The Cessation of the Charismata
WHEN OUR Lord came down to earth He drew
heaven with Him. The signs which accompanied His ministry were but the trailing
clouds of glory which He brought from heaven, which is His home. The number of
the miracles which He wrought may easily be underrated. It has been said that
in effect He banished disease and death from
One hem but of the garment that He wore
Could medicine whole countries of their pain;
One touch of that pale hand could life restore.
We ordinarily greatly underestimate His beneficent activity as He went about,
as Luke says, 'doing good.'
His own divine power by which He began to
found His church He continued in the Apostles whom He had chosen to complete
this great work. They transmitted it in turn, as part of their own
miracle-working and the crowning sign of their divine commission, to others, in
the form of what the New Testament calls spiritual gifts in the sense of
extraordinary capacities produced in the early Christian communities by direct
gift of the Holy Spirit.
The number and variety of these spiritual
gifts were considerable. Even Paul's enumerations, the fullest of which occurs
in the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, can hardly be read as exhaustive
scientific catalogues. The name which is commonly applied to them is broad
enough to embrace what may be called both the ordinary and the specifically
extraordinary gifts of the Spirit; both those, that is, which were
distinctively gracious, and those which were distinctly miraculous. In fact, in
the classical passage which treats of them (I Cor. 12-14) both classes are
brought together under this name. The non-miraculous, gracious gifts are,
indeed, in this passage given the preference and called "the greatest
gifts"; and the search after them is represented as "the more
excellent way"; the longing for the highest of them--faith, hope, and
love-- being the most excellent way of all. Among the miraculous gifts
themselves, a like distinction is made in favor of "prophecy" (that
is, the gift of exhortation and teaching), and, in general, in favor of those
by which the body of Christ is edified.
The diffusion of these miraculous gifts is,
perhaps, quite generally underestimated. One of the valuable features of the
passage, I Cor. 12--14, consists in the picture given in it of Christian
worship in the Apostolic age (14:26ff.) "What is it, then, brethren?"
the Apostle asks. "When ye come together, each one hath a psalm, hath a
teaching, hath a revelation, hath a tongue, hath an interpretation. Let all
things be done unto edifying. If any man speaketh in a tongue, let it be by two
or at the most three, and that in turn; and let one interpret: but if there be
no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to
himself, and to God. And let the prophets speak by two or three, and let the
others discern. But if a revelation be made to another sitting by, let the
first keep silence. For ye all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and
all may be comforted; and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the
prophets; for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace." This, it is to
be observed, was the ordinary church worship at
The argument may be extended to those items
of the fuller list, given in I Cor. 12, which found less occasion for their
exhibition in the formal meetings for worship, but belonged more to life
outside the meeting-room. That enumeration includes among the extraordinary items,
you will remember, gifts of healings, workings of miracles, prophecy
discernings of spirits, kinds of tongues, the interpretation of tongues--all of
which, appropriate to the worshiping assembly, are repeated in I Cor. 14:26ff.
We are justified in considering it characteristic of the Apostolic churches
that such miraculous gifts should be displayed in them. The exception would be,
not a church with, but a church without, such gifts. Everywhere, the Apostolic
Church was marked out as itself a gift from God, by showing forth the
possession of the Spirit in appropriate works of the Spirit--miracles of
healing and miracles of power, miracles of knowledge, whether in the form of
prophecy or of the discerning of spirits, miracles of speech, whether of the gift
of tongues or of their interpretation. The
How long did this state of things continue?
