I said in my first blog post that debates for me are about truth—not about winning. I do, of course, hope the truth will win. I also hope to do a good job for the sake of the truth and the defense of the truth. One of the good things, then, about this debate is that I learned something more about how to defend the truth and how to answer arguments contrary to it. Let me tell you about that.
Central to my argument against the continuation of the miraculous gifts is the assertion that the New Testament teaches that the gift of Apostles of Christ—the first and greatest gift which Christ gave to the church has ceased. This means that there is at least one gift which has ceased. It is also the greatest gift. Continuationists cannot, then, argue that all the gifts continue or that the presumption is that all the gifts continue. At least one gift does not continue, and it is the first and greatest of the gifts of Christ to the church. This creates the very distinct possibility that other gifts may cease—gifts like prophets, tongues-speakers, miracle-workers, and healers.
Substantially, Matt’s defense against this was to assert that the gift of Apostles of Christ was not a charismatic gift—a charisma gift—but a doma gift. Thus, the cessation of Apostles of Christ—which, I think, Matt admits—does not stand against his assertion that all the Charismatic gifts continue. I am familiar with and in the past have responded to the assertion that Apostles of Christ are not a gift, but an office or something else. The sufficient answer to this is that in Ephesians 4:8-11 Apostles are described as a “gift” Christ “gave” to the church.
Matt, however, asserted something else—a distinction—with which I was unfamiliar. He asserted that there is an important difference between the word, charisma, and the word, doma. Since Apostles are a doma gift and not a charisma gift. Thus, Apostles are a gift, but not a charismatic gift.
As I said in my first blog, for me debates are about truth. In them in a special way it is necessary to guard the sanctity of truth. I had emphasized that in my opening statement as follows: “What I do not like about debates is the tendency and motivation they create in the debaters to say anything to win—whether they know it to be true or not. I hope never to be guilty of that kind of violation of the command; Thou shalt not bear false witness. I take this evening to be about truth—not winning—and will try to say nothing that I do not verily believe to be the truth of God’s Word.”
Thus, though everything else I knew about these issues, made me entirely doubt the validity of the distinction between doma and charisma on which Matt was basing his argument, I could not say that on the basis of my own personal study of these two words that this distinction was nonsense. Bound by the sanctity of truth and my own stated commitment to truth in my opening statement, I determined not to say things that I have not put in the work and study to say.
I have now done the study and confirmed for myself, what I suspected, that there is no basis in Scripture for the kind of distinction Matt was making. In fact, there is even reason to assert that Apostles are called a charisma. That study will be the subject of my next blog post.
Dr. Sam Waldron is the Academic Dean of CBTS and professor of Systematic Theology. He is also one of the pastors of Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Owensboro, KY. Dr. Waldron received a B.A. from Cornerstone University, an M.Div. from Trinity Ministerial Academy, a Th.M. from Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1977 to 2001 he was a pastor of the Reformed Baptist Church of Grand Rapids, MI. Dr. Waldron is the author of numerous books including A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, The End Times Made Simple, Baptist Roots in America, To Be Continued?, and MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response.
