What can we say about the so-called ‘miraculous gifts’ in light of the post-eschatalogical situation. What is the place of the ‘miraculous’ gifts in New Testament spirituality? The paradigm shifting that is underway opens an opportunity for fresh commentary on this, and those of us hammering out a theology of/for/with the emerging church just might be in the grace-infused historical moment within which the boorish and constipated controversies of the past can be transcended.
This is important for an emerging church seeking to be generous to those with whom we disagree, but also who recognize the complexites that arise when our desire to be generous meets a concern about the demonic or the counterfiet.
My current interest in this is due to the widespread influence of the International House of Prayer based in Kansas City and its rapid growth of late, even among emergent-friendly congregations. It is a ‘whole-nother-thing’ with it’s own vocabulary and alot of talk about ‘eschatology’. Other brands of charismatic theology and practice have expressed concern over their influence.
At this point I do not desire to start a conversation about IHOP. I don’t know if that is even appropriate to do on this website. (Maybe even my mentioning of their name is wrong…if so please let me know) What is in order is what I first mentioned above.
A pnew-creation pneumatology
Chris, I agree that the current paradigm shifting presents an opportunity to reassess our understanding of the charismatic experience, though I suspect that many of those involved in the emerging conversation need more distance from the modern charismatic movement before we can really begin to imagine and manifest a renewed pneumatology. Anyway, some preliminary thoughts…
I don’t myself see that an emerging theology is intrinsically incompatible with a charismatic spirituality. The renewed, post-eschatological people of God has its life organized by the Spirit rather than by Mosaic law, and there is no reason to restrict in advance the ways in which the Spirit may be expressed in the people. The wariness about charismatic expression that we sometimes see in the emerging church probably has more to do with personal disillusionment than with theology.
However, I would expect an emerging theology to be more sensitive to issues of contextualization both in its interpretation of scripture and in its experience of the Spirit. A narrative theology would highlight certain historical contingencies of the experience of the Spirit and of the miraculous in the Bible. For example (these points are obviously debatable):
The question that then needs to be asked is how should we expect to experience the Spirit if we understand ourselves as ‘new creation’, ‘new humanity’. What would be a natural outworking of having the living God at the heart of a people (not just of individuals)? What does the Spirit of God have to do with human society, relationality, creativity, etc.? What belongs properly to the experience of being new humanity now, and what serves to point beyond the present experience to a new heavens and a new earth in which there is no more sickness and death? Perhaps in an emerging pneumatology there would be greater emphasis on the role of the Spirit drawing out the fulness of our createdness, our humanity, in relation to God. This may mean that an emerging understanding of the experience of the Spirit will be less supernaturalist (and perhaps more critical) than traditional charismatic theologies. But I would not want to lose sight of the prophetic function (for example, through healing) of pointing beyond current experience to the final renewal.
To set the activity of the Spirit within a new creation framework obviously marks out an emerging pneumatology from the sort of thinking represented by IHOP, where the emphasis appears to be on an imminent end-times scenario in which Israel has centre-stage.
Contextualizing the gifts
Chris,
In a first-century eschatological context, it seems to me that practically speaking, the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit have ceased or at least are no longer being manifestes as they were in the first century. As Andrew does, I place the “jugment” in the first century, specifically at the fall of the Jewish Temple in AD 70. These were events that Daniel spoke of, and more importantly, Daniel tied the end of miraculous visions and prophecy to those first-century events:
Paul also speaks about prophecy and miraculous gifts ceasing once we get to “see Christ face to face.” Paul is portraying those gifts as an “imperfect helper” to help the first century Church spread to the ends of the world and serve as primary evidence for the presence of the Holy Spirit in one’s life PRIOR to the return of Christ. But Paul also speaks of a time when all this stuff will cease, and specifically that time is “when the perfect comes” - the perfect in my opinion being the presence of Christ, which is a reality today:
I do not mean to impugn our charismatic brothers, but fulfilled eschatology does not seem to give charismatic Christianity a solid foundation; emotional, perhaps, but not theological. And again, we all get emotional about our worship and liturgy, and there is nothing wrong with that. It does become a problem when we try to push our methods on others, which is why I will never judge or vilify charismatic folks, especially when their fervor for God often outshines mine in a very honest and real way.
Still prophetic after all these years
Virgil, I go some of the way with you here, but I’m not sure that a historically contextualized eschatology leads inevitably to cessationism. If, as I suggested in my previous comment, the body of Christ is primarily the body that suffers in Christ, the Son of man community, it is a body that has the hope of sharing in Christ’s resurrection and reigning with him at the right hand of the Father throughout the age to come. Set within that framework 1 Corinthians 13 would describe the hope not of the church in the age to come but of the community that is raised in Christ at the parousia (cf. 1 Cor. 15:23).
I would have thought that the sealing up of ‘vision and prophet (not prophecy)’ in Daniel 9:24 refers only to the fulfilment of Jeremiah’s prophecy about the seventy years.
We can associate certain biblical expressions of prophecy with the eschatological crisis of the end of the age of second temple Judaism - I would even argue that in the case of Pentecost. But that in itself does not preclude the exercise of prophecy under different, later circumstances. On the contrary, it seems to me an inevitable consequence of having God in the midst of us is that we know and speak his mind - as a community we speak on behalf of God, we are a prophetic community, we are a sign of the future renewal of creation. Why should not the God who will in the end remake heaven and earth spasmodically reveal himself in the exceptional and signal mending and remaking of human life now?
My suggestion would be that the experience of the Spirit naturally varies depending on whether the church’s life is governed by a survivalist eschatology or a creational eschatology. It does not surprise me that when the people of God today suffers oppression, its experience of the Spirit appears much more like that of the early church. The challenge for the emerging church in the aftermath of Christendom is to develop a pneumatology that embraces the renewal of creation and is not limited to the preservation of suffering, inward-turned, isolated communities. The change of categories involved in this seems to me helpful in getting beyond Chris’ excellent ‘boorish and constipated controversies of the past’.