It was the characterizing peculiarity of specifically the
The theologians of the post-Reformation era,
a very clear-headed body of men, taught with great distinctness that the
charismata ceased with the Apostolic age. But this teaching gradually gave way,
pretty generally throughout the Protestant churches, but especially in
Middleton supports this statement with
instances which bring out so clearly the essential elements of the opinion that
they may profitably be quoted here. Archbishop John Tillotson represents "
that on the first planting of the Christian religion in the world, God was pleased
to accompany it with a miraculous power; but after it was planted, that power
ceased, and God left it to be maintained by ordinary ways." So, Nathaniel
Marshall wrote, "that there are successive evidences of them, which speak
full and home to this point, from the beginning down to the age of Constantine,
in whose time, when Christianity had acquired the support of human powers,
those extraordinary assistances were discontinued." Others, sharing the
same general point of view, would postpone a little the date of entire
cessation. Thus the elder Henry Dodwell supposes true miracles to have
generally ceased with the conversion of the
The general view itself has lost none of its
popularity with the lapse of time. It became more, rather than less,
wide-spread with the passage of the eighteenth into the nineteenth century, and
it remains very usual still. I need not occupy your time with the citation of numerous
more recent expressions of it. It may suffice to adduce so popular a historian
as Gerhard Uhlhorn who, in his useful book on The Conflict of Christianity with
Heathenism declares explicitly that "witnesses who are above suspicion
leave no room for doubt that the miraculous powers of the Apostolic age
continued to operate at least into the third century." A somewhat special
turn is given to the same general idea by another historian of the highest
standing-- Bishop Mandel Creighton. "The Apostles," he tells us,
"were endowed with extraordinary powers, necessary for the establishment
of the church, but not necessary for its permanent maintenance. These powers
were exercised for healing the sick and for conveying special gifts of the Holy
Spirit; sometimes, but rarely, they were used for punishment.... These special
powers were committed to the church as a means of teaching it the abiding
presence of God. They were withdrawn when they had served their purpose of
indicating the duties to be permanently performed. To 'gifts of tongues'
succeeded orderly human teaching; to gifts of healing' succeeded healing by
educated human skill; to supernatural punishment succeeded discipline by
orderly human agency."
This, then, is the theory: that, miracles
having been given for the purpose of founding the church, they continued so
long as they were needed for that purpose; growing gradually fewer as they were
less needed, and ceasing altogether when the church having, so to speak, been
firmly put upon its feet, was able to stand on its own legs. There is much that
is attractive in this theory and much that is plausible: so much that is both
attractive and plausible that it has won the suffrages of these historians and
scholars though it contradicts the whole drift of the evidence of the facts,
and the entire weight of probability as well. For it is only simple truth to
say that both the ascertained facts and the precedent presumptions array
themselves in opposition to this construction of the history of the charismata
in the church.
The facts are not in accordance with it. The
view requires us to believe that the rich manifestations of spiritual gifts
present in the
The matter is of sufficient interest to
warrant the statement of the facts as to the evidence somewhat more in detail.
The writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers contain no clear and certain
allusions to miracle-working or to the exercise of the charismatic gifts,
contemporaneously with themselves. These writers inculcate the elements of
Christian living in a spirit so simple and sober as to be worthy of their place
as the immediate followers of the Apostles. Their anxiety with reference to
themselves seems to be lest they should be esteemed overmuch and confounded in
their pretensions with the Apostles, rather than to press claims to station,
dignity, or powers similar to theirs. So characteristic is this sobriety of
attitude of their age, that the occurrence of accounts of miracles in the
letter of the
This beginning of testimony is followed up
to precisely the same effect by Irenaeus, except that Irenaeus speaks somewhat
more explicitly, and adds a mention of two new classes of miracles--those of
speaking with tongues and of raising the dead, to both of which varieties he is
the sole witness during these centuries, and of the latter of which at least he
manages so to speak as to suggest that he is not testifying to anything he had
himself witnessed. Irenaeus's contemporary, indeed, Theophilus of Antioch,
while, like Irenaeus, speaking of the exorcism of demons as a standing Christian
miracle, when challenged by Autolycus to produce but one dead man who had been
raised to life, discovers by his reply that there was none to produce; and
"no instance of this miracle was ever produced in the first three
centuries." For the rest, we say, Irenaeus's witness is wholly similar to
Justin's. He speaks altogether generally, adducing no specific cases, but
ascribing miracle- working to "all who were truly disciples of
Jesus," each according to the gift he had received, and enumerating
especially gifts of exorcism, prediction, healing, raising the dead, speaking
with tongues, insight into secrets, and expounding the Scriptures (Cent. Haer.,
II, Ivi, Ivii; V, vi). Tertullian in like manner speaks of exorcisms, and
adduces one case of a prophetically gifted woman (Apol., xxviii; De Anima, ix);
and Minucius Felix speaks of exorcism (Oct., XXVi). Origen professes to have
been an eye-witness of many instances of exorcism, healing, and prophecy,
although he refuses to record the details lest he should rouse the laughter of
the unbeliever (Cent. Cels., I, ii; III, xxiv; VII, iv, lxvii). Cyprian speaks
of gifts of visions and exorcisms. And so we pass on to the fourth century in
an ever-increasing stream, but without a single writer having claimed himself to
have wrought a miracle of any kind or having ascribed miracle-working to any
known name in the church, and without a single instance having been recorded in
detail. The contrast of this with the testimony of the fourth century is very
great. There we have the greatest writers recording instances witnessed by
themselves with the greatest circumstantiality. The miracles of the first three
centuries, however, if accepted at all, must be accepted on the general
assertion that such things occurred--a general assertion which itself is wholly
lacking until the middle of the second century and which, when it does appear,
concerns chiefly prophecy and healings, including especially exorcisms, which
we can scarcely be wrong in supposing precisely the classes of marvels with
respect to which excitement most easily blinds the judgment and insufficiently
grounded rumors most readily grow up.
