LAWSON: Well, I would start with Ephesians 2 verse 20,
that Christ and the apostles are the foundation of the church, and those sign gifts were uniquely
given to the apostles as a confirmation of their apostleship as well as a means by which direct
revelation would be given to them, to the church, until such time as the canon of Scripture was
completed. But when you build a building, how many times do you lay the foundation?
You only lay it once. You don't lay a foundation on the roof,
you don't lay a foundation on the second floor, the third floor, the fifth floor, and all the way
up to the twenty-first floor. A foundation is only laid once, and God gave, Ephesians 2:20, God gave
revelation to Christ and to the apostles, such that for the rest of the building of the church
through the centuries, it's all built upon this one foundation.
Ephesians 3:5 would also supplement with the same
and many other passages and arguments, theological arguments, can be brought to bear on this,
and I'm sure the other men want... Steve, you're getting ready to say something.
NICHOLS: Well, I would just have them sit down and work with Hebrews 2:3,
because I think it's some reflection on exactly what you're talking about
within Scripture itself. So, you've got to sort of follow the pronouns here. But the author says,
"How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared," this is the gospel,
"It was declared at first by the Lord and was attested to us by those who heard."
So, there are three groups here, there's the Lord, there's those who heard the Lord, which would
be the apostles, and there's the us, the group taught by the apostles. "It was attested to us
by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles
and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will."
And so, those gifts were an attestation of that ministry of the "those" who heard directly from
Christ. And the author of Hebrews is putting himself outside of that group.
And so, already within the canon of the New Testament there is a reflection
of a movement beyond the apostles. And I think it's an important verse to consider,
and I'd put it in front of them, and be Bereans and see what the Word teaches.
LAWSON: Yeah, also there's no mention of these miraculous sign gifts in the
New Testament past the year 56 or 57 A.D. with the book of 1 Corinthians.
I mean, once you get past that to the later general epistles and even Paul's later
epistles, there's no mention of these gifts and it gives an indication of them beginning to pass
off the scene. And just to clarify what I was trying to say earlier is when you lay the
foundation once, that's when those sign gifts were given but as each subsequent floor is built up
from this foundation, those gifts were a part of the foundation; they're not in an ongoing manner.
And it also speaks to the sufficiency of Scripture and the sufficiency of the Holy Spirit
that there is...if it's new, it's not true.
There is no new revelation to be given. We have the faith once for all given to the saints, and
if we needed more information to be given in a private revelation type of thing,
then that is really an attack on the sufficiency of Scripture, because we have everything that we
need to live the Christian life already put in the Bible. That's why we're big on the Bible.
PARSONS: Yeah, this is such an important topic, because I think that this whole mindset
is actually, it has been infiltrating even solid Presbyterian and Reformed churches in recent years
where you'll have elders and pastors being ordained into the ministry,
holding a difference with our confessional standards. Somebody will refer to it as
an exception. Technically, we ask for a difference to be held, and the presbytery
or the governing body grants that difference as an exception, as an allowable exception.
It is not an allowable exception, in my mind, with our confessional standards to be
cautiously, as it's often said, cautiously non-cessationistic. That is to say, they believe
that there is still the possibility of these sign gifts being demonstrated. The problem with that,
and if you're facing that all, is exactly what these gentlemen have said, the problem is that
they think that they are elevating the sign gifts when, in fact, they are devaluing the Word of God.
The reason sign gifts exist in history is because throughout all of history,
at various redemptive periods, those various redemptive epochs,
God gave His truth to be proclaimed to His people through the prophets, through judges, through the
apostles. And to attest to the veracity, or the truthfulness, of God's Word through His
prophets and apostles, God testified to their words, their truth, because it's the Word
that is supreme, not the signs and wonders. It's the word, the truth that is ultimate. The signs
and wonders are secondary. The signs and wonders are servants to the Word of God proclaimed.
So, to desire those or to want to see those exhibited is not a greater experience;
it's a lesser experience. You're going back to the foundation, you're going back to the servant
rather than to the ultimate authority, the Word of God, which all those signs and wonders
were to attest to. That's why they faded away of themselves, as they needed to, as the apostolic
era came to an end. So, to want them and to desire them is devaluing the Word of God.
LAWSON: It's really to go back to the nursery. It's to go back to the infancy stage of
the church rather than for the church to mature and to act like an adult and speak like an adult,
like 1 Corinthians 13 says, "When I was a child, I spoke like a child," well,
that's speaking in tongues, that is prophecies and that kind of thing, that is immature talk.
But Paul says, but now we are to speak as a man, as an adult,
and that is to preach the Word of God which contains the full counsel of God.
To go back to the sign gifts is really to go again back to nursery, I mean to the
nursery room, just go back to the infancy days of the church, when God...it was a very limited
means of communication, where now we have it in objective, written
Scripture that can be studied, can be parsed, can be exegeted, can be
compared. And so, we have a far, far superior means of revelation
in the written Word of God rather than the da...da, ma...ma, baby talk of the first century.
PARSONS: Just one more quick point here because this so important in the church today, we're
fighting this still, quite frankly, surprisingly, but sadly. Do you remember when Jesus...there's
a commendation of those who believe because they saw all these signs and wonders,
but he said, "Blessed are those who do not see and believe." We are more blessed
than the first century Christians because we believe without having to see signs and wonders.
NICHOLS: So, I think this expands beyond cessationism
because I think this touches the issue of just experience.
So, we're talking about signs and wonders versus the Word. But when you were talking about Christ
and going back to Thomas, I was thinking of Peter, and he's remembering the transfiguration
and then he says, "But we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well
to take heed." And I think, what experience compares with Peter's experiences as a disciple.
LAWSON: Yeah, that was on the Mount of Transfiguration, he actually heard
the voice of God say, "This is my beloved Son,"
and Peter says that's nothing compared to having the written Scripture.
NICHOLS: So, why would we want
some sort of direct experience when we have the gift of God's Word to us?