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Gifts: Continuationist or Cessationist

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  • 10Moments
  • 7Passages
  • 18Traditions

Have the gifts of the Spirit ceased, or do tongues and prophecy continue?

Continuationists say the gifts of 1 Corinthians 12, including speaking in tongues, prophecy and healing, run until Christ returns and are to be welcomed and tested. Cessationists say those sign gifts confirmed the apostles’ message and ended with them, though God still heals in answer to prayer.

Why it matters

This decides what can happen in a service. A continuationist church may have someone speak in tongues with an interpretation, pray for the sick with hands laid on, or bring a prophecy to be weighed by everyone present; a cessationist church prays for the sick just as hard and expects God to answer, but nobody stands up claiming a fresh word from Him. It also decides what a pastor says to a member who believes they have received one.

Where does each tradition sit?

Each dot is one tradition, numbered left to right. In the hatched middle the quiz names neither pole.

Continuationist Cessationist

Toward Continuationist 11

Neither pole named 41–59 0

No listed tradition sits here on this axis.

Toward Cessationist 7

What does each side believe?

Continuationist

Continuationists hold that the gifts of 1 Corinthians 12, including tongues, prophecy, and healing, remain available to the church until Christ returns and are to be welcomed and tested, though they differ on how eagerly to seek them: Pentecostals and charismatics seek them openly, while Catholic and Orthodox teaching receives them with gratitude and warns against seeking them rashly. Speaking in tongues is the gift most people have heard of, but the same argument covers prophecy, healing and miracles, and the case rests on a plain observation: no passage anywhere announces that they were being withdrawn.

Cessationist

Cessationists hold that those sign gifts authenticated the apostles and their message and passed away once the apostolic foundation was laid; many add that the completed Scriptures now do the work those gifts once did. They affirm that God still heals and answers prayer, but hold that the Spirit’s ordinary work is now through the Word and providence rather than through the sign gifts. Cessationist does not mean expecting little of God: on this view the Spirit is at work all the time, through preaching, Scripture, providence and answered prayer, rather than through gifted individuals.

Did you know?

  • Augustine changed his mind in public. He had written that miracles ceased with the apostles and took it back in his Retractations; in the City of God he reports that nearly seventy healings were recorded at Hippo in under two years.

    Augustine, City of God XXII.8, c. AD 426; the earlier claim withdrawn in his Retractations.

  • Chrysostom told his congregation the passage was difficult because the events had stopped. Preaching on 1 Corinthians 12 around AD 390 he called the whole place very obscure, the gifts in it ‘such as then used to occur but now no longer take place’.

    John Chrysostom, Homily 29 on 1 Corinthians, c. AD 390.

  • The movement at the center of this argument is barely a century old. It runs from a Bible school in Topeka in 1901 and the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles in 1906; the same practices reached mainline Protestants in 1960 and Catholics at Duquesne University in 1967.

    Topeka, 1901; Azusa Street, 1906; Van Nuys, 1960; Duquesne, 1967.

How did this disagreement develop?

How the argument unfolded

10 moments, from the 2nd century to the 20th

  1. late 2nd c. Irenaeus (Against Heresies II.32; V.6) reports prophecy, tongues, and healings in the churches; Montanist ‘new prophecy’ in Phrygia leaves the wider church wary of prophetic claims.
  2. c. AD 390 Chrysostom, Homily 29 on 1 Corinthians, says the gifts Paul lists there ‘used to occur but now no longer take place’.
  3. c. AD 426 Augustine, City of God XXII.8, records recent miracles at Hippo, many at martyrs’ shrines, and in his Retractations withdraws his earlier claim that miracles had ceased.
  4. 1646 Westminster Confession 1.1, repeated in the 1689 Baptist Confession: God’s former ways of revealing His will are ‘now ceased’.
  5. 1749–1867 Wesley argues the gifts faded through the church’s decline, not God’s withdrawal; the holiness movement’s ‘baptism with the Holy Spirit’ prepares the ground for Pentecostalism.
  6. 1901–06 Charles Parham’s Topeka school and William Seymour’s Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles launch modern Pentecostalism, with tongues as the initial evidence of Spirit baptism.
  7. 1918 B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles, ties the gifts to the apostles.
  8. 1960s Charismatic renewal brings Pentecostal-style tongues, prophecy, and healing into mainline Protestant (Van Nuys, 1960) and Catholic (Duquesne, 1967) congregations.
  9. 1980s–90s The ‘third wave’ (Wimber’s Vineyard; Grudem, Storms) brings the gifts into evangelical and some Reformed churches without the Pentecostal doctrine of a subsequent Spirit baptism.
  10. 1996 Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views sets the cessationist (Gaffin), open-but-cautious (Saucy), and continuationist (Storms, Oss) cases side by side.

Which Bible passages do both sides argue from?

Passages both sides argue from

Tap one to read it. BSB, public domain since 30 April 2023 (berean.bible/licensing.htm).

1 Corinthians 14:1–5

1 Corinthians 14 · verses 1–5

  1. 1Earnestly pursue love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.
  2. 2For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries in the Spirit.
  3. 3But he who prophesies speaks to men for their edification, encouragement, and comfort.
  4. 4The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prophesies edifies the church.
  5. 5I wish that all of you could speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. He who prophesies is greater than one who speaks in tongues, unless he interprets so that the church may be edified.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

1 Corinthians 13:8–12

1 Corinthians 13 · verses 8–12

  1. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be restrained; where there is knowledge, it will be dismissed.
  2. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
  3. 10but when the perfect comes, the partial passes away.
  4. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.
  5. 12Now we see but a dim reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Acts 2:17–18

Acts 2 · verses 17–18

  1. 17‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
  2. 18Even on My menservants and maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

1 Thessalonians 5:19–21

1 Thessalonians 5 · verses 19–21

  1. 19Do not extinguish the Spirit.
  2. 20Do not treat prophecies with contempt,
  3. 21but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Ephesians 2:20

Ephesians 2 · verse 20

  1. 20built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the cornerstone.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Hebrews 2:3–4

Hebrews 2 · verses 3–4

  1. 3how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? This salvation was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard Him,
  2. 4and was affirmed by God through signs, wonders, various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to His will.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

2 Corinthians 12:12

2 Corinthians 12 · verse 12

  1. 12The marks of a true apostle—signs, wonders, and miracles—were performed among you with great perseverance.

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Further reading

Continuationist

  • Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy
  • Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God

Cessationist

  • Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles
  • Gaffin, Perspectives on Pentecost

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