We are no doubt startled to find Irenaeus,
in the midst of delivering what is apparently merely a conventional testimony
to the occurrence of these minor things, suddenly adding his witness to the
occurrence also of the tremendous miracle of raising the dead. The importance
of this phenomenon may be thought to require that we should give a little
closer scrutiny to it, and this the more because of the mocking comment which
Gibbon has founded on it. "But the miraculous cure of diseases of the most
inveterate or even preternatural kind," says he, "can no longer
occasion any surprise when we recollect that in the days of Irenaeus, about the
end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was very far from being
esteemed an uncommon event; that the miracle was frequently performed on
necessary occasions, by great fasting and the joint supplication of the church
of the place; and that the persons thus restored by their prayers had lived
afterward among them many years. At such a period, when faith could boast of so
many wonderful victories over death, it seems difficult to account for the
scepticism of those philosophers who still rejected and derided the doctrine of
the resurrection. A noble Grecian had rested on this important ground the whole
controversy, and promised Theophilus, bishop of
The true character of Gibbon's satirical
remarks is already apparent from the circumstances to which we have already
alluded, that Irenaeus alone of all the writers of this period speaks of
raisings of the dead at all, and that he speaks of them after a fashion which
suggests that he has in mind not contemporary but past instances--doubtless
those recorded in the narratives of the New Testament. Eusebius does no doubt
narrate what he calls "a wonderful story," told by Papias on the
authority of the daughters of Philip, whom Papias knew. "For," says
Eusebius, "he relates that in his time," that is to say in Philip's
time, one rose from the dead." This resuscitation, however, it will be
observed, belongs to the Apostolic, not the post Apostolic times, and it is so
spoken of as to suggest that it was thought very wonderful both by Eusebius and
by Papias. It is very clear that Eusebius was not familiar with raisings from
the dead in his own day, and also that Papias was not familiar with them in his
day; and it is equally clear that Eusebius did not know of numerous instances
of such a transaction having been recorded as occurring in the course of the
early history of the church, which history he was in the act of transcribing.
One would think that this would carry with it the implication that Eusebius did
not understand Irenaeus to assert their frequent, or even occasional, or even
singular, occurrence in his time. Never- the-less when he comes to cite
Irenaeus's witness to the continuance "to his time in some of the
churches"-so he cautiously expresses himself--"of manifestations of
divine and miraculous power," he quotes his words here after a fashion
which seems to imply that he understood him to testify to the occurrence in his
own time of raisings from the dead.
It is an understatement to say that
Irenaeus's contemporaries were unaware that the dead were being raised in their
day. What they say amounts to testimony that they were not being raised. This
is true not only of the manner in which Theophilus of Antioch parries the
demands of Autolycus, but equally of the manner in which Tertullian reverts to
the matter. He is engaged specifically in contrasting the Apostles with their
"companions," that is, their immediate successors in the church, with
a view to rebuking the deference which was being paid to the Shepherd of
Hermas. Among the contrasts which obtained between them, he says that the
Apostles possessed spiritual powers peculiar to themselves, that is to say, not
shared by their successors. He illustrates this, among other things, by
declaring, "For they raised the dead." It would be strange indeed if
Irenaeus has nevertheless represented raisings from the dead to have been a
common occurrence precisely in the
A scrutiny of his language makes it plain
enough that he has not done so. In the passages cited Irenaeus is contrasting
the miracles performed by Christians with the poor magical wonders to which
alone the heretics he is engaged in refuting can appeal. In doing this he has
in mind the whole miraculous attestation of Christianity, and not merely the
particular miracles which could be witnessed in his own day. If we will read
him carefully we shall observe that, as he runs along in his enumeration of the
Christian marvels, "there is a sudden and unexpected change of tense when
he begins to speak of this greatest of miracles" --raising from the dead.