Love
Virgil, I’m interested in doing some follow up on the term “seal up” and what, exactly, it might mean. Could it have a more acute, immediate significance historically? What does it have in common with the other things in the list? How do folks like Wright, Dunn, and Fee understand the passage (who openly accept and encourage contemporary, responsible, workings of the ‘charismatic’ gifts)? Maybe even Anthony Thiselton, whom I haven’t read yet. I know these scholars aren’t all on the same page as us, or one another for that matter, regarding judgment and AD 70, but I think it’s wise to take them seriously. I hope to do this research as soon as possible and intend to post subsequently. If anyone is read-up on the citable interpretations posited by these scholars or others, please post.
Regarding 1 Cor. 13, how are we to understand ‘love’ as part of the context of the verse you quoted? Could ‘love’ be ‘the perfect’, as in a perfection that might obtain after an unveiling, after a bolt of lightning and heaven and earth are finally wed, after God is all in all? It seems that we do not love as we ought and indeed won’t until God is all in all and the dethroned monarch is no longer hassling the servants of the true King.
Your comment on ‘pushing methods on others’ is greatly appreciated. In many cases it has unfortunately degenerated into forcing false experiences on others, even children. This is spiritual abuse and when it is so toward children I echo Christ and request a millstone.
In many cases ‘charismatic’ congregations have erroneously equated signs and wonders with the Kingdom of God, in my opinion misunderstanding the nature of power.
These churches often seem to me to have become gift-oriented or cool experience-oriented or method-oriented at the expense of being presence-oriented. Whether miraculous gifts have ceased or not these are obviously dangerous situations.
Andrew, it feels so great to try to think the thoughts you’ve put forth in your posts. I was hoping for responses like yours and Virgil’s that would nuance my question with more questions. It’s truly bothersome to me that I don’t have the time today to put down my further questions and comments concerning what you’ve written. Tomorrow I’ll be free and will have had time to work through those bullet points.
A hermeneutics of tongues?
Has anyone has ever put forward a phenomenology or hermeneutics of tongues? My personal experience is pretty old, but here are my uninterpreted impressions:
Tongues-speakers claimed not to know the meaning of the words they were speaking (I certainly didn’t). “Interpretation” of tongues didn’t mean “translation”: it conveyed more the spirit of the tongue-encoded message rather than anything approaching the literal meaning. The interpretations always seemed rather generic, along the lines of “My children, I love you, be at peace with one another,” – that sort of thing. Most tongues-speakers seemed to share a common “dialect”: a cadence and pronunciation palette that sounded vaguely Latinate rather than, say, English or Semitic or Japanese.
“Groanings too deep for words” was part of the explicit rationale for the gift of tongues, placing it in the eschatological context of Romans 8. As a prayer language, tongues enabled the praying person to “pray the will of God” directly, unfiltered by human conscious awareness. In this regard there’s a certain similarity to the “automatic writing” techniques of 19th-century spiritualists, as well as the 20th-century dadaists and surrealists who were trying to open a direct channel to the subconscious. The praxis of tongues-speaking as I learned it called for attaining a kind of emotional neutrality, so that both the message and the accompanying affect could be attributed to the Holy Spirit. The actual speaking I’m sure I could do right now, though, without any sort of spiritual preparation or channeling of the Spirit – kind of like learning to ride a bicycle, I suppose.
I intend no criticism of tongues — just a description of the phenomenon. Is this still pretty much the story, or has the theory and practice changed significantly?
Hermeneutics of tongues
John - it’s me again. Just a point of detail, which is somewhat ignoring the context of this thread: in 1 Corinthians 14:2, it says: “Anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God.” And again in 1 Corinthians 14:4, “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself.” Being something of a pedantic literalist, I’ve always felt, in the light of this, that an interpretation of an utterance in tongues should be along the lines of a prayer directed to God - the human spirit reaching out to God, as it were.
However, one of the most unusual ‘message’ phenomena we experienced in recent times in the context of community worship was an authoritative outpouring from an individual in tongues (not, incidentally, the ‘tongue’ that the person in question would normally find herself using in private devotions); this was followed by a spoken and then a sung prophecy - both of which were taken to be an interpretation of the ‘tongue’ (and also pretty unusual in our church community). The gist of the prophecy, incidentally, was “Do not restrict me!” - which gained significance because of the context in which the prophetic words came.
It didn’t really matter on that occasion what the ‘tongues’ message was, since the importance resided in the prophecy. Still, I’m generally of the opinion that when a message in ‘tongues’ comes, it is a cry from the human spirit to God, and an interpretation should generally reflect this. A prophetic word might also be prompted, but I’m inclined to think that this would be a secondary phenomenon, prompted by the first supernatural activity.
I’m equally sure that such a ‘message’ could have come in a variety of different forms in different church contexts - eg through conversation, preaching, discussion, prayer, etc. But an ‘inspired’ utterance which comes in the context of worship can be very forceful - and a useful tool in the repository of means whereby God can communicate with his people as a group.
But I’m just interested to know what others think. If I’d had my way (ie pedantic insistence on a ‘correct’ interpretation of the tongues utterance), we may have missed a very important prophetic word to the whole community that Sunday!
With regard to gifts of the Spirit (so called) and the post-eschatological situation (also so called), I tend to think that the opinion-formers of the emerging church (yet again so called) are wanting something different from the ‘charismatic’ church (so called), and in discarding the charismatic agenda and its baggage, would also like to discard the ‘spiritual gifts’. I’m all for discarding irrelevant agendas and baggage, but would like to retain things which I think have been recovered for the church at some cost by preceding generations.
A group from our own church community focuses on spirituality which will connect with broadly ‘new age’ interests, and offers prophecy, healing and interpretation of dreams (amongst other things) at music festivals and the like during the summer. Six observable physical healings took place at one festival this summer. So I think these phenomena are still on the agenda for today. God is still a supernatural God who expresses himself on supernatural ways. He is also a historically contextualised God, and I concur with Andrew’s suggestion (and Chris in a subsequent post) that physical healings in the ministry of Jesus reflected the renewal of the covenant).
Good questions!
