Category Archives: Uncategorized

Spurgeon: cessationist, or continuationist?

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It is a common fault of speakers and writers to quote sources and evidence that support their position, while ignoring those that would tend to undermine it.

I don’t regard myself as exempt from this danger.  But I do realise the danger.

In an appendix to Speaking in the Spirit (2019), Stephen Wexler cites Wayne Grudem (a continuationist) and John MacArthur (a cessationist) as each quoting C.H. Spurgeon in favour of their own position on spiritual gifts.…

Cessationism – representative voices

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‘Cessationism’ is the name given to the view that the miraculous or extraordinary gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased at the end of the apostolic age, when the canon of Scripture was complete.

Following are some representative voices (from this source).  I have seen the originals of some of these quotations, but not all of them.

John Calvin (1509-1564): ‘…the gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the preaching of the Gospel marvellous for ever’ (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bk IV:19, 18).…

John 14:16 – ‘Another Advocate’

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Jn 14:16 – “Then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever—14:17 the Spirit of truth.”

Summary

There are two Greek words for ‘another’.  In classical Greek, ‘allos’ meant ‘another of the same kind’, whereas ‘heteros’ meant ‘another of a different kind’.  By NT times, however, the distinction had become less pronounced.  In the present passage, there are contextual reasons for concluding that the Holy Spirit is an Advocate of the same kind as Jesus.…

Psa 42:7 – ‘Deep calls to deep’

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Psa 42:7 (NIV) – Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

By dwelling on small snippets of Scripture, and paying insufficient attention to context, the textual preacher is sometimes prone to see things in the text that are not really there.

C.H. Spurgeon, in a sermon on ‘Deep calleth unto deep’ begins by noting – perfectly reasonably – that

‘everything around the psalmist was like an ocean tossed with tempest; his outlook was unmingled trouble; his sorrows like Job’s messengers followed on one another’s heels; his griefs came wave upon wave.’

…

Mt 24:21; Rev 7:14 – ‘The great tribulation’

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Mt 24:21 — “For then there will be great suffering unlike anything that has happened from the beginning of the world until now, or ever will happen.”

Rev 7:13 ‘Then one of the elders asked me, “These dressed in long white robes—who are they and where have they come from?” 7:14 So I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” Then he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation.…

Conditionalism: do the unsaved go to the grave and then cease to exist?

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In recent decades, annihilationalism (the doctrine that the finally impenitent cease to exist, rather than that they suffer eternal conscious torment) has continued to gain ground in evangelical circles.

Over the past century, those committed to (or, at least, sympathetic towards) this doctrine include: Harold E. Guillebaud, Basil Atkinson, J. Stafford Wright, Norman Anderson, John Stott, John Wenham, Philip Edgecumbe Hughes, E. Earle Ellis, John Stott, F.F. Bruce, Michael Green, I. Howard Marshall, Stephen Travis, Edward Fudge, R.…

Is it ever OK to lie?

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In considering whether it is ever OK to tell a lie, we should distinguished between a general principle and a legitimate exception.

Peter was enunciating a general principle when he wrote:

1 Peter 2:13–15 — Be subject to every human institution for the Lord’s sake, whether to a king as supreme 14 or to governors as those he commissions to punish wrongdoers and praise those who do good. 15 For God wants you to silence the ignorance of foolish people by doing good.

…

What, exactly, is a lie?

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Thinking about our Lord’s teaching on truthfulness in Matthew 5:33-37, I was led to this article, by Paul Carter.

What follows is a summary:

1. What Does Not Constitute A Lie?

(a) A simple mistake

Some people are better ‘historians’ than others.  They recall, with a high degree of precision, names, dates and times.  Others of us are not so gifted in the area.  We might get a detail wrong, and be corrected by someone with a more reliable memory (our wives, perhaps?).…

Quotes on honesty

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An honest man’s the noblest work of God.  Alexander Pope.

One’s mere word should be as trustworthy as a signed agreement attested by legal witnesses.
Curtis Vaughan

If faith does not make a man honest, it is not an honest faith
C. H. Spurgeon

Honesty is a question of right and wrong, not a matter of policy.
Anon.

Truth is always strong, no matter how weak it looks, and falsehood is always weak, no matter how strong it looks.…

Egypt in Israel

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If firm evidence of Israel’s sojourn in Egypt is scant, then we might try looking in the opposite direction.

What signs are there that the Israelites, after their entry to the Promised Land, brought with them signs of their Egyptian past?

James Bejon argues that traces of Egypt’s influence can be found within the pages of the Hebrew Scriptures.

One notable example is the word for the Acacia tree (shittah).  Of its 28 occurrences in the Bible, 26 are found in the Book of Exodus. …