"Healing, exorcism, and prophecy-these he asserts are matters of present
experience; but he never says that of resurrection from the dead. 'It often
happened,' i. e., in the past; 'they were raised up,' i. e., again at some time
gone by. The use of the past tense here, and here alone, implies, we may say,
that Irenaeus had not witnessed an example with his own eyes, or at least that
such occurrences were not usual when he was writing. So, when he states,'Even
the dead were raised and abode with us many years'--it does not appear that he
means anything more than this--that such events happened within living memory."
In these last remarks we have been quoting J. H. Bernard, and we find ourselves
fully in accord with his conclusion. "The inference from the whole
passage," says he, "is, we believe, that these major miracles no
longer happened--an inference which is corroborated by all the testimony we
have got."
When we come to think of it, it is rather
surprising that the Christians had no raisings from the dead to point to
through all these years. The fact is striking testimony to the marked sobriety
of their spirit. The heathen had them in plenty. In an age so innocent of real
medical knowledge, and filled to the brim and overflowing with superstition,
apparent death and resuscitation were frequent, and they played a role of
importance in the Greek prophet and philosopher legends of the time. A famous
instance occurs in Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana, which,
from a certain resemblance between it and the narrative of the raising of the
widow of Nain's son, used to be thought an imitation of that passage. Things
are better understood now, and it is universally recognized that we have in
this beautiful story neither an imitation of the New Testament nor a polemic
against it, but a simple product of the aretalogy of the day. Otto Weinreich
has brought together the cases of raising from the dead which occur in this
literature, in the first excursus to his treatise on Ancient Miracles of
Healing. He thus enables us to observe at a glance the large place they
take in it. It is noticeable that they were not esteemed a very great thing. In
the instance just alluded to, the introduction of a resuscitation into
Philostratus's Life of Apollonius is accompanied by an intimation that
it may possibly be susceptible of a natural explanation. Philostratus does not
desire to make the glory of his hero depend on a thing which even a common
magician could do, but rather rests it on those greater miracles which intimate
the divine nature of the man.
You probably would like to have the account
which Philostratus gives of this miracle before you. "Here too," he
writes, "is a miracle which Apollonius worked: A girl had died just in the
hour of her marriage, and the bridegroom was following her bier lamenting, as
was natural, his marriage left unfulfilled; and the whole of Rome was mourning
with him, for the maiden belonged to a consular family. Apollonius, then,
witnessing their grief, said: 'Put down the bier, for I will stay the tears
that you are shedding for this maiden.' And withal he asked what was her name.
The crowd accordingly thought he was about to deliver such an oration as is
commonly delivered as much to grace the funeral as to stir up lamentation; but
he did nothing of the kind, but merely touching her and whispering in secret
some spell over her, at once woke up the maiden from her seeming death; and the
girl spoke out loud and returned to her father's house; just as Alkestis did
when she was brought back to life by Herakles. And the relations of the maiden
wanted to present him with one hundred and fifty thousand sesterces, but he
said that he would freely present the money to the young lady by way of a
dowry. Now, whether he detected some spark of life in her, which those who were
nursing her had not discovered--for it is said that, although it was raining at
the time, a vapor went up from her face--or whether life was really extinct,
and he restored it by the warmth of his touch, is a mysterious problem which
neither I myself nor those who were present could decide."
We are naturally led at this point to
introduce a further remark which has its importance for the understanding of
the facts of the testimony. All that has been heretofore said concerns the
church writers, properly so-called, the literary remains of the church
considered as the body of right-believing Christians. Alongside of this
literature, however, there existed a flourishing growth of apocryphal
writings--Acts of Apostles and the like--springing up in the fertile soil of
Ebionitish and Gnostic heresy, the most respectable example of which is
furnished by the Clementina. In these anonymous, or more usually pseudonymous,
writings, there is no dearth of miraculous story, from what ever age they come.
