Recently, Ryan Denton wrote an article on Reformation21 that is making a bit of a stir online titled, “What is a Hyper-Cessationist?” Denton is convinced that modern cessationism has gone beyond the cessationism of the past and “has become a thick, wet blanket used to smother anything that smacks of the supernatural.” This is what he calls “hyper-cessationism.” I’ve seen Denton label R. Scott Clarke with this moniker, and, more recently, G3.

Denton’s argument contains several key flaws that deserve response, and as I’ll show, the truth is actually the opposite of what he argues.

The Holy Spirit’s Work Today

Denton defines “hyper-cessationism” (a term he appears to have coined) as teaching that

God has no interaction with us apart form His Word, and that all miracles except for conversion have ceased. At the very least, claims of the miraculous are to be looked at with disdain and doubt. They teach there are no more spiritual gifts. There are no more “signs and wonders.”

According to Denton, a “hyper-cessationist”

aggressively tries to undermine or disprove anything abnormal in the Christian life; who is automatically skeptical of the miraculous, including but not limited to revival, healing, dreams, and visions; and whose worldview is closer to functional deism or rationalism despite theoretically denying such.

There are many problems with these descriptions, but let me first respond to the claim that any modern cessationist believes all miracles and spiritual gifts have ceased. This is simply a caricature. I know of no cessationist who believes these things. Josh Buice recently wrote a helpful articulation of how the Spirit works today, and I wrote a whole book about it.

In what has become the best defense of biblical cessationism available, A Biblical Case for Cessationism, Tom Pennington writes,

To be clear, we believe the Holy Spirit has continued the work He began at Pentecost in Acts 2 throughout the church age and today. He is actively displaying the power of our resurrected Lord in and through the people of Christ’s church. Everything of eternal significance that happens in the church or in the life of any Christian is due to the powerful work of the Holy Spirit.¹Pennington, Tom. A Biblical Case for Cessationism: Why the Miraculous Gifts of the Spirit Have Ended (Douglasville, GA: G3 Press, 2023), 3.

In my book on the Spirit’s work, I write of Spirit gifting,

The whole purpose behind the Spirit gifting individual believers is so that they can function within the unified body that he is building. Whether the gifting is supernatural or providential, the result is the same. The Spirit gives gifts for the purpose of bringing order to the body of Christ.²Aniol, Scott. Holy Spirit: God of Order (Douglasville, GA: G3 Press, 2024), 137.

No cessationist believes that God cannot and does not perform miracles today or that he does not continue to gift believers to serve the church. This claim upon which Denton’s article rests is simply a caricature.

Cessationism is more than simply the cessation of new doctrine or ethics

Not only does Denton caricature cessationism, he also defines what it means to be a cessationist quite poorly. In the opening paragraph, he states,

As a capital “R” Reformed person, I would call myself a cessationist. This simply means that I believe God has “ceased” giving any new doctrine and/or new ethics. You could also describe it as the belief that there is no more canon to be given. It also means God will not give any more infallible revelation that has the authority of Scripture itself.

Notice the three characteristics of cessationism as Denton describes them:

1. God has ceased giving new doctrine and/or new ethics
2. No more canon to be given
3. God will not give any more infallible revelation.

Notice in particular the implication of that last point: apparently Denton believes that while God will not give any more infallible revelation, he still gives fallible revelation. Denton does not believe that this new revelation has the authority of Scripture, nor does he believe the revelation will impart new doctrine or ethics, but God will still give revelation nonetheless.

And Denton believes that the giving of new, fallible revelation is full consistent with being a cessationist.

The problem with this is that those who define themselves as cessationist, or theologians in the past upon whom we have placed the label, have always defined their position as much more than only the cessation of infallible revelation. Here is how Pennington defines cessationism:

Cessationists argue that it is neither the Spirit’s plan nor His normal pattern to distribute any of the miraculous spiritual gifts to Christians and churches today. The miraculous gifts played a unique role in the Spirit’s work in the New Testament church and were never meant to be normative outside of the first-century, apostolic era.³Pennington, Cessationism, 4.

In other words, cessationism teaches that all miraculous gifts have ceased, including tongues, healing, and prophecy. Further, since Denton’s article addresses mostly the topic of revelation, here is what Pennington says regarding the cessationist position on the matter:

To be clear, we do not believe that God is still speaking audibly like He did in the Old and New Testament eras. We also do not believe He is giving revelation through visions and dreams, or even prompting believers through inward impressions and feelings. But we do believe God is speaking today—in and through the Spirit-inspired Word.⁴Pennington, Cessationism, 19.