Chris, you are asking good questions here. I would suggest that “sealing of vision and prophecy - or prophet” implies a cessation of those things - and Daniel does give a time frame when this would happen: when the holy city (Jerusalem) would be destroyed and about 490 years after the decree to rebuild the temple. This leads me to place the “cessation” of prophecy and vision in the first century, specifically at the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. Other rabinnical interpretations that I remember reading also suggest that prophecy would cease once the Messiah would come - that makes perfect sense to me, and it again, agrees with 1 Cor. 13: when the perfect comes, the imperfect will cease.
Regarding 1 Cor. 13, that is also a good question. The passage suggests that Paul is emphasizing LOVE as the ultimate teaching and preaching tool, however he does appear to contrast using love with using prophecy and speaking in tongues for the purpose of preaching. As I mentioned earlier, this again supports my thesis that there was a specific purpose for the miraculous gifts, and that was facilitating the preaching of the Gospel.
Andrew,
Andrew,
I think that some of the differences on the issue of cessationism are rooted in us maybe not thinking about the purpose of prophecy, and miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. If we do consider prophecy for example, we should acknowledge that its purpose was to accurately predict the future, speak on behalf of God and even serve as a sort of litmus test for a true prophet. Speaking in tongues for example had the specific purpose of preaching the Gospel to foreign-speaking people (see the Pentecost). This was directly tied to the important and imminent goal of preaching to Gospel to all creation prior to the return of Christ. Consequently, in my paradigm at least, I cannot reconcile a past Parousia continuation of those miraculous gifts once the perfect arrived. Also, someone mentioned the fact that in all instances today, speaking in tongues entails someone speaking a non-specific “language” that nobody, including the speaker, can understand.
Also, thanks for pointing out the specifics of Daniel 9:24 - I never noticed that the prophecy is about the “sealing of prophet” as opposed to “prophecy” however I would think that the context is strong enough to support the majority of translations out there and does seem to imply that is suggests a cessation of prophetic vision in general. I looked at the Oxford Tanakh translation to English and they rendered it this way:
I would much rather try to parallel this specific verse with Hebrews 9:24 where a new sort of Holy of Holies is being annointed (or was in the process of being annointed at the time Hebrews was written). This is important since earlier on in Hebrews 9:8 seems to suggest that while the physical temple was standing, the New Covenant could not have been ushered in.
This seems to tie well into Daniel’s prophecy in that it speaks of a future time (490 years from the decree to rebuild the temple to be exact) when Jerusalem would be destroyed and a new way of worship, a new kind of righteousness and cessation of prophecy would materialize. I will grant you that Daniel 9 does not mention a cessation of speaking in tongues, but I would speculate that “vision” is an inclusive word that could cover many if not all of the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Sealed prophecy
Sorry, Virgil. I’m not at all persuaded that Daniel 9:24 refers to the cessation of all prophecy, for two basic reasons:
1. Contextually the ‘vision and prophet’ clearly have to do with the specific prophecy about seventy weeks of years, which comes from Jeremiah (hence perhaps the reference to ‘prophet’ rather than ‘prophecy’) and is expressly reinterpreted by Gabriel (9:23). The vision that is sealed must be the vision that is interpreted. The most that would be in view is the complete corpus of Daniel’s visions (cf. Daniel 12:4, 9).
2. To seal a prophecy is not the same as to abolish it. The prophecy about the seventy years is envisaged as a scroll or book which is closed and sealed up until the time when its content is fulfilled. This is the exact sense of the word in Daniel 12:4, 9. The prophecy will be ‘unsealed’ when the time comes for its fulfilment. You don’t seal up prophecy in the abstract - that’s nonsensical. You seal up some particular written content.
Ok, so then you beg the
Ok, so then you beg the question: why is prophecy and vision still necessary in a post-Parousia world, or in the Kingdom, where Christ’s presence is seen as a reality? Would that not imply that the Scripture is an open document that anyone could add to as their visions (and sometimes other motivations) deem it necessary? :)
Prophecy and parousia
Well, a few thoughts, but probably a bit too condensed.
Why should prophecy and vision be so closely oriented to, associated with, the parousia - to the effect that they are no longer necessary once the parousia has taken place (if that is the right way to think about it)? Why, as a matter of principle, shouldn’t God speak to his people about other things, under other conditions? I don’t agree that the ‘perfect’ that Paul speaks about in 1 Corinthians refers to the experience of the post-parousia church - as I said earlier, I think this describes the state of the Son of man community that is raised or lifted up to share in Christ’s vindication and kingdom.
I would also question, incidentally, whether parousia is meant to signify the ‘presence’ of Christ with his people - it seems to me that the dominant conception is of Christ reigning at the right hand of the Father, but that’s another matter.
I wouldn’t regard prophecy and vision as ‘necessary’ in the kingdom. They are natural concomitants of the presence of the Spirit, they are expressions of the reality of God in our midst, they are gifts of God’s self-revelation to his people. I wonder, though, how much of a difference it would make to think of the presence of God as Spirit in a creational framework. It may be that your distrust of the supernatural charismata has more to do with the nature of the overarching eschatology than with the gifts per se.
The question about scripture is interesting, but it’s not the Spirit of prophecy that marks out scripture from non-scripture. I would have thought that it is the judgment of the community - including the acceptance of apostolic status (cf. Paul’s frequent appeals to the grounds of his authority as an apostle). Ultimately it is the community that determines the content of the canon.
Set upon a golden bough to sing
Virgil - Just going back to a couple of points you have made on this thread which reflect your ‘comprehensively’ (or ‘thorough-goingly’) preterist interpretation of ‘spiritual gifts’ (so-called: are they really any different in kind from gifts of serving, leading, giving etc?).
With particular regard to prophecy - you seem to be saying that the main purpose of prophecy was to predict the future - a future which was fulfilled at Christ’s parousia (in AD 70).
What is prophecy? When the woman from Samaria was told by Jesus that she had had five husbands and was living with a sixth, her response was: “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.” This could be simply a mark of respect, but the respect was earned by Jesus’s insight - his discernment of her character in the past and present, not the future.
