PROPHECY SHALL CEASE
“If there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease” (1 Cor 13:8). Many religious people read in the Bible where the Holy Spirit revealed God’s will orally through prophets and think God still speaks orally to them. They assume since God once miraculously spoke through prophets, then He will always do so. They think we don’t have enough faith if we say we believe continuing revelation would cease. Actually, we’ll show modern day prophecy seekers lack faith in God’s completed revelation by clamoring for more miraculous revelation.
A careful study of the Scripture shows that God prophetically revealed that continuing prophecy would one day cease, long before the end of time. God’s inspired revelation would be completed in the first century.
1. Old Testament Prediction of Prophecy’s Cessation. “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity. It will come about in that day, declares the LORD of hosts…I will also remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land. And if anyone still prophesies, then his father and mother who gave birth to him will say to him, ‘You shall not live, for you have spoken falsely in the name of the LORD’; and his father and mother who gave birth to him will pierce him through when he prophesies” (Zech 13:1-3). Zechariah wrote about 520 B.C. He predicts the death of Jesus in Jerusalem, cleansing us from sin by His blood. At that time, prophecy would begin to cease. We understand the prediction in light of its fulfillment.
2. Jesus Predicts End of Prophecy. Jesus promised His disciples that the Holy Spirit would infallibly remind them of Jesus’ teaching. “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come” (Jn 16:13). Note carefully that ALL TRUTH of God’s Word (Jn 17:17) would be revealed within the lifetime of the apostles. Jude, the prophet and brother of Jesus, concurs: “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3). “Once for all” means never to be repeated again. There is only “one faith” or body of revelation to believe in the gospel of Christ (Eph 4:4).
3. Means of Transferring Prophetic Gift Ended with the Apostles. The apostles received the baptismal measure of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2). This meant the miraculous gift of prophecy to be transferred to other Christians by “the laying on of the apostles’ hands” (Acts 8:15-8). The Apostle Paul longed to see the Roman brethren that he could “impart some spiritual gift to you…through the laying on of my hands” (Rom 1:11, 2 Tim 1:6), which was the transference of the miraculous measure of the Spirit to prophesy, speak in foreign tongues, etc.
Since the apostles were the only human instruments with the miraculous power to do this, and there were no continuing human successors to the apostles beyond the first century, we logically conclude that the means of transferring the miraculous gift of New Testament prophecy ended with the apostles.
4. The Purpose of Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled. The apostle Paul also tells us that prophesy would cease in the first century because its purpose and completeness had been fulfilled.
“Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:8-13). Paul teaches that when the “perfect” or completed revelation comes in its perfect or final form (i.e. the New Testament Scriptures), then the need for oral revelation by prophecy becomes obsolete.
Miraculous revelation was for the infancy of the church. Given bit by bit, oral revelation gave only a partial, somewhat dim outline of the whole plan of God. In the New Testament Scriptures, we have the full, complete, face-to-face communication with God in Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4:6, cf. Ex 33:11, 20). Just as Paul was fully known by open disclosure, so God has openly and fully disclosed His will in the New Testament. Faith, hope and love now abide or continue in the time after prophecy had ceased, which must be a while before the second coming of Christ. When Jesus returns, faith will then be sight and hope will be realized.
Today, the miraculously revealed and providentially preserved Scriptures give us all the information and guidance we need for all divinely authorized religious work (2 Tim 3:16-17). In the NT, we have “all things that pertain to life and to godliness” (2 Pet 1:3). The 27 books of the New Testament is our complete and perfect guide to heaven. It alone is our rule of faith and practice in the Lord’s church (1 Tim 3:15, 2 Tim 1:13).
If we just have enough faith in God’s plan, we should be satisfied that God’s written word is complete as His final revelation (Rom 10:17, 2 Cor 5:7). We have all we need to guide us in God’s perfect revelation of truth. Hence, we need no modern day revelations!
W. Frank Walton