peter preached this powerful sermon, really, you know, under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And then just a couple chapters later, in Acts chapter 4, the disciples once again are gathered together.

They've been facing persecution. And yet again they pray that God would give them boldness so that they could testify to the realities that Jesus Christ brought about, the gospel. We're told in Acts chapter 4 that the place where they were praying was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to preach the word of God, or to continue to preach the word of God with boldness. And so we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit for boldness, I think even just for that guidance to be able to testify clearly of the grace of God. But you don't need to wait on any sort of special blessing.

Sometimes, you know, people refer to this as the second blessing or something like that. If you believe in Jesus Christ, Galen, you are filled with the Holy Spirit in the sense that the Spirit of God lives in you. I mean, Paul told the Corinthians that no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And so if you confess Jesus Christ is Lord, the Spirit of God lives in you.

Paul also told the Corinthians that by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body. And so you can be confident, brother, that the Spirit of God lives in you by faith in Jesus Christ. But then like the disciples did, we all ought to pray that the Lord would give us opportunities, that the Lord would give us boldness, that the Lord would guide us so that we might faithfully testify of what Jesus has done. And just one last thing I want to say is a lot of times when we think about being witnesses for Jesus, I think too often in the church today, the focus is on us, on my personal story. You know, here's how Jesus changed my life, and that's a wonderful thing, that's a beautiful thing, a good thing, an important thing. But that's not the main thing when it comes to testifying of the grace of God. We focus not on ourselves, not even on my changed life, that's not the focus. The focus is on Jesus. And the reason that's important is because I think sometimes when we share our testimonies, we can draw so much attention to ourselves, and other people are thinking, wow, that's really wonderful for you, that that happened to you, that you experienced that, but what does that have to do with me? And that's why we have to focus on the message of the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ, the ascension of Jesus, because that's an objective reality that's not just about me personally.

It doesn't just affect me personally, it relates to the whole world. And so, Galen, if you've been forgiven, if you know Jesus, you've embraced the gospel, the Spirit lives in you, and you can talk to others about what God has done in his son Jesus to redeem them as well, so that they might experience the same grace that you've experienced, brother. And may the Lord bless you as you seek to be faithful to Jesus.

Thanks for that great clarification on that issue, Adriel. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and here's an Instagram question that came in from Chandler. He says, what does the Bible say about fasting? Is it just about giving up food for a while to draw closer to God, or is it something we can do to unlock some form of holy power like the apostles did in the New Testament?

I read about it on Instagram a lot, but I just don't fully understand it. Yeah. So fasting is something that you see in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Usually, it was associated with times of great difficulty for the people of God. So you think of, you know, they're surrounded by an invading army, or there's a plague in the land, or that kind of a thing.

The people would come together and they would fast, and they would call on the name of the Lord. It's praying. It's setting aside food for a period of time in order to fix our attention upon the Lord, and to pray, and to call upon His name. But usually, it is associated with these times of great difficulty and even sorrow. At one point, you know, the disciples of Jesus are rebuked because they don't fast like others, and Jesus said, hey, the bridegroom is with them right now. This is a time of celebration.

This is a time of joy. And so fasting is, Chandler, associated with, oftentimes, sorrow. I think that it is something that we as followers of Jesus can do today, and there are circumstances where it is a good thing to do.

I'll tell you a couple stories. When our church initially was renting a space for worship, and we outgrew that space after about a year, and we needed to find another place to gather together, what we did as a church is we said, look, let's call upon the name of the Lord together. Let's invite people to fast. So it wasn't something that we were saying, you have to do this if you're a part of our church. But we were saying, hey, we want to, as the elders of the church, call a fast and encourage you for a day to pray, and to seek the Lord, and to ask that God would guide us.

And it was kind of neat. After a day of fasting, we all got together that night, and we didn't even tell people, you know, you have to fast breakfast and lunch. We just said, hey, if you want to set aside a meal or just spend some time in prayer, asking the Lord to guide us as we think about this big decision for our church, do that. And so a lot of people there in the early days of our church, you know, fasted and prayed for that day. And then once the evening came, we all gathered together at my house, and we broke fast. We had a great big potluck, and it was a lot of fun, and it was just the sweetest time of prayer and calling on the name of the Lord. And so it's something, I think, Chandler, that we can do, that we ought to do in certain circumstances, in situations in the life of the church today. But I think it can also be something that makes people feel really guilty, and we have to be careful with that. I think that there are some Christians who think, oh, I just should do this, and so they force themselves to fast.

And they don't even really know what they're focusing on or praying for, but they just think this is an important discipline for me to have. And it doesn't go so well. I remember talking to a guy, this is sort of a funny story, some years ago, and he was saying, I just felt like I needed to fast, so I said, I'm going to fast for a week, and I'm only going to have smoothies. And he said, by the end of the week, I was so starving, and he's just totally serious. He said, I made lasagna, and I blended the lasagna, and I added milk to the lasagna to help liquefy. This is a true story. And I drank this lasagna smoothie, and he said it was the most delicious thing I'd ever had.