Later, these wild and miracle-laden documents were taken over into the Catholic
church, usually after a certain amount of reworking by which they were cleansed
to a greater or less--usually less--extent of their heresies, but not in the
least bit of their apocryphal miracle-stories. Indeed, by the relative
elimination of their heresies in the Catholic reworking, their teratologia-- as
the pedants call their miracle-mongering--was made even more the prominent
feature of these documents, and more exclusively the sole purpose of their
narrative. It is from these apocryphal miracle-stories and not from the
miracles of the New Testament, that the luxuriant growth of the miraculous
stories of later ecclesiastical writings draw their descent. And this is as
much as to say that their ultimate parentage must be traced to those heathen
wonder-tales to which we have just had occasion to allude.
For the literary form exemplified in the Wanderings
of the Apostles was not an innovation of the Christian heretics, but had
already enjoyed a vast popularity in the heathen romances which swarmed under the
empire, and the best known names of which are Antonius Diogenes's Incredible
Tales of Beyond Thule, Jamblicus's Babylonian Tales, the Ephesian
Stories of the later Xenophon, the Ethiopians of Heliodorus, the
romances of Achiles Tatius and of Chariton, not to mention the Metamorphoses
of Apuleius. R. Reitzenstein no doubt insists that we shall draw into a
somewhat narrower category and no longer speak of these wonder-tales with which
we have here especially to do, broadly, as romances. He wishes to retain that
term to describe a highly artistic literary form which, developing out of the
historical monograph, was strictly governed by technical laws of composition
derived ultimately from the drama. With the romance in this narrow sense, the
collections of marvelous stories loosely strung together in the wonder-tales
have but a distant relationship. We must not confuse, Reitzenstein counsels us,
two kinds of fiction, which were sharply distinguished in ancient aesthetics, plasma
and pseudos. Or mix up two literary forms which were quite distinct in
their whole technic and style-- merely because they were born together and grew
up side by side. The romance plays on every string of human emotion; the
wonder-tale--aretalogy is the name which Reitzenstein gives to this literary
form--strikes but one note, and has as its single end to arouse astonishment.
It represented in the ancient world, though in an immensely more serious vein,
our modern Gulliver's Travels or Adventures of Baron Munchausen
which in fact are parodies of it, like their inimitable forerunners with which
Lucian has delighted the centuries. It will be readily understood that the
wonder-tale-- motives of the traveling prophet or philosopher having been
fairly worked out--should eagerly seize on the new material offered it by
Christianity. But as ton Dobschiitz remarks, the matter did not end by its
seizing on Christianity. Christianity turned the tables on it and seized on it,
and produced out of it the mission aretalogy which we know in general as the
Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles.
With its passage thus into Christian hands
this literary form lost none of its marvel-mongery--to have lost which would
have been to have lost its soul. "Teratology,' 'marvelousness,'"
explains Von Dobschutz, (44) "is the fundamental element of these
Christian romances also. This is made very clear," he goes on to say,'' by
the circumstance that it is regularly magic of which the Apostles are
represented as being accused. Of course they do not admit that the accusation
is just. Magical arts are demonic arts, and it was precisely every kind of
demonic power against which they set themselves in the almighty name of Jesus
Christ. It is most impressively shown that to this name every knee in heaven
and on earth and under the earth is to bow. We cannot help seeing, however,
that only another form of magic, a Christian magic, steps here into the place
of the heathen. The name of Jesus serves as the all-powerful spell, the cross
as the irresistible charm, by which bolts can be sprung, doors opened, idols
overturned, poison rendered harmless, the sick healed, the dead raised. The
demonic flight of the magician is confounded by the prayer of the Apostles;
they are none the less themselves carried home on the clouds, through the air."
Something new entered Christianity in these wonder-tales; something unknown to
the Christianity of the Apostles, unknown to the Apostolic churches, and
unknown to their sober successors; and it entered Christianity from without,
not through the door, but climbing up some other way. It brought an abundance
of miracle-working with it; and, unfortunately, it brought it to stay. But from
a contemplation of the swelling flood of marvels thus introduced into
Christianity, obviously, the theory of the gradual cessation of miracle-working
in the church through three centuries, which we are now examining, can derive
no support.
