by Garrett Glende

We left off last week in 1 Corinthians 13, the famous chapter on the supremacy of love. We will spend a significant amount of time looking over some of the verses in this chapter, but that comes later. First, I just want to say a few things about spiritual gifts and the charismatic debate. It’s probably obvious to everyone that I’m no expert when it comes to these things and I’m not claiming to be. There are many godly men out there who disagree with me and who have done much more studying on the topic, so I don’t claim to have any sort of leg up on them when it comes to this either. However, I will say that God has given us all the same Bible’s and the same Holy Spirit – so at least we’re equal on that. I say this because I really don’t want to come off as the young guy who shoots down every theologian that he disagrees with. Trust me; it would be much easier to just avoid this whole issue all together. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t do much justice to this series if we could skip over anything remotely difficult, so we’ll continue to tackle each chapter as it comes. And with that, we’ll begin to take a look at some of the issues regarding the miraculous sign gifts and their presence (or lack thereof) today.

Going back to 1 Corinthians 13, we see that Paul emphasizes love because it is the only thing that will last forever. He writes in verses 8-13:

“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. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

This passage contains some of the clearest teaching on the cessation of the sign gifts, so it cannot be ignored. The crux of the argument centers on the interpretation of the word to teleion, translated in the English as “perfect.” It’s clear that these partial gifts will pass away, but it is not clear as to when exactly this will take place. All we can say for sure is that it will happen “when the perfect comes.” But precisely when is this? Grudem interprets “the perfect” to mean the second coming of Christ. He makes a connection between the time when the perfect comes and the refrains of “now…then…” statements in verse 12. The “then” statements would correspond to the time when the perfect comes. He interprets these verses to mean the second coming of Christ, asking, “When shall we see ‘face to face’? When shall we know ‘even as we have been known’? These events can only happen when the Lord returns.” Grudem believes that “the partial” refers to all of the revelatory and confirmatory gifts, not just knowledge and prophecy, arguing that “Paul also intended tongues to be included in the sense of verse 9 as among these activities that are imperfect, but omitted overly pedantic repetition for stylistic reasons…Paul could have listed more gifts here if he had wished.” With the second coming of Christ, Grudem argues, there will no longer be any need for these partial gifts because we will see fully.

While it definitely is the case that Paul considers the second advent of Christ to be a time when these gifts could pass away, he also suggests that it could happen sometime before then. An alternative interpretation to Grudem’s is found in Robert Thomas’ book titled Understanding Spiritual Gifts. Thomas asserts that instead of rendering the word to teleion as “perfect,” it should be translated “mature.” This interpretation is strengthened by the allusions to the maturation between childhood and manhood in verse 11 and the other occurrences of the phrase throughout the New Testament. In its other uses to teleion is found to mean “mature” rather than “perfect” (1 Cor. 14:20, Heb. 5:13-14, Eph. 4:13-14). These verses all speak of some sort of maturity within the body of believers, leading us to believe that this is something that Paul had in mind in 1 Cor. 13:10. Because Paul is not sure when Christ will return, he is convinced that the gifts could cease before then, specifically when the body of Christ is matured. Thomas notes that Paul was aware that sign gifts were given specially during periods of revelation, but were then followed by periods of silence and an absence of miraculous gifts. For example, the time when God spoke directly to the prophets was followed by a silence of 400 years. The Old Testament cannon was clearly closed as soon as this prophecy ceased, which was long before Christ was born. Thomas links this maturing of the Old Testament period to the early church period that Paul was experiencing. He writes:

“He was conscious that he was now in the midst of a new period during which God was speaking directly to His apostles and prophets, resulting in inspired utterances, part of which were taking their place alongside the Old Testament cannon as inspired Scripture. One possibility he foresaw was that this period of prophecy could come to its conclusion before the Second Advent of Christ just as the Old Testament prophecy had come to its conclusion four hundred years before the First Advent. Such a cessation would resemble the gradual development from childhood to manhood.”

I prefer this interpretation of 1 Cor. 13:8-13 because it incorporates a more accurate understanding of the original language, as well as weighing each verse in the passage appropriately. It’s obvious to me that the second coming of Christ would usher in an era where these gifts no longer exist, but at the same time it seems logical to allow for an earlier cessation, as Paul does in this passage. So the question to answer then is, “has this maturation taken place?” If we believe that God is no longer giving revelation and that the New Testament cannon is closed, then it would follow that the signs that accompany such revelation would have ceased upon its closing. The miraculous sign gifts (tongues, healing, miracles) were given to the apostles to prove that their teachings were from God. They existed to show the people exactly what kind of authority the apostles carried. However, upon the completion of the New Testament, the gifts were no longer necessary because the written word of God stood on its own authority. In fact, Peter calls this word something more sure than his own eyewitness account of Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration (2 Peter 1:19). It needs no accompaniment of signs and wonders.

This article is getting too long, so I applaud you if you’ve made it this far. However, there is one more issue that I’d like to address. Many people today insist that the charismatic gifts still exist today because they’ve had some sort of experience that convinced them of it. Whether it be speaking in tongues or witnessing a healing, they rely on what they have seen to inform their conclusions. I don’t mean to offend anyone when I ask this question, but how do you know that the “tongues” you’re speaking are really from God? Are they really serving their purpose (the edification of the body)? It’s not that I think these people are not sincere in their faith, but I do believe it is misguided and perhaps uninformed. We need to go back to what the Scriptures say about these issues and deal with them at a biblical level. We cannot first claim to know truth based on an emotional experience and then force that belief to fit what the Bible teaches. And this goes for anything in life, not just spiritual gifts. We should be sure to make the Bible our ultimate authority, not our own experience.

The purpose of this article was really just to give you a taste of what is out there to study. I only scratched the surface of the issue and in some ways feel like I’m not doing it justice. Nevertheless, I hope that this may spur you on to want to study your Bible’s more, not just to gain knowledge, but to have your life changed by the truth. There are plenty of good resources out there and I encourage you to take advantage of them. Yes, this will mean lots and lots of reading, unless you get a voice from heaven, of course.