‘Prophecy/prophet’ in NT Greek, by etymology and usage, has the primary sense of ‘speaking forth’ of God’s words rather than prediction, which in OT & NT is only one expression of the prophetic office/ministry. The person standing up in a charismatic meeting and bringing a ‘message’ from God reflects another expression, given a definition in 1 Corinthians 14:3, which was not specifically related to an imminent ‘parousia’.
In the sense being defined here, prophecy may come in a variety of forms - through preaching, conversation, even in prayer - eg Habakkuk 3. Actions can be prophetic - as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel demonstrated. On hearing of the two elders ‘prophesying’ in the camp (what exactly were they doing, I wonder?), Moses’ cry was “Would that all God’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” - Numbers 11:29. It seems valid to think that with the conferring of the Spirit on all God’s people, all God’s people participate in being a people of prophecy.
Prophecy in the OT was not primarily the prediction of the future, but a call to the people of God to return to loyalty to JHWH and the covenant. The future largely figured in warnings of the consequences of covenant disobedience and promises of future blessing, often (but not always) conditional on obedience. Apocalyptic prophecy is somewhat different - and Daniel (or the book attributed to him) even more different. Without plunging into Daniel’s supposed prophetic role, or the interpretation of Daniel 9, it’s interesting that in the Hebrew scriptures Daniel was placed in ‘the writings’ - not ‘the prophets’ - former or latter, major or ‘book of the twelve’. (He would have made it thirteen!)
Finally, I’m intrigued by your comment that ‘the spiritual gifts’ were given only to assist in the proclamation of the gospel - until ‘the parousia’ of AD 70, which I assume you also interpret as ‘the perfect’ of 1 Corinthians 13:10 (though I don’t see how verse 12 allows anything like that interpretation). Does this mean that the gospel has already been preached (for believing which there is some scriptural warrant), and that it no longer needs to be preached - assuming that your interpretation of the purpose of ‘the gifts’ is correct? If that’s the case, what is the role and function of the church today? Maybe you can help me get a better grasp of your preterism by clarifying these issues!
I like your questions Peter
Peter, you asked several questions that are extremely important, and I’ll answer them individually in order to hopefully do a better job at clarifying my own position.
By “spiritual gifts” (perhaps I should have added the word miraculous), I am referring to gifts received by a believer through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, giving one the ability to perform out-of-ordinary or supernatural things, like teleportation or disappearing (see Philip’s encounter with the eunuch), resistance to snake bites (see Paul), speaking or interpreting foreign languages without prior study of the language (see Pentecost), given unnatural knowledge of a specific topic (see the Apostles), knowing the future (see prophetic ability), healing the sick without medical knowledge, etc.
What is a prophet?
Again, let’s remember that we are still in a Jewish context here. While my definition or a prophet and/or prophecy was perhaps too narrow, to the Jewish people there was a very clear and concise litmus test used to verify a prophet’s integrity. Deuteronomy 18 is a passage often used by both Christians and Jewish people to defend the integrity of Biblical authors:
Two verses earlier, the punishment for a prophet’s presumptuous word is specified: death. So Deut. 18:22 seems to indicate that prophecy does not involve a person’s ability to gain psychological insight of another’s mind, rather to be able to have a direct and supernatural line of communication with God and speak both the will of God, and predict the future; therefore the coming to past of the predicted things would be used as the litmus test for the integrity of the prophet. Because of this, it seems to me that testing a prophet is a very reasonable thing to do, and what else could a prophet be tested on unless it is based on predicting the future accurately, or performing other sort of miracles that go beyond the laws of time and space.
As a result of this thinking, I have doubts about someone today standing up in a congregation, claiming prophetic vision and speaking in the name of God. How is this person’s claim validated? Is generic preaching then viewed as a miraculous prophetic gift? Is there even a line at all to be crossed or are all prophets?
The gifts
Again, I did define above what I mean by spiritual gifts, and yes, I do believe that the purpose of the miraculous gifts was to facilitate the preaching of the Gospel to all creatures. The events of the Pentecost are the perfect primer to support my thesis:
The matter of language/national origin is mentioned four different times, to apparently emphasize the cultural and language barriers that were miraculously overcome by what happened. It would be again, a very reasonable thing to conclude that the purpose of speaking in tongues was to facilitate real communication with foreigners, not a sort of unintelligible sound that no one, including the speaker, can translate.
With that said, the New Testament confirms that the Gospel was preached to the whole world, and I would speculate it was solely because of the miraculous help of the Holy Spirit. There is no other way to account for it, only supernatural powers would allow for it to happen – see Colossians 1:6 and 1:23
Now, there is another significant typological issue at work here. The period of forty years between AD 30 and AD 70 closely parallels the forty-years wondering in the wilderness of Israel. In this time, God supernaturally provided for them sustenance and safety. The pillar of fire only differs in size from the tongues of fire coming on the believers at the Pentecost, and the manna is a type of the spiritual gifts given to first-century believers.
Israel was in limbo, just like the first century Christians – they were freed from the slavery of Egypt, yet they were not in the Promised Land, they were on their way to perfection. That is why Paul writes in 1 Cor. 13:12
Miraculous spiritual gifts in a post Parousia world is not something to long after in my opinion. It would be like Israel longing after the wilderness manna after they entered the Promised Land; we would be missing the point. I do not believe that Paul is speaking about supernatural knowing in 1 Cor. 13:12. Rather, he is speaking about the intimate knowing of Christ as a result of his presence: the Sin, the Death, Satan have all been defeated, and Christ can fully know us (as Paul was fully known) in the same way a bridegroom can know his bride (as the parallel is made in both Revelation and the Song of Solomon); the sexual implications here are not accidental.
Now where does this lead the Church today? What is the purpose of the Church? I look at the picture of the New Jerusalem for answers – I believe the Church is here “for the healing of the nations” – note that there are nations still, and they still need healing after the Parousia, and the leaves of the Tree of Life are being used for that healing. This is important in that it challenges the traditional view that Jesus coming back will solve all the problems of the world. I even heard someone say that we mow lawns today because Jesus did not yet come back so grass grows because of the sin-nature of the world. Man how we miss the point! The Parousia and the Kingdom of God are spiritual realities that offer healing of people’s hearts. We may all disagree how to go about healing the nations, but as long as we all focus on that goal, we should be ok.
