Cessationism is founded on the traditional defective account of the divine inspiration of Scripture. Although we make the usually harmless generalization that the apostles and prophets wrote the Bible, significant portions were not written by them, or not known to be written by them. To address this, Christians invent the principle that these documents were nevertheless written by those who were closely associated with the apostles and prophets. However, they arbitrarily dictate this principle without warrant, and they also arbitrarily decide how closely associated with the apostles and prophets these other authors needed to be. In addition, the relationships of these authors to the apostles, and the scribes to the prophets, are often uncertain, and offer a weak foundation for something as weighty as divine inspiration. The entire difficulty is self-inflicted due to the false assumption that every word in the Bible must be written or approved by apostles and prophets.

Once we point out that God alone is the actual author of Scripture, it becomes evident that the matter of human authorship is unable to undermine the inspiration of Scripture, because it has no decisive relevance in the first place. God can write on tablets of stones, speak in a voice from heaven, cause a donkey to talk, make stones cry out, or move a man to write his words. God is the one who speaks and writes. Although he often used the apostles and prophets, he could cause anything to happen through anyone he chooses. The outcome would carry a divine legitimacy regardless of the means chosen by God. By his Spirit, he took hold of various men and caused them to write out his words. Then, by his providence, he secured these documents and compiled them into one final volume.

The traditional theory of inspiration is fatally fallacious. It is theologically amateurish, and curiously incompetent. This is the doctrine of historic orthodoxy and the creeds. It begins with the exaltation of the apostles. Maintaining this idolatry as non-negotiable, it adjusts everything else to accommodate it. As a result, it paints itself into a corner and leads to the destruction of the doctrine of biblical inspiration, the very doctrine that it claims it wishes to protect. The error is so obvious and avoidable, it is amazing that centuries of scholars and creeds have committed themselves to something so outright stupid. Perhaps it is not so amazing, but what we ought to expect from man-made traditions. Religious bias against biblical teaching makes people stupid. They were stupid to have invented this doctrine. They pretended to secure the divine inspiration of Scripture, but in reality they conspired to enforce a false narrative concerning the cessation of the powers of faith and of the Spirit.

When we discard the historic orthodox idolatry that places the Bible on men, but instead place the Bible on God, and God alone, the difficulties disappear. Divine inspiration applies to all of the Bible, not because the whole thing was written or approved by apostles and prophets, but because the whole thing was written by God. All Scripture was written by God, even breathed out directly by him (2 Timothy 3:16). It makes no difference whether he used apostles or chipmunks to write it. Whatever you think the chipmunks lacked that the apostle possessed, God could have supplied if he had chosen the chipmunks. If you deny this, then you do not even believe in God, let alone divine inspiration. Therefore, to terminate the apostleship does not terminate the possibility of additions to Scripture. If the cessationists wish to use their line of reasoning to reach the conclusion they desire, it would not be enough to kill the apostles, but they must kill God also, because God is the real author of Scripture, even the only author, and he can make apostles and chipmunks out of anything, at any time in history. If the cessationists think that any potential author of Scripture must not remain living in order to prevent any potential addition to Scripture, then it is not enough for them to eliminate the existence of apostles and prophets, and the gifts of the Spirit, but they must eliminate the existence of God. According to their reasoning, this is the only way to prevent any possible addition to Scripture.

If it is enough to say that God has completed the Bible according to his providence – as I would say – then it makes no difference to say that there are still apostles today. Apostles cannot add to Scripture just because they are apostles – they never could. Prophets cannot add to Scripture just because they are prophets – they never could. However, if it is not enough to simply say that God has completed the Bible, then neither is it enough to say that there are no more apostles, because God can always add to Scripture without the apostles. Or he can always make more apostles. The cessationists and traditionalists must then destroy God himself to guarantee the completion of the Bible, and I would not be surprised if they are eager to do it. The issue never had anything to do with the continuation of miracles or the gifts of the Spirit. God alone is the author of Scripture, not apostles and prophets, not miracles, not the gifts of the Spirit. If God has not stopped writing, even the cessation of the gifts of the Spirit says nothing about whether there would be additions to the Bible. In fact, he could wipe out all of humanity and still continue to add to Scripture. It is a testimony to the feeble-mindedness of the framers of the historic creeds and the defenders of human traditions that the inspiration of Scripture has been constructed on such an outrageously fallacious foundation, and then even weaponized as a test of orthodoxy and as ammunition to persecute those of purer doctrine and stronger faith.

The tradition of Man results in the murder of God. The world witnessed this in the days of Christ. Historic orthodoxy goes back only as far as men wish to remember. But God had his own orthodoxy long before there was historic anything. Authentic orthodoxy proceeds from the original revelation of God, which is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Stupid people champion historic orthodoxy. Authentic orthodoxy from the word of God goes all the way from prehistoric to futuristic, from primal to eternal. This is because authentic orthodoxy has always been the same, and always will be the same. “Historic” is a childish, self-damning boast. The issue is whether you are correct, not whether you have been wrong for a LONG time. If a doctrine contradicts or deviates from the word of God, then it is heresy. When that happens, I don’t care about your creed. Either you burn your creed, or you burn with your creed. Choose. To call the doctrine “orthodoxy” would make it a term of self-damnation. And then to add “historic” to it means that the tradition has refused to repent for many generations. The boast becomes exponentially demonic.

Just as all of the words of the Bible came from God, all of the miracles in the Bible came from God, not from the apostles, and all the gifts of the Spirit came from God, not from the apostles. For miracles to die, God must die. The cessationist slippery slope argument in historic orthodoxy is that if apostleship has ceased, then at least one gift has ceased, and this opens the way to the conclusion that all gifts have ceased. The argument is worse than mere sophistry, because it is a manifesto for atheism. Since God is the one who inspired the Bible and performed the miracles, the cessationist argument must begin with God, not with the apostles. If God has ceased to exist, then of course miracles have ceased to happen. As long as God is alive, apostle or no apostle, gift or no gift, “Everything is possible for him who believes” (Mark 9:23). Even if apostleship has ceased, even if all the gifts of the Spirit have ceased, and in fact, even if no one in history has ever performed a miracle by the power of God, it would still be possible for me to experience all the things represented by the gifts of the Spirit – even if I must be the first and only one – because my faith in God has not ceased. The doctrine of the cessation of miracles is nothing other than an excuse for the cessation of faith – by their own way of reasoning, even the cessation of faith in the existence of God. The debate on the “gifts” of the Spirit is a red herring and a scam. Prehistoric orthodoxy prevails.

*Adapted from Vincent Cheung, “A Cascading Avalanche of Horse Manure“