As I will show below, this is fully consistent with what most orthodox theologians of the past have taught.

What Denton is defending is a two-tier definition of revelation that was invented by conservative, “open-but-cautious” charismatics who would never claim the label “cessationist.” Cessationists have consistently argued that God-given revelation is always infallible or without error. Scripture never allows for the category of fallible revelation. If it’s fallible, it’s not from God.

Conservative charismatics like Wayne Grudem and Sam Storms, on the other hand, argue that while the authoritative canon of Scripture is closed, we ought to still expect “spontaneous revelation from the Holy Spirit” today.⁵Wayne Grudem, The Gift of Prophecy in the New Testament and Today, Rev. ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000), 120. In this more moderate view, prophecy today does not have the same sort of inerrancy or authority as biblical prophecy or inspired Scripture, but it is still direct revelation from the Spirit. I am thankful that these men defend the closed canon and the unique authority of Scripture, starkly differentiating their teaching from that of other more dangerous charismatics. Nevertheless, we must still measure their teaching against what the Bible actually teaches.

My point here is not to argue against second-tier prophecy (you can find arguments against that in both Pennington’s book and my book).⁶For an excellent scholarly analysis of Grudem’s view of fallible prophecy, see Bruce Compton, “The Continuation of New Testament Prophecy and a Closed Canon: Revisiting Wayne Grudem’s Two … Continue reading What I’m simply showing is that Denton apparently wants to welcome Grudem and Storms into the cessationist ranks and is arguing that anyone who would object to this is a “hyper-cessationist.”

No, cessationism has always taught that the miraculous gifts have ceased, including the receiving of revelation from God, and that there is only one category of God-given revelation: infallible and authoritative Scripture. Pennington writes,

The real biblical gift of prophecy and today’s charismatic version are irreconcilable. The biblical text defines the gift of prophecy as an infallible means of communicating new revelation from God to His people. In the case of the New Testament gift, God was giving new revelation and direction to the church as the New Testament was being written. Both the nature and the purpose of the New Testament gift were identical to the Old Testament prophets and their prophecies. Charismatic prophecy never meets that standard.⁷Pennington, Cessationism, 122–23).

Our authority is Scripture, not past theologians

Denton’s argument is that such a position that revelation is always infallible and authoritative and that such revelation has ceased does not fit with the views of past theologians.

Denton quotes several theologians such as John Owen, William Bridge, Richard Baxter, Cotton Mather, George Gillespie, and Samuel Rutherford, who appear to believe that God may still give revelation through visions, dreams, apparition, or even inspiration. He quotes others who claim that John Knox, John Huss, John Wycliffe, and Martin Luther believed the same. Finally, he quotes examples from Augustine and Irenaeus, who apparently believed that blind men were receiving sight and dead men were rising from the dead in their day.

Before dealing with these quotations directly, I must make one point very clear: our authority is Scripture, not past theologians. Whether or not these men Denton quotes believed in some sort of continuation of revelation and miraculous gifts is irrelevant. What does the Bible say?

I will note that Denton’s article is completely devoid of Scripture. Furthermore, none of the theologians he quotes base their statements on Scripture, either. I’ve studied the fuller context of as many of the quotations I could access, and none of them are grounded in Scripture. The statements quoted are merely conjecture or based on personal experience.

We can and should learn from and benefit from theologians of the past, and any theological position that finds little or no historical precedent should be suspect.

But ultimately our authority is in the Word of God, not men.

While a few theologians in the past believed that God leads through dreams, visions, and impressions, the vast majority did not

However, even taking into consideration theologians of the past, Denton’s claim is suspect. While a few cases of continuationists appear throughout church history, the vast majority of orthodox theologians taught that miraculous gifts and giving of revelation have ceased, and God now works primarily through the Word he inspired.

