Sermon Tone Analysis

HISTORICAL RECORD

Cessationism: is the doctrine (teaching) that spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy and healing ceased with the apostolic age.

Cessationists argue that the moment the last Apostle died, or when the final sentence of the last book of the Bible had been written, all miracles including speaking in tongues ceased.

Are they correct?

Let's first establish the date that miracles supposedly ceased:

The Apostle Paul died somewhere between 64 AD and 69 AD, and the last Apostle, the Apostle John, died in 110 AD.

So let's compare the cut-off date, the year of the last Apostle's death, with the timeline of events in the Early Church:

THE PERFECT PRAYER

Irenaeus (c.130-202 AD) was born 20 years after the last Apostle died.

He was bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, which is now Lyon, France.

His writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology.

Like Justin Martyr, he was an early Christian apologist.

His writings carry significant weight because he was a disciple of Polycarp, who had been a disciple of the Apostle John.

He was bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, which is now Lyon, France.

His writings were formative in the early development of Christian theology.

Like Justin Martyr, he was an early Christian apologist.

His writings carry significant weight because he was a disciple of Polycarp, who had been a disciple of the Apostle John.

Irenaeus writes of believers in his day:

"Wherefore, also, those who are in truth His disciples, receiving grace from Him, do in His name perform [miracles], so as to promote the welfare of other men, according to the gift which each one has received from Him.

For some do certainly and truly drive out devils, so that those who have thus been cleansed from evil spirits frequently both believe [in Christ] and join themselves to the Church.

Others have foreknowledge of things to come: they see visions, and utter prophetic expressions.

Others still, heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole.

Yea, moreover, as I have said, the dead even have been raised up, and remained among us for many years.

And what shall I more say?

It is not possible to name the number of gifts which the Church, [scattered] throughout the whole world, has received from God, in the name of Jesus Christ,"

Irenaeus Against Heresies, Book II, Chapter 32, section 4.

Irenaeus testifies, in writings that exist to this day, that "prophetic expressions" and believers "who through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages" were so common and widespread in his life (130 - 202 AD) that "...it is not possible to name the number of gifts..."

Hilary (c.300-367 AD), born 190 years after the last Apostle died.

was bishop of Poitiers and considered an eminent Doctor of the Western Christian Church.

He testified that speaking in tongues and interpreting were present in the Church in his lifetime.

Hilary wrote:

"For God hath set same in the Church, first apostles...secondly prophets...thirdly teachers...next mighty works, among which are the healing of diseases...and gifts of either speaking or interpreting divers kinds of tongues.

Clearly these are [not were] the Church's agents of ministry and work of whom the body of Christ consists; and God has ordained them."

--On the Trinity, Book 8 Chapter 33.

Hilary wrote this nearly two centuries after the last Apostle died.

(AMP)

"For God's gifts and His call are irrevocable--He never withdraws them when once they are given, and He does not change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call."

John Chrysostom (347 - 407 AD) was a notable Christian bishop and preacher from the 4th and 5th centuries in Syria and Constantinople.

Chrysostom was baptized in 370, and was ordained a deacon in 381.

Sometime between 381 and his death in 407, he wrote of the waning of the Gifts of the Spirit in locales with which he was familiar, and the general backslidden state of the Church.

We will look at three quotes from his "Homilies of the Apostle Paul to the Corinthians."

Commenting on:
"Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant."--,

John Chrysostom writes of the lack of these spiritual gifts in his day and locale:

"This whole place is very obscure: but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur but now no longer take place.

And why do they not happen now?...why did they then happen, and now do so no more?

...Well: what did happen then?

Whoever was baptized he straightway spake with tongues and not with tongues only, but many also prophesied, and some also performed many other wonderful works... they [the Corinthians] at once on their baptism received the Spirit...And one straightway spake in the Persian, another in the Roman, another in the Indian, another in some other such tongue: and this made manifest to them that were without that it is the Spirit in the very person speaking....

For as the Apostles themselves had received this sign first, so also the faithful went on receiving it, I mean, the gift of tongues; yet not this only but also many others: inasmuch as many used even to raise the dead and to cast out devils and to perform many other such wonders: and they had gifts too, some less, and some more.

