Luther Rice Journal of Christian Studies Spring 2016
have been recognized as “gifts of healing, workings of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, kinds of tongues, [and] the interpretation of tongues.”4 In 1 Corinthians 12–14, a central passage regarding spiritual gifts, Paul employs the term χαρίσματα (charismata) to reference this special group of gifts. “Paul describes as χαρίσματα the ecstatic phenomena at divine worship which are regarded as operations of the Spirit, notably speaking in tongues and prophecy.”5 However, for the purposes of this discussion, the term miraculous gifts shall be used exclusively. A central point of contention between cessationism and continuationism is the nature of the baptism of the Spirit. Since the overwhelming majority of New Testament teaching about the Holy Spirit looks to Pentecost, this discussion should begin there as well.6 Like Christ’s death and resurrection, Pentecost was a singular occurrence in the history of salvation.7 The “baptism of the Spirit” that was poured out on the Day of Pentecost was not only the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy (Joel 2:28–29) but also the climax of Christ’s ministry evidenced by baptism in Spirit and fire as foretold by John the Baptist in Luke’s gospel (3:16). “Pentecost, then,” states Gaffin, “is no more capable of being a repeatable paradigm event than are the other events [of Christ’s work of salvation].”8 Nevertheless, Paul points out that every believer does share in the “once-for-all event of Pentecost.”9 At the moment of conversion, every believer is baptized by one Spirit into one body, the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12–13). Upon this basis, cessationists affirm that “the gift of the Holy Spirit is a universal Christian experience because it is an initial Christian experience. All Christians receive the Spirit at the very beginning of their Christian life.”10 In contrast to the cessationist view of the baptism of the Spirit as universal and initial, continuationists, including Pentecostals, declare that “Spirit baptism is distinct from and subsequent to salvation and evidenced by the gift of tongues.”11 According to this view, 4
Benjamin B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1918), 5.
5
Hans Conzelmann, “χαρίσματα,” TDNT 9:404–05.
Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., “A Cessationist View,” in Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? ed. Wayne Grudem (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 30. 6
7
Ibid., 31.
8
Gaffin, “A Cessationist View,” 33.
9
Ibid., 34.
10
Stott, Baptism and Fullness, 36.
Shane Clifton, "The Spirit and Doctrinal Development: A Functional Analysis of the Traditional Pentecostal Doctrine of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit," Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 29, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 5. 11
