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?