It may be justly asked, how it can be
accounted for that so large a body of students of history can have committed
themselves to a view which so clearly runs in the face of the plainest facts of
the very history they are setting themselves to explain. The answer is
doubtless to be found in the curious power which preconceived theory has to
blind men to facts. The theory which these scholars had been led to adopt as to
the cessation of miraculous powers in the church required the course of events
which they assume to have happened. They recognized the abundant development of
miraculous gifts in the Apostolic Church, and they argued that this wide-spread
endowment could scarcely fail suddenly, but must have died out gradually. In
estimating the length of time through which the miracle- working might justly
be supposed to subsist, and at the end of which it might naturally be expected
to have died out, they were unfortunately determined by a theory of the
function of these miracles in the Apostolic Church which was plausible indeed,
and because plausible attractive, but which was not founded on an accurate
ascertainment of the teaching of the New Testament on the subject, and
therefore so missed the truth that, in its application to the history of the
early church, it exactly reversed it. This theory is in brief, I may remind
you, that the miraculous powers present in the early church had for their end
supernatural assistance in founding the church; that they were therefore needed
throughout the period of the church's weak infancy, being in brief, as Fuller
calls them, "the swaddling-clothes of the infant churches"; and that
naturally they were withdrawn when their end had been accomplished and
Christianity had ascended the throne of the empire. When the protection of the
strongest power on earth was secured, the idea seems to be, the power of God
was no longer needed.
But whence can we learn this to have been
the end the miracles of the Apostolic age were intended to serve? Certainly not
from the New Testament. In it not one word is ever dropped to this effect.
Certain of the gifts (as, for example, the gift of tongues) are no doubt spoken
of as "signs to those that are without." It is required of all of
them that they be exercised for the edification of the church; and a
distinction is drawn between them in value, in proportion as they were for
edification. But the immediate end for which they were given is not left
doubtful, and that proves to be not directly the extension of the church, but
the authentication of the Apostles as messengers from God. This does not mean,
of course, that only the Apostles appear in the New Testament as working
miracles, or that they alone are represented as recipients of the charismata.
But it does mean that the charismata, belonged, in a true sense, to the
Apostles, and constituted one of the signs of an Apostle. Only in the two great
initial instances of the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost and the reception
of Cornelius are charismata recorded as conferred without the laying on of the
hands of Apostles. There is no instance on record of their conference by the
laying on of the hands of any one else than an Apostle. The case of the
Samaritans, recorded in the eighth chapter of Acts, is not only a very
instructive one in itself, but may even be looked upon as the cardinal
instance. The church had been propagated hitherto by the immediately
evangelistic work of the Apostles themselves, and it had been accordingly the
Apostles themselves who had received the converts into the church. Apparently
they had all received the power of working signs by the laying on of the
Apostles' hands at their baptism. The Samaritans were the first converts to be
gathered into the church by men who were not Apostles; and the signs of the
Apostles were accordingly lacking to them until Peter and John were sent down
to them that they might "receive the Holy Ghost" (Acts 8:14-17). The
effect on Simon Magus of the sight of these gifts springing up on the laying on
of the Apostles' hands, we will all remember. The salient statements are very
explicit. "Then laid they their hands upon them, and they received the
Holy Ghost." "Now when Simon saw that through the laying on of the
Apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given." "Give me also this power,
that, on whomsoever I lay my hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost." It
could not be more emphatically stated that the Holy Ghost was conferred by the
laying on of the hands, specifically of the Apostles, and of the Apostles
alone; what Simon is said to have seen is precisely that it was through the
laying on of the hands of just the Apostles that the Holy Ghost was given. And
there can be no question that it was specifically the extraordinary gifts of
the Spirit that were in discussion; no doubt is thrown upon the genuineness of
the conversion of the Samaritans; on the contrary, this is taken as a matter of
course, and its assumption underlies the whole narrative; it constitutes in
fact the very point of the narrative.