But more abundant than all was the gift of tongues among them..." ("Saint Chrysostom: Homily on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians," Phillip Schaff, 1889.

Volume 12, Homily 29 NPNF 168-169).

"...For there were of old many who had also a gift of prayer, together with a tongue; and they prayed, and the tongue spake, praying either in the Persian or Latin language, but their understanding knew not what was spoken.

("Saint Chrysostom: Homily on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians," Phillip Schaff, 1889.

Volume 12, Homily 35 NPNF 211).

"What now can be more awful than these things?

For in truth the Church was a heaven then, the Spirit governing all things, and moving each one of the rulers and making him inspired.

But now we retain only the symbols of those gifts...they thus used to speak, not of their own wisdom, but moved by the Spirit.

But not so now: (I speak of mine own case so far.)

But the present Church is like a woman who hath fallen from her former prosperous days, and in many respects retains the symbols only of that ancient prosperity; displaying indeed the repositories and caskets of her golden ornaments, but bereft of her wealth: such an one doth the present Church resemble.

And I say not this in respect of gifts: for it were nothing marvelous if it were this only: but in respect also of life and virtue."

("Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians," Phillp Schaff, 1889.

Homily 36, NPNF 219-220).

In the same book in which Chrysostom laments the absence of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, he ties this loss in with the backslidden, corrupted state of the Church at that time:

"What now can be more awful than these things?

For in truth the Church was a heaven then, the Spirit governing all things, and moving each one of the rulers and making him inspired.

But now we retain only the symbols of those gifts...they thus used to speak, not of their own wisdom, but moved by the Spirit.

But not so now: (I speak of mine own case so far.)

But the present Church is like a woman who hath fallen from her former prosperous days, and in many respects retains the symbols only of that ancient prosperity; displaying indeed the repositories and caskets of her golden ornaments, but bereft of her wealth: such an one doth the present Church resemble.

And I say not this in respect of gifts: for it were nothing marvelous if it were this only: but in respect also of life and virtue."

("Saint Chrysostom: Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians," Phillp Schaff, 1889.

Homily 36, NPNF 219-220).

The OT miracles God wanted had faded to near nothing by the time Jesus came on the scene.

Jesus did not blame God, but men!

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Jesus did not stop healing the sick, raising the dead and delivering people from demons.

In fact, the religious leaders accused him of working with the Devil!

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Today, we must decide which side we are going to stand on.

are we going to side with man and his teaching or on what the Bible teaches?

By the Middle Ages, the Church had reached the point where it lacked life, virtue, and power.

Church leaders could have humbled themselves, addressed the corruption, and returned to the literal interpretation of God's Word.

Instead, they began to claim that speaking in tongues and miracles were rare at best, and demonic at worst.

"In fact by A.D. 1000 the Rituale Romanorum (Roman Ritual) defined glossalia as prima facie evidence of demon possession."

(Vinson Synan, The Century of the Holy Spirit, page 20).

Today some Christians actually have adopted the same position and claim that speaking in tongues occurs now only when a person is under the power of demons.

Filled with corruption, greed, sin, and hypocrisy, and actively denouncing speaking in tongues, it is little wonder that speaking in tongues waned in the Medieval Church even further.

He’s talking to us my friend!

What happens when a person speaks in tongues?

(NIV)

(NIV)

It is a direct link to God

It is a language spoken by the person by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Mysteries of God are spoken

Mysterion - Mystery, secret, secret designs, God’s unfathomable purposes

mystery, secret rite, ceremony (mostly pl.; in relig.

sense) Wis 14,15; mystery, secret (in secular sense) Tob 12,7; secret (in mil.

sense) 2 Mc 13,21; τὰ μυστήρια the mysteries Dn 2,28

τὸ μυστήριον τῆς βουλῆς secret designs Jdt 2,2; οὐκ ἔγνωσαν μυστήρια θεοῦ they have not understood the mysteries of God (God’s unfathomable purposes)

Speaking in tongues is a source of personal edification - being built up

I want to be more useful to the Lord!