Personally, I think the healing should encompass a lot more that the Church does today. Economic freedom can bring about the feeding of the poor that we should all be concerned with; oppressive governments and wars can cease to exist once people have genuine care and love for each other. I could go on about it, but I do believe that God has given us the freedom to make the world as good or as bad as we want to make it, but hopefully with a better understanding of the Kingdom of God, Christians will choose to make it better themselves instead of waiting for pie in the sky when Jesus comes back at some future time.
Bah…did that even make any sense?
"Bah…did that even make any sense?"
Yes, lots of sense Virgil, but also leaving key questions open. How are the nations to be healed, for instance, if it is not primarily by the preaching of the gospel? How are we to preach the gospel without the Spirit’s help? But are all the ‘spiritual gifts’ (of a miraculous nature) exclusively to assist in this task - and withdrawn after AD 70? (So we have less help now to preach the gospel than before - or to ‘heal the nations’ without the gospel - however that may be intended to happen).
We will have to part company over the meaning or prophecy, but I do think you are making Dueteronomy 18:22 very narrowly paradigmatic when there is ample evidence elsewhere that prophecy was very much more than prediction (like most OT prophecy, for instance).
Also with regard to the gifts, Pentecost was the only occasion in the NT, as far as I can see, when the phenomenon of ‘speaking in tongues’ had an evangelistic dimension - but even there, it wasn’t strictly an evangelistic tool - as the ‘tongues’ were the declaration of the mighty works of God in other languages. Elsewhere in Acts and 1 Corinthians, speaking in tongues is a means of personal edification, and Paul enjoins the church at Corinth expressly not to speak publicly in tongues - unless there is interpretation. In other words, it is presented, in the main, as a tool for private devotional use.
I can see that from your point of view, it is helpful to interpret the use of supernatural gifts as having ceased with the parousia, since that fits in with your eschatological grid. The main problem is that there is too much evidence that supernatural gifts did not cease then, or at any other time. Leaving aside their artificial manufacture by charlatans, you would have to have your eyes firmly shut to church history to believe that. But I will grant that a considerable section of the church does indeed believe in the cessation of the gifts - even those who are not preterists!
I’m still left puzzled as to what the church has to offer the world today if it is not the gospel. What kind of healing are we to give the nations, if it is not access to the Father by the Son through the Spirit? Is that not the heart of the gospel? Does that not depend on the same willing response now as it did 2000 years ago, through the presentation of the same means - the death of Jesus on the cross, his resurrection, and the conferring of the Spirit on those who believe?
What about the modern prophets?
Andrew, just an offhand remark here. Your position creates problems for me, mostly from the perspective of discernment. An active continuation of the prophetic and miraculous gifts of the spirit would in some way deny the presence (Parousia) of Christ and it would imply that it alone is not enough.
And as a last question, how do we, in a post AD 70 world discern a true prophet from a false one? I am specifically referencing all those other “prophets” that appeared post AD 70, such as Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Ellen White, Sun Myung Moon, and the others that often give us conflicting messages from God, even encouraging us to abandon Scripture and follow them for a newer and more accurate message from God?
You see, Preterism neatly solves this problem by wrapping up or “sealing” prophecy at the fall of the temple. There is no more divine revelation and messengers because the divine is present, is here.
When the perfect comes
Virgil, a quick thought regarding the ‘perfect’ that will come and make prophecy irrelevant. In Phil. 3:10-12 Paul seems to connect becoming ‘perfect’ (teteleiÅmai) with resurrection. His hope is to share in Christ’s sufferings and attain the resurrection of the dead - because Christ has made him his own. I think this latter phrase describes not a general condition of being Christian but a quite specific vocation to suffer as Christ suffered. To become ‘perfect’ is to complete the eschatological journey of suffering, resurrection, vindication and exaltation to the right hand of God. At the end of that journey, when Paul reigns with Christ in glory, he will see face to face, he will no longer know him through the gifts of the Spirit.
Andrew, regardless, this
Andrew, regardless, this “perfection” was something that was to come with the Parousia, which did happen in AD 70. Thus, perfection (whatever that entails) is something that is mutually exclusive with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
I like your take on becoming perfect in the resurrection, and I agree with you in a sense, and this prompts me to suggest that the “becoming perfect” was a spiritual matter alone - i.e. Christ’s body was not perfect in the resurrection, he still had scars, holes in his hands and barely recognizable.
I believe that perhaps our differences may not be as much over the nature of the perfection that Paul was looking forward to, but rather the nature of the Resurrection of the dead, or maybe what we mean when we use the word “perfect.”
One more thing I wanted to say…I hope you don’t find my comments here obnoxious or annoying - my intention is to interact with you, mostly for selfish reasons; I learn a lot by doing so and I grow in my understanding and my own faith. It is not my intention to offend anyone, but it occured to me last night when I was thinking about our interaction that some of the things I have been saying may be taken that way. If you do want me to stop posting for a while, no offense will be taken. I have been speding way too much time here lately :)
Hallelujah, we're left behind
Not the way I see it. First, though this is somewhat incidental, I don’t think the parousia can be restricted to AD 70 (that could perhaps be argued for Jesus but not for the New Testament as a whole), because the narrative structure of the motif includes judgment on the pagan enemy of the people of God.
Secondly, if the perfection that Paul has in mind is the completion of the journey of suffering, death, resurrection, vindication, then for those who completed that journey (at the parousia) perfection excluded the gifts of the Holy Spirit - they came to be with Christ, they saw him face-to-face. But the church as a whole is ‘left behind’ at the parousia (if I dare put it that way) to be the renewed people of God in the world - and a good thing too. We do not see Christ face-to-face. Clearly we don’t. Sometimes we barely manage to see him through a mirror darkly. We have to trust the Spirit of God in us to know that all kingdom and authority have been given to the Son of man.