This case of the Samaritans was of great
importance in the primitive church, to enable men to distinguish between the
gifts of grace and the gifts of power. Without it there would have been danger
that only those would be accredited as Christians who possessed extraordinary
gifts. It is of equal importance to us, to teach us the source of the gifts of
power, in the Apostles, apart from whom they were not conferred: as also their
function, to authenticate the Apostles as the authoritative founders of the
church. It is in accordance with this reading of the significance of this
incident, that Paul, who had all the signs of an Apostle, had also the power of
conferring the charismata, and that in the entire New Testament we meet with no
instance of the gifts showing themselves--after the initial instances of
Pentecost and Cornelius--where an Apostle had not conveyed them. Hermann Cremer
is accordingly quite right when he says that "the Apostolic charismata
bear the same relation to those of the ministry that the Apostolic office does
to the pastoral office"; the extraordinary gifts belonged to the
extraordinary office and showed themselves only in connection with its
activities.
The connection of the supernatural gifts
with the Apostles is so obvious that one wonders that so many students have
missed it, and have sought an account of them in some other quarter. The true
account has always been recognized, however, by some of the more careful
students of the subject. It has been clearly set forth, for example, by Bishop
Kaye. "I may be allowed to state the conclusion," he writes, "to
which I have myself been led by a comparison of the statements in the Book of
Acts with the writings of the Fathers of the second century. My conclusion then
is, that the power of working miracles was not extended beyond the disciples
upon whom the Apostles conferred it by the imposition of their hands. As the
number of these disciples gradually diminished, the instances of the exercise
of miraculous powers became continually less frequent, and ceased entirely at
the death of the last individual on whom the hands of the Apostles had been
laid. That event would, in the natural course of things, take place before the
middle of the second century--at a time when Christianity, having obtained a
footing in all the provinces of the Roman Empire, the miraculous gifts
conferred upon the first teachers had performed their appropriate office-- that
of proving to the world that a new revelation had been given from heaven. What,
then, would be the effect produced upon the minds of the great body of
Christians by their gradual cessation? Many would not observe, none would be
willing to observe, it. . .. They who remarked the cessation of miracles would
probably succeed in persuading themselves that it was only temporary and
designed by an all-wise Providence to be the prelude to a more abundant
effusion of the supernatural powers upon the church. Or if doubts and
misgivings crossed their minds, they would still be unwilling to state a fact
which might shake the steadfastness of their friends, and would certainly be
urged by the enemies of the gospel as an argument against its divine origin.
They would pursue the plan which has been pursued by Justin Martyr, Theophilus,
Irenaeus, etc.; they would have recourse to general assertions of the existence
of supernatural powers, without attempting to produce a specific instance of
their exercise...." The bishop then proceeds to recapitulate the main
points and grounds of this theory.
Whatever we may think of the specific
explanation which Bishop Kaye presents of the language of the second-century
Fathers, we can scarcely fail to perceive that the confinement of the
supernatural gifts by the Scriptures to those who had them conferred upon them
by the Apostles, affords a ready explanation of all the historical facts. It
explains the unobserved dying out of these gifts. It even explains --what might
at first sight seem inconsistent with it--the failure of allusion to them in
the first half of the second century. The great missionary Apostles, Paul and
Peter, had passed away by A. D. 68, and apparently only John was left in
extreme old age until the last decade of the first century. The number of those
upon whom the hands of Apostles had been laid, living still in the second
century, cannot have been very large. We know of course of John's pupil
Polycarp; we may add perhaps an Ignatius, a Papias, a Clement, possibly a
Hermas, or even a Leucius; but at the most there are few of whom we know with
any definiteness. That Justin and Irenaeus and their contemporaries allude to
miracle-working as a thing which had to their knowledge existed in their day,
and yet with which they seem to have little exact personal acquaintance, is
also explained. Irenaeus's youth was spent in the company of pupils of the
Apostles; Justin may easily have known of, if not even witnessed, miracles
wrought by Apostolically trained men. The fault of these writers need have been
no more than a failure to observe, or to acknowledge, the cessation of these
miracles during their own time; so that it is not so much the trustworthiness
of their testimony as their understanding of the changing times which falls
under criticism. If we once lay firm hold upon the biblical principle which
governed the distribution of the miraculous gifts, in a word, we find that we
have in our hands a key which unlocks all the historical puzzles connected with
them.