Ironically, even the book from which Denton draws his argument makes this very point. In his article, Denton heavily depends on Garnet Howard Milne’s The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Cessation of Special Revelation. To read Denton’s article, one would think that the central thesis of Milne’s book is to argue for a softer view of cessationism based on demonstrating that a majority of Westminster Divines allowed for the possibility of second-tier, fallible revelation. Denton portrays Milne’s book as defending Denton’s own argument about “hyper-cessationism.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In what has been universally lauded as an excellent example of scholarly work, Milne’s central thesis of the book is that “an analysis of the Westminster divines reveals their pervasive commitment to a cessationism of a rather comprehensive type.”⁸Garnet Howard Milne, The Westminster Confession of Faith and the Cessation of Special Revelation: The Majority Puritan Viewpoint on Whether Extra-Biblical Prophecy Is Still Possible (Eugene, OR: Wipf … Continue reading Milne is actually arguing against the claim by charismatics that the Westminster Divines never intended to articulate a cessationist position. Rather, Milne convincingly argues that the Westminster Divines believed that “the possibility of further revelation has ceased, both for the purpose of doctrinal insight and for ethical guidance” (145). They believed that “inspired dispatched from heaven for the purpose of opening up the sense of Scripture, for assurance of personal redemption, or for any other purpose, were considered to be no longer possible” (123).

In other words, by Denton’s own definition, the Westminster Divines were “hyper-cessationist.”

So what of the theologians Denton cites? Milne acknowledges that some theologians in the past, such as John Knox, have claimed to receive prophecy. But he mentions this to make the point that a majority of Westminster Divines did not believe in such revelation (147). Those who did believe that prophecy continues were in the extreme minority, and Milne depicts these few individuals as continuationists, not cessationists (159–69).

Further, Milne does acknowledge that a few of the Westminster Divines believed in mediate (in contrast to immediate) revelation from God through angels and dreams (184). However, far from defending such views or portraying them as standard, historic cessationism, Milne argues that such (minority) views were based upon a faulty, unbiblical psychology (185). He shows how others, such as Rutherford and Gillespie, had contradictions within their own beliefs, and that their statements that appear to defend mediate revelation from God were careless and unfounded (237–45).

Far from supporting Denton’s claim that cessationists of the past were more open to revelation from God than modern cessationists, Milne’s book definitively argues that the majority view of the Westminster Divines and Puritans was that all revelation from God has ceased. As Joel Beeke writes in the foreword to Milne’s book, “Ultimately, Milne shows that nearly all Puritans consistently rejected post-apostolic, extra-biblical revelation” (xiii).

Cover for “open-but-cautious” continuationism

In reality, Denton does not prove that modern “cessationism has morphed into something dark and suffocating” compared to the cessationism of the past. Rather, he is apparently seeking to welcome “open-but-cautious” charismatics, like Wayne Grudem, who argue for second-tier, fallible prophecy into the cessationist fold.

Conservative continuationists like Wayne Grudem are godly, faithful brothers who in many areas of theology have been extremely helpful to the church. But they are not cessationists by either biblical or historic standards.

We who are cessationists should continue to boldly defend what we believe the Bible teaches: God has ceased giving miraculous gifts of healing, tongues, and prophecy. There is no second-tier, fallible prophecy. God certainly can perform miracles today, and he continues to gift his people to serve within the church.

But it is not rigid, unbiblical, or unhistorical to affirm that the Spirit of God works primarily today through the sufficient, profitable, infallible, and authoritative Word that he inspired and that we should not expect miraculous experiences as normative today. Nor is it “suffocating” to rejoice in the amazing ways the Spirit continues to work today through his Word. As I argue in the conclusion to my book,

The Spirit brings order to the disordered minds and hearts of his elect when he convicts them of their sin and gives them new life, when he unites them into the triune communion and particularly to Christ himself in his Body. He continues to order the lives of his people in empowering them to submit to his Word and be sanctified by it, conforming them to the image of Christ and producing fruit consistent with the harmony and beauty of God’s character. And he builds up the unity of Christ’s body through providentially gifting his people with abilities to use in service of God and one another in the church, particularly in corporate worship, where he forms his people through filling them with his Word read, preached, prayed, and sung.⁹Aniol, Holy Spirit, 159–60.

Are evangelicals really at the point where to claim that the Spirit works primarily through his Word is a problem? It appears so.

Sadly, attempts in modern times to soften what we believe about the way God speaks to his people have significantly weakened trust in the sufficiency of God’s Word.

Author

Scott Aniol

Executive Vice President and Editor-in-Chief G3 Ministries

Scott Aniol, PhD, is Executive Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of G3 Ministries. In addition to his role with G3, Scott is Professor of Pastoral Theology at Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway, Arkansas. He lectures around the world in churches, conferences, colleges, and seminaries, and he has authored several books and dozens of articles. You can find more, including publications and speaking itinerary, at www.scottaniol.com. Scott and his wife, Becky, have four children: Caleb, Kate, Christopher, and Caroline. You can listen to his podcast here.