Bible Question:
Doc, thank you again. I'll be very careful not to violate the "unwritten convention." I still have not been given any biblical texts to show that the Holy Spirit is no longer going to move in the churches as He once did. What you mentioned was, "However, with the passing of the extraordinary offices it is generally deemed that the extraordinary gifts passed as well -- not that we might not see them again one day." Who decided that the extraordinary gifts have passed? Did God? How would He lead us to know this for certain through scripture? |
Bible Answer: Dear Ex, Let me ask a rhetorical question: How do you know that God intended you to be alive this Christmas Day of 2007 AD? Answer: You live. If God had intended otherwise, you wouldn't be alive. So let me repeat from many previous posts: God is sovereign. He brought the church into existence and He chose the apostles -- gifting them and empowering them by the Holy Spirit -- to lay its foundations. Now He providentially guides the church. God chooses those who will comprise His church, the Holy Spirit draws and regenerates the elect, and Christ, the cornerstone, is the head of the church (see Ephesians 2:20-22; cf 1 Corinthians 3:9-11). So who else could have made such a decision? God led us to these conclusions by giving us explicit qualifications for the Apostolate that no one later could meet. Also, the apostles themselves, through their epistles, prepared the church for the day when they would be absent. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit instructs the invisible body of Christ with the consensus of studied godly judgment of the Biblical truth regarding the church. Finally, the church walks out that truth -- in some periods of history better than in other periods -- in a way that allows us to see His clear involvement. Don't you suppose that He who spared not His own Son (Romans 8:32), but gives us all things unto both life and godliness (2 Peter 1:2-3), wouldn't also give us signs if we really needed them? Instead, we are told to live by faith not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Indeed, Christ warns that only the wicked seek for a sign (Matthew 16:4). Aren't the signs that God gave the church in times past sufficient for us today? Or will we insist to God that we have to see with our own eyes? Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29 ESV) In Him, Doc |