There is, of course, a deeper principle
recognizable here, of which the actual attachment of the charismata of the
Apostolic Church to the mission of the Apostles is but an illustration. This
deeper principle may be reached by us through the perception, more broadly, of
the inseparable connection of miracles with revelation, as its mark and
credential; or, more narrowly, of the summing up of all revelation, finally, in
Jesus Christ. Miracles do not appear on the page of Scripture vagrantly, here,
there, and elsewhere indifferently, without assignable reason. They belong to
revelation periods, and appear only when God is speaking to His people through
accredited messengers, declaring His gracious purposes. Their abundant display
in the Apostolic Church is the mark of the richness of the Apostolic age in
revelation; and when this revelation period closed, the period of
miracle-working had passed by also, as a mere matter of course. It might,
indeed, be a priori conceivable that God should deal with men
atomistically, and reveal Himself and His will to each individual, throughout
the whole course of history, in the penetralium of his own consciousness. This
is the mystic's dream. It has not, however, been God's way. He has chosen
rather to deal with the race in its entirety, and to give to this race His
complete revelation of Himself in an organic whole. And when this historic
process of organic revelation had reached its completeness, and when the whole
knowledge of God designed for the saving health of the world had been
incorporated into the living body of the world's thought--there remained, of
course, no further revelation to be made, and there has been accordingly no
further revelation made. God the Holy Spirit has made it His subsequent work,
not to introduce new and unneeded revelations into the world, but to diffuse
this one complete revelation through the world and to bring mankind into the
saving knowledge of it.
As Abraham Kuyper figuratively expresses it,
it has not been God's way to communicate to each and every man a separate store
of divine knowledge of his own, to meet his separate needs; but He rather has
spread a common board for all, and invites all to come and partake of the
richness of the great feast. He has given to the world one organically complete
revelation, adapted to all, sufficient for all, provided for all, and from this
one completed revelation He requires each to draw his whole spiritual
sustenance. Therefore it is that the miraculous working which is but the sign
of God's revealing power, cannot be expected to continue, and in point of fact
does not continue, after the revelation of which it is the accompaniment has
been completed. It is unreasonable to ask miracles, says John Calvin--or to end
them--where there is no new gospel. By as much as the one gospel suffices for
all lands and all peoples and all times, by so much does the miraculous
attestation of that one single gospel suffice for all lands and all times, and
no further miracles are to be expected in connection with it. "According
to the Scriptures," Herman Bavinck explains, "special revelation has
been delivered in the form of a historical process, which reaches its endpoint
in the person and work of Christ. When Christ had appeared and returned again
to heaven, special revelation did not, indeed, come at once to an end. There was
yet to follow the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, and the extraordinary working
of the powers and gifts through and under the guidance of the Apostolate. The
Scriptures undoubtedly reckon all this to the sphere of special revelation, and
the continuance of this revelation was necessary to give abiding existence in
the world to the special revelation which reached its climax in Christ--abiding
existence both in the word of Scripture and in the life of the church. Truth
and life, prophecy and miracle, word and deed, inspiration and regeneration go
hand in hand in the completion of special revelation. But when the revelation
of God in Christ had taken place, and had become in Scripture and church a
constituent part of the cosmos, then another era began. As before everything
was a preparation for Christ, so afterward everything is to be a consequence of
Christ. Then Christ was being framed into the Head of His people, now His
people are being framed into the Body of Christ. Then the Scriptures were being
produced, now they are being applied. New constituent elements of special
revelation can no longer be added; for Christ has come, His work has been done,
and His word is complete." Had any miracles perchance occurred beyond the
Apostolic age they would be without significance; mere occurrences with no
universal meaning. What is important is that " the Holy Scriptures teach
clearly that the complete revelation of God is given in Christ, and that the
Holy Spirit who is poured out on the people of God has come solely in order to
glorify Christ and to take of the things of Christ." Because Christ is all
in all, and all revelation and redemption alike are summed up in Him, it would
be inconceivable that either revelation or its accompanying signs should
continue after the completion of that great revelation with its accrediting
works, by which Christ has been established in His rightful place as the
culmination and climax and all-inclusive summary of the saving revelation of
God, the sole and sufficient redeemer of His people.
Text Scanned and
edited by Michael Bremmer