I would imagine that most of us are here for more or less selfish reasons - certainly in the sense that you describe. As long as the conversation remains broadly in the pond of emerging theology (and we all know how murky that pond can be), I don’t think that’s too much of a problem. Like you, I benefit greatly from these exchanges.
Renewal of the covenant
Andrew,
It is clear that his healing ministry is primarily a prophetic sign of the renewal of the covenant, for the majority of the healings can ‘be seen as the restoration to membership in Israel of those who, through sickness or whatever, had been excluded as ritually unclean. The healings thus function in exact parallel with the welcome of sinners, and this, we may be quite sure, was what Jesus himself intended. He never performed mighty works simply to impress.’ (Victory 191, especially footnote 177)
If, however, as Wright also points out, this means that the healings must be seen as bestowing the gift of Shalom to those who lacked it, we must imaginatively explore the varied theological and devotional consequences this had for them and then ask if there is a parallel to our current historical moment. Further, Wright shows that Jesus’ working of miracles should be seen as the breaking in of the new order of the Kingdom of the creator God. The healings performed among Israel are a sign of what will happen for the whole world. This is highlighted particularly in his demonstrations of power over nature. His miracles then are to be seen as lived stories of the kingdom, which are stories of true exodus, and some in particular, such as the exorcisms, articulate the true exodus clearly as a deliverance from the oppression of Satan rather than deliverance from the oppression of Rome.
Wright points out Mark 5 as an example where Jesus does to Satan what the Jews wanted to do to Rome. So, regarding your question, I first want to say that so far I think that there were certain miraculous workings that we should not expect to be reduplicated on any large scale due to their first century purposes. Physical healings were fulfilling a particular objective for Jews suffering from maladies that put them in the same boat as those referred to in Deut. 23. And I think there is an argument that prophetic workings like the one in Acts 5 concerning Ananias and Saphira are to be understood as indicative of the hullabaloo of a new community trying not to loose its wits. But it seems that there would be a purpose for physical healing today as a sign that those we think are not blessed are often very much so because of their faith. A paraplegic that has been looked upon as foolish in her community for being outspoken about her faith when she herself ‘has not been blessed’ could become an agent of subverting the prevailing assumptions of the proud. (something is to be said about the power of her suffering too) Clearly healings today would not be achieving the first-mentioned purpose of Jesus’ healing in the New Testament. But so far I think it can be said that his incorporation of people into Israel was a step he went through on the way to enabling them to be Israel in the way they ought. And if any of those who are being called unto him in the 21st century find themselves hindered from being able to be the kinds of people they ought as ones incorporated into the Spirit-empowered children of Abraham, maybe healing is to be asked for. I would imagine that most of the time the healing necessary would not be physical in order for this to happen, but it is not inconceivable. What would be more likely would be something along the lines of what I hesitantly refer to as ‘inner healing’. This would include bringing the finger of God to bear upon ‘the bruised parts of the soul’ that have come about through abuse, or are self-inflicted through sin or foolishness, or are simply the result of growing up in an oppressive community of some sort. This, of course, is uncomfortable territory, for there have been many abuses in this area…and there is much that needs to be said about the import of various psychological theories and their acceptability in the community of God.
(to Virgil too)I’m just learning how to interpret Daniel (any recommended reading would be appreciated) but I wonder if the sealing up of vision and prophecy has to do with Jesus being the last in the line of prophets like Jeremiah. This might lend itself to a view like Grudem’s, which I’m too unfamiliar with at this point to articulate fully, but which runs something along the lines of saying that New Testament prophecy is not the same as Old Testament prophecy. If this were the case, all being able to prophecy would not be all giving divinely inspired warnings of impending judgment, for that would be unnecessary. Speaking out to their neighbors warnings passed down from Jesus to the apostles and so forth might achieve the same ‘prophetic sign’ as stated in the second bullet point, especially if the communities saying this is were known for serving and suffering with the poor, among other counter-cultural distinctives.
Thinking about the dialectic identity of Christ-like suffering and new creation/new humanity is exciting. I need to work on that one more before I say anything…but I love it.
Virgil,
Regarding 1 Corinthians 13:8, I agree with Thiselton that the issue of cessation, in light of the greek work (pages 1060-1065 of his NIGTC) ‘must be determined on other grounds than exegetical discussions of this verse’, meaning ‘all that is clear [from 8-13] is that these gifts cease at the eschaton’ and, citing Barth, ‘the one form of Christian action which does not require, and is not subject to, transformation into another, higher, and future form’ is love. Obviously, as you also seem to believe, the issue is therefore ‘eschaton’ or ‘the perfect’.
I’m gonna have to go ahead and say that Paul has in mind consummation. My argument will have to come tomorrow, however. I’m drained.
sorry
I now see that i missed what andrew said above, the two points about daniel. Sorry.
outsider
I have a number of friends of pentecostal/charismatic leaning but being myself an outsider, I am a bit hesitant to comment here.
It seems to me to be a mistake to take everything in the NT as eschatological. It may indeed be but if there is nothing in the text to pull us towards an eschatological analysis then that’s better avoided as a tendency to prooftext.
On a different tack, in John 13-17 Jesus is telling the disciples that their experience of His Spirit will be very similar to their experience of being with Him physically but as abiding in Him can be so much more complete, so will their knowledge and experience of Him be complete.
Why I bring this up is that there is no evidence of the phenomena that accompanied the outpouring at Pentecost having existed during Jesus ministry as an experience of the disciples. They certainly both experienced Jesus power and themselves excercised that power “in His name”. But the specifically ‘charismatic’ types of experience are missing.
After Pentecost, the apostles did take the ‘signs and wonders’, speaking in tongues &c. both as proof of the presence of the Spirit and as aids to witnessing to Jesus especially amongst those unfamiliar with the Jesus story. I also don’t see an argument anywhere in the NT that says that such phenomena necessarily accompany any action of the Holy Spirit.