We both laughed about it, but I think that you can bite off more than you can chew, no pun intended. So you have to be careful. I think it's something that you do together with the body of Christ in certain situations. Right now, you think of everything going on with the coronavirus. I mean, it might be a good time for us to come together with other believers and to call on the name of the Lord and say, God, be merciful to our nation, be merciful to our churches that are really struggling right now. God, have mercy upon us. And so one passage of scripture, Chandler, that you can go to, and it's one of the texts that I often go to when I think about fasting, I'm asked about fasting, is Isaiah 58, and it really highlights the kind of fasting that is pleasing to the Lord. Verse 6 says this, Your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer.

You shall cry, and He will say, Here I am. Really, the focus there is not just fasting as a ritual, you know, like, let me do this to get God's attention, that kind of a thing. It's sort of legalistic, but humbling ourselves before the Lord, directing our attention to Him, repenting of our sins, turning from our sins, even the sins of not caring for those who are in need, and calling upon the name of the Lord. It really is associated with repentance, even. And so we ought to, at times in our lives and with the body of Christ, fast to call upon the name of the Lord, to direct our attention to Him in this fixed way, and I think He blesses us when we do. And there is that promise in scripture where God says He is near to all those who call upon Him in truth, and that when we draw near to God, He will draw near to us.

God bless you, Chandler. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. You know, a lot of voices in today's world claim that either God isn't all-powerful or He isn't truly good.

And today we're offering a great resource that explains why He's actually both of those things. Is God Great and Good? That's the name of the Bible study that we're offering today, and you can download it for a donation of any amount. It's a great study to go through with a group of friends or by yourself, especially in days like these.

I mean, this year, 2020, has been a rough year for so many people, and a lot of us are asking that very question. Is God Great and Good? Well, this study's going to dive into the scriptures and help you to sort of navigate the difficult questions that people are asking, and to provide biblical answers. So head over to corechristianity.com forward slash offers to download Is God Great and Good? You can also call us for that offer or any one of our offers at 833-843-2673.

That's 833, the core. Just a reminder that Core Christianity is a listener-supported ministry, so we count on people just like you to keep us on the air. Well, here's another question that came in from one of our listeners, and he says, Me and my friend were discussing whether miraculous signs, wonders, and spiritual gifts have ceased. He said, There's no way a person can read through the entire New Testament and come to that conclusion.

How would you respond to that? A really good question, and one that is hotly debated among Christians. You know, there are some people who believe that those gifts, the gifts that are mentioned in places like 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 and 14 and in other places of the New Testament, the sign gifts, you know, the gift of tongues, the gift of prophecy, that they're still around for today. And there are others who argue, No, those gifts ceased with the apostles.

The technical term for that, theologically, is cessationism. So you have cessationists, and you have people who say, No, those gifts are still around, who are referred to as continuationists. Well, one thing, historically, we can say that these gifts really did sort of fall out of use in the life of the church, in the ordinary life of the church, and that's just a historical reality. I mean, many of the early church fathers write about this, and there were different people who had differences of opinions about why it was that that happened. There were some who argued that the church was basically turning away from God, and that things were so bad that those signs, those miraculous signs, were no longer happening anymore. There was even really a heretical group known as the Montanists who argued this, and who said, We really have to recover these miraculous, you know, sign gifts.

And essentially, they were, I mean, cut off from the Orthodox Church, from the true followers of Jesus, because they were engaged in all sorts of false teachings. And there were others who said, No, the reason that these things began to sort of fall out of use in the life of the church is because we have the Scriptures, and ordinarily in the life of the church, these gifts weren't going to continue to function in the way that they did in the apostolic era. Now, one verse that people will often point to in order to prove that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the gifts like tongues and prophecies, ceased, is in 1 Corinthians 13. In fact, this is one of the primary verses that is often appealed to. It's what Paul said in verse 8, 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. And there were some more recently who argued that the perfect there is a reference to the Bible. The canonization of Holy Scripture.

Now, I think that's a really difficult argument to make because it just doesn't seem like it's in the context at all there. Really, the perfect in 1 Corinthians 13 is probably a reference to being in the presence of the Lord. Ultimately, the second coming of our Lord Jesus, that final day, that's when love is going to endure, but we're not going to need these spiritual gifts or any spiritual gifts anymore because we're going to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ for all eternity. But that doesn't necessarily mean, I think, that these sign gifts were meant to function in an ordinary way in the life of the church for its entire existence. There is some evidence of this throughout the New Testament, so I would disagree with what your friend says, actually. One, think about what Paul says in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 when he talks about the ordinary officers in the life of the church. Elders and deacons. He gives all these qualifications for how elders should be, how deacons should be, because there's a strong sense of this is what the life of the church ordinarily is going to look like. You're going to have elders and deacons caring for the body of Christ, but he doesn't say anything about prophets. It doesn't seem to me like in the mind of the apostle Paul, prophets, the office of the prophet was going to be this enduring office in the life of the church. Otherwise, he probably would have given the churches some guidance as it relates to that, especially because there's so much danger with people saying, oh, I'm a prophet called of the Lord, you need to listen to what I'm saying. No, it seems like ordinarily in the life of the church, the expectation was that the word of God was going to be faithfully preached and that the people of God were going to be cared for by elders who were called and ordained according to 1 Timothy 3, and deacons who were serving the body of Christ.

That seems to be the ordinary makeup of the church. And actually, there is some evidence in other places of the New Testament, like in Hebrews chapter 2, that these gifts really were primarily associated with the advancement of the gospel at that early stage. So Hebrews chapter 2 says this, verse 3, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles, and by the gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. See, even there in the book of Hebrews at this very early stage, it's as if the author of the Hebrews is writing to this church, and he's talking about these signs and wonders and these sign gifts, the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, in the past tense as something that God did.

Why? For the confirmation of the proclamation of the gospel. We need to focus on God's word, on the Scriptures. I think sometimes people today can chase miracles and signs in a really unhealthy way. God can do whatever he wants, but ordinarily he works through means.

I mean, he's free to work apart from them if he wants. I mean, he could do miracles today, and we do pray that God heals and does miraculous things today, but we recognize that ordinarily the way we grow as Christians is by being a faithful part of a local church, by reading the Scriptures, by being committed to things like prayer. I mean, that's the ordinary Christian life, the meat and potatoes, and that's really where sanctification happens.

And too often I think people are neglecting those things. I'm not a member of a church anywhere, I don't read the Scriptures, but they're searching for some revelatory experience, and they're chasing after that, and that is very dangerous. We need to be grounded in God's word, and as we're grounded in the word of God, we're going to continue to grow in the knowledge of Christ, and that's where we have to focus. You know, Adriel, there are some Christians and even some churches that would say, if you don't speak in tongues, if you don't have a gift of prophecy, then you're not really filled with the Holy Spirit. I'm wondering how you would respond to that. That's just not true, and Paul makes that absolutely clear at the end of 1 Corinthians 12, when he says, you know, do all speak in tongues, do all prophesy?

It's a rhetorical question that he's asking, and he expects us to say no. So even if those gifts were still around today, and I think that it would be absolutely clear from the teaching of the New Testament that not every Christian had the same gift, and that wouldn't even make sense on the basis of what Paul was arguing in 1 Corinthians 12, because he said there's a diversity of gifts so that we can have balance in the body of Christ. I mean, imagine if the whole body was a foot.

One foot wouldn't get you very far, and wouldn't be able to speak or to see. It wouldn't be a good thing. So Paul really makes it so that we can't come to that conclusion in 1 Corinthians 12. So if you're in a church that teaches that, or if you've been taught that, I just want to say, no, that's not the case. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and here's an email that came in from Billy.

He says, Yeah, there are a couple of things here. And first is, and we've made this distinction on the program before, and it's a really important distinction for people to understand, the distinction between sinning and being sinned against. You can be sinned against and feel shame, even guilt, even though you're not guilty, and don't need to be ashamed because you've been sinned against. And I think it's one of the sad realities, but especially with things like abuse, sexual abuse even.

There are these feelings associated with it, and that's why it's so important to distinguish between being sinned against and sinning. By the way, for situations of abuse, there's this really excellent book by a friend named Justin Holcomb called Rid of My Disgrace. And it is about abuse in the church.

It's a really heavy book, but I think it's an important book that helps to bring out some of these distinctions. And so for people who are experiencing trauma, shame, because of some kind of abuse, because they've been sinned against, we point them to Jesus. And so I think it's important for us to understand that. Now, a problem that I see today, though, is that we want to make everyone a victim, and instead of being willing to own our sins, we excuse them. And so that's why we have to embrace the fact that there's such a thing as being sinned against, but we also have to embrace the fact that in some situations, we are sinning.

We've sinned. I have a friend who's a therapist, and she asked me this very question. She said, how do you deal with people who come to you crushed by guilt? You're religious, aren't you?

You guys have all these laws, and you're always trying to get people to obey these laws. Well, I've seen with so many of my patients that that sense of failure is what contributes to their pain. She says she counsels them. She encourages them by saying, well, you probably made the best decision with what you had right in front of you. You couldn't have chosen otherwise, and so it's sort of a way of justifying by saying there was nothing else you could have done given what you had in that moment. And then, of course, there's the positive self-talk. You sort of do away with the negative thoughts. You give grace to yourself. But the problem is sometimes we know ourselves well enough to know that we do do horrible things, that we have sinned and hurt people, and justifying yourself and brushing it under the rug is just sort of cheap.

It doesn't really do the trick. The law crushes. But what if instead of forgiving ourselves and lying to ourselves and pretending like we're better than we are when in reality we know that we're not? What if the lawgiver himself could extend us grace and would extend us grace?

The good news is God sent His Son into the world to fulfill the righteous demands of the law and then to be punished in our place so that we might experience forgiveness, so that all that you've ever done might be forgiven, cleansed, and you might be accepted as the beloved in Jesus Christ. That's the good news, and that's what we cling to. Thanks for listening to Core Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at CoreChristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833-THE-CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this podcast. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's Word together.