It is a stretch to argue for or against the continuance of charismatic experience from texts such as 1Cor13 and Romans8 (Paul here is certainly not speaking of any experience of the Spirit that is limited to some proportion or other of the believers). And from a purely pragmatic perspective, when the Spirit acts and works we should be extra careful in passing any judgements. It is always silly for us to be so sure of our exegesis, theology, eschatology or doctrine that we turn around and say to God “You can’t do that…”.
Unlike my Preterist bretheren I am not convinced that the parousia has taken place. To me, the arguments from silence are largely unconvincing. My agnosticism on this count also makes me conclude that whatever be the our present stage of eschaton, the Holy Spirit is active and is particularly active in sealing us in Christ.
We will know the tree by its fruit. The key to the genuineness God’s working will always be the fruit of the Spirit.
What we should condemn are the sensationalist and profiteering uses that are made out of carefully orchestrated ‘miracles’ that certainly lead many thousands of people up the garden path and far, far away from the gospel.
Live to serve : Serve to live
Discernment in a preterist world
Virgil, I have to admit that I don’t understand the preterist position very well. The perfect has come already, and Christ is present among the people of God. There’s no need for God to make special revelations only to those with special gifts, because everyone has direct access to God now — is that the idea? In other words, in a preterist world every believer has the gift of prophecy as Peter describes it — the ability to convey God’s message to his people. Instead of the gifts ceasing, they’ve been made available to all. Prophecy isn’t closed; it’s thrown wide open. If so, isn’t some sort of discernment still necessary to distinguish who is really hearing from God and who isn’t? And isn’t there still the necessity of interpreting the meaning of an authenticated message from God?
In general, there’s been some superb scholarship and clear reasoning evidenced in this discussion. It’s been enlightening just following along.
it depends
John, some who advocate fulfillment of all prophecy (and I still don’t know how Andrew views this) would argue that prophecy has ceased in light of the Kingdom arriving in AD 70, so the arrival of Christ’s presence does not necessarily imply that we all get prophetic superpowers, rather that such gifts would be unecessary. By the way, I do deal with some of these questions on http://preterism.com on the FAQ page.
preterist discernment again
Virgil, I went to the FAQ on the website you mentioned and I failed to find the answers to my questions. Let me try again, even more concisely:
1. If the perfect has come and believers are in the presence of Christ, does that mean that all believers have direct personal access to God’s thoughts?
2. Can all preterists tell one another, and to unbelievers, what God has been saying to them?
3. What sort of discernment do preterists rely on to be sure that the messages they receive or hear in fact came from God?
Thanks for your patience, and if these questions are too simplistically put I’m sure you’ll set me straight.
hmmm, i'll try again
No, I would never claim such a thing - instead, I would readily admit that the Scripture is our ultimate guide, and the Scripture is a revelation of God’s thoughts.
I don’t think preterists believe God is speaking to them…certainly I don’t claim that, at least not audibly. I do believe however that God has communicated to us, however the human language allows him, via the Scriptures and those who did have miraculous gifts in the first century: i.e. the authors of the Scriptures.
Again, I don’t know of any preterists claiming that he or she receives messages from God - who claimed this? In fact, I believe the exact opposite - direct divine revelation has ceased in the first century…that is what I have been arguing here for a couple of days now :) That IS the discernment one should use when prophets appear in a post-AD 70 context. From my perspective anyone outside of this framework cannot be a prophet because prophecy ceased, thus the problems of Christian-related cults, Islam and/or other similar religions based on one or more founding prophets are resolved.
that's what it says
Virgil, John Doyle has a good point, if you say that we have already arrived at:
1 Cor 13:8 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. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
then I should know fully, even as I am known and that is why I won’t need prophesy or tongues or knowledge for that matter!
Live to serve : Serve to live
On hearing from God
Thanks, Virgil, for clarifying. The “premillennial dispensationalists” I used to hang around with also believed in sola Scriptura during the present age, though of course theirs was a different eschatology from yours. The closing of revelation does, as you point out, resolve the issue of distinguishing the true prophets from the false. What remains, then, is discerning truth from error in Scriptural interpretation. If you believe that the Bible is self-interpreting, then even that problem goes away.
Samuel (or is it Sam L.?), it seems to me also that, when the perfect comes, God would open a clearer and wider channel of communication than Bible reading — or even Spirit-inspired theologizing.
So, what sort of an in-between is this?
From Virgil’s clarifications and Andrew’s comments (and from my own ignorance) I have a question.
It appears that Preterism does not claim that “the perfect” has come and at the same time says that the parousia has happened (perhaps at/around AD 70) and concommittantly that the Judgement is also over at/around the same time but that ‘the perfect’ is yet to come. So apparently we are in an in-between state where we are to discover, as Andrew puts it, what it means to be a ‘new creation’, ‘new humanity’.
Virgil says that the specifically “miraculous” gifts of the Spirit should have also ceased. Where that leaves us is in a place where a lot of the teaching of the gospels and the epistles is preparousia i.e. belongs to the Suffering Servant theme while post parousia (Christus Victor) is what we are now living.
Now we are left without much in the way of real scriptural guidelines - our theology and our exegsis will have to start from scratch and without sources.
Virgil has to derive the purpose of the church from: “Now where does this lead the Church today? What is the purpose of the Church? I look at the picture of the New Jerusalem for answers – I believe the Church is here “for the healing of the nations”… but apart from a vague creational idea and some fulfilment of some selective prophecies, where is the continuity with the bulk of NT teaching and (more importantly) the life and teaching of Jesus?
Important questions, not only anout the gifts but also about the nature of discipleship and the fate of Jesus preaching of the good news of the kingdom of God - the gospel - are thus left a bit in limbo. We have a New testament which largely no longer applies.
To quote Peter: “I’m still left puzzled as to what the church has to offer the world today if it is not the gospel. What kind of healing are we to give the nations, if it is not access to the Father by the Son through the Spirit? Is that not the heart of the gospel? Does that not depend on the same willing response now as it did 2000 years ago, through the presentation of the same means - the death of Jesus on the cross, his resurrection, and the conferring of the Spirit on those who believe?”
Live to serve : Serve to live
Virgil, I've tried to
Virgil, I’ve tried to explain how I see the relationship between prophecy and the parousia here.
Emergent Charismatic Spirituality
Andrew,
A much-neglected feature of this discussion (as well as the old question of how much of the “historical” Jesus does Paul know and refer to) is the connection Paul establishes between Jesus’ “Spirit-uality” (his life with the Father through the Spirit, hence the capital “S”) and the church’s through “Abba” (Rom. 8; Gal. 4). Especially if the case can be made, as I believe it can, that Paul’s use of “Abba” is the most significant connection he draws between the “historical” Jesus’ experience and our own, then Jesus’ “Spirit-uality” becomes the normative pattern for our own (pre- or post-70 AD). That then sets the primary context within which the reassessment of “charismatic” phenomenon must be carried out. At least so it seems to me.
Peace,
Lee Wyatt
Clarifying the conversation
It’s clear that the conversation in this thread has cultivated a few streams of debate.
I want to clarify something I wrote in the original post. When I said,
I did not mean, ‘now that we are living in the new heavens and new earth’. I meant, rather, ‘given the paradigmatic swirl occuring since the advent of postmodernism’ and furthermore, ‘given the fresh hermeneutical strategies gaining prominence of late, i.e. critical realism’.
This thread has proven that what one thinks about ‘miraulous gifts’ is intimately connected with what one thinks about eschatology, covenant, fulfillment, etc.
But that was known before.
So I think the partial-preterist / full-preterist debate ought to be carried out in another thread. Maybe it already has been. (I’m new and fairly computer illiterate) It appears that Andrew’s Prophecy, parousia and new creation thread may be such a way of dividing the debates.
I would most definitely turn my attention to such a thread, as I have recently been wondering,
In addition to that question I have others.
and I’m most interested in,
As always, if there are any recommended links to follow, or recommended books, chapters or journal articles, let me know. I’m new to alot of this.
I don’t want us to forget about the mention of a phenomenology of tongues, and as far as possible, a hypothetical phenomenology of tongues, I think it was clutch to mention that at the beginning. Any serious discussion of this now, however, I fear would be putting the cart before the horse. I think primarily we need to carry out the agenda set forth in Andrew’s second post as well as the last three sentences in Prophecy, parousia and new creation, nuancing the questions as we go.
Virgil, did you get my email?
Virgil -
Earlier on this thread I said I’d read your discussion of the Biblical creation narrative. I did; I wrote up some comments and emailed them to you. I haven’t heard whether you received the email. I think instead of sending messages to our actual email addresses, this site establishes a separate email account accessible only through this site. So you might want to check over there at the right side of the screen at “my inbox” and see if anything’s sitting there. If not, let me know and I’ll try again.
Best,
John
Yes I did
John, I did get your message, and I want to apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I will try to reply as soon as I get a chance - I am busy preparing a message for Sunday so I will try to reply to you Sunday afternoon or first thing monday. I do appreciate your interaction with me here and your insightful comments.
Jesus' Spirit-uality
So, Lee, what would the implication of that be? To have the Spirit of the Son is to be in the same relationship to the Father that Jesus had? Would this mean - to address one of the issues discussed in this thread - that the Spirit is intrinsically the Spirit of prophecy?
My reservation from a narrative-eschatological point of view has to do with the question of to what extent this experience of being a ‘Son/son’ is bound up with the particular calling to be the Son of man - that is, to be the faithful community in Christ that is called to suffer and be vindicated for the sake of the life of the age to come. I would certainly suggest that for Paul the historical core of Jesus’ ‘Spirit-uality’ is the story about suffering and vindication, which he himself wishes to emulate (Phil. 3:10-11).
Jesus and Paul
I am going to digress rather seriously from the substance of this thread to take up the issue raised by Lee on Jesus and Paul. A long and contentious history to that one! Well, here’s a theory for all to shoot down!
Paul and the apostles preached the gospel and by that I understand that they preached Christ.
So let’s take that a step further; they preached the life, death and resurrection of Jesus in a pericopial form. In other words, the preaching of the gospel included, and largely consisted of, the preaching and teaching that we now find in ‘the gospels’ particularly the synoptiocs.
So, people believed the word that was preached to them and started following the teaching of the apostles and here I rely a bit on some classic work done by Gerhardsson many many years ago. The new believers are required to learn the life and teaching in detail and in a fairly standardised format - very similar again to our synoptics.
They are formed into small communities of believers and begin to discover what fellowship in Christ means in practice. At this stage, the “fellowship planting apostles” may or may not be present to guide in person. When they are not around letters are exchanged. There is also a lot of evidence that people moved between these communities sharing insights and getting advice.
When specific comments or questions reached the apostles they would respond with very specific letters addressing the concerns and generally these would involve applications of the gospel that do not have an obvious answer in the already memorised body of teaching as well as expositions of new insights into how the new fellowship in Christ was to grow, led by the Spirit.
That’s a long but necessary introduction to the simple fact that teaching contained in our ‘gospels’ is not found repeated in the epistles. It is not repeated precisely because it is already considered given - a part of the foundation that is applied to daily life and on which each fellowship is to grow and meditate. Allusions to the teaching and to this foundational material are found in all the epistles and are stressed when it is felt that the fellowship has vered away from their moorings in Christ.
A case in point is Romans where Paul has not established the fellowship and does not have a detailed picture of what gospel they have been taught and it is interesting that in Romans 12-13 we find such a clear echo of the Sermon on the Mount, I take it that Paul is here willing to spend precious time repeating something that otherwise he would never have thought necessary to do!
Applying Occam’s razor, when there is such a simple explanation available for not finding the gospel teachings repeatedly quoted in the epistles, where is the need for so much Paul vs Jesus NT scholarship?
p.s. I am certainly not a scholar and not even a competent amateur in theology, so no scholar out there need take offence at my ramblings-have a good laugh instead!
Live to serve : Serve to live
Would that all were prophets
My wife is a lector today. The reading, Numbers 11:25-29, speaks to the discussion of the gifts which took place here recently: