Tom Forryan describes a visit to a church.
“It was the first Sunday of the year and we were visiting a large church in our town. After the service an enthusiastic young man came up and told me, ‘The Lord has shown me you are in full-time Christian ministry.’
(How did the Lord do that? Was it a miracle? Was it because I sat at the front with a big Bible open in front of me?) Then he said, ‘I have a word from the Lord for you: you will go to the next level this year!’ I can’t honestly say that prediction was false – presumably I did indeed go to the next level in something that year, even if it was only my favourite computer game – but it didn’t trouble me. Why not? Because I believe in the sufficiency of Scripture.”
Tom goes on to insist that this was not a word from the Lord and his reason is as follows: He takes Jude 3 which says:
“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”
Then he goes on to argue
Think about that phrase ‘once for all’. This makes Jude 3 one of several New Testament verses that show us that God’s message to us is now complete: the Son has come, He taught His apostles and they wrote down what they received. Nothing more needs to be said. (Compare Hebrews 1:1-2, 2 Peter 1:19, 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 1 John 1:1-3, Revelation 22:18-19). Could He say more to us, in a dream, vision or word of knowledge? Yes of course – nothing is impossible with God. But we don’t need Him to do that for us. We have everything we need to know in order to please God and live with Him for ever. He has caused it to be written in the 66 books of the Bible.
Now, it’s worth me saying up front two things. First, I believe in the sufficiency of Scripture and secondly, I believe that gifts of the Spirit including prophecy, dreams, visions etc are available today. So, I think that Tom has created an unhelpful dichotomy between belief in sufficiency and belief in the continuity of gifts.
I think that the starting point with his problem is where he starts. You see, if we do believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, then we have a responsibility to handle it correctly, to allow it to do the job which it is sufficient for. Jude 3 is not about the sufficiency odf Scripture and we run int serious problems if we begin there. Why for example iwould Jude say something about the sufficiency and completeness of something that he is about to add to? If Jude was saying that Scriptural revelation was once for all and now completely delivered, then he would be doing something seriously wrong by writing another letter to add further Scripture.
Look again at what he does say here. He talks about “the faith that was once for all delivered.” This is not about the completeness of Scripture but rather about the completeness of the Gospel. It’s similar to when Paul warns against offering a different Gospel, builsing on a different foundation. In fact the faith, once for all delivered is that Jesus Christ came, died, rose again and ascended so that we might be forgiven for our sin. It is this that is Jude’s concern at this point, that the church don’t lose hope in the Gospel, don’t subtract from it, compromise it or add to it.
Now, there are places in the New Testament to turn to if we want to see sufficiency taught. The obvious place to go to is 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Scripoture is inspired (God breathed) and so, as Paul explicitly makes clear at that point is sufficient, it is all we need to be made complete, mature in Christ.
So what then about prophecy, dreams, visions, words of knowledge etc? Well it is helpful to remember that whilst there were lots of prophets and lots of prophecies throughout the revelation of Scripture, only some of them find their way into Scripture. I might be tempted to suggest that we can say “All Scripture is prophecy but not all prophecy is Scripture.” You see Scripture is God’s revelation, it is God speaking to us.
It might also be helpful to think in terms of how we understand sufficiency to wor even when we exclude the question of gifts of prophecy. Does the fact that we believe in sufficiency mean that we have no time for any tother books, from pastoral counsel, from blogs, from magazine articles? Do we think that the editor of EN or article writers like Tom are undermining sufficiency? Of course not. We rightly understand them to be applying Scripture to specific contexts and/or offering insight and comment on those situations.
Can this be said of prophetic words, dreams, visions and words of knowledge too? I believe it can and here is why. First of all, theologically we think of two categories of Revelation. First there is something called General Revelation. This picks up on the wonder that God is constantly revealing something of his character and purpose. Then there is Special Revelation (Scripture) which focuses in on God’s salvation plan. General Revelation does not offer us the sharp focused detail of God’s plans and purposes and furthermore, our ability to comprehend it aright is limited by the Fall and our finiteness. So, we need Special Revelation, in fact, we might argue that Special Revelation is the lens through which we read General Revelation, to bring it into focus so we can see clearly and accurately.
I think the mistake comes when people treat prophetic words as “Special Revelation” akin to Scripture. This happens on both sides of the debate, some charismatics have acted at times as though they were offering new special revelation. For that reason, I’m wary of language along the lines of “thus says the Lord.” In fact, I would encourage people to simply share what is on their heart without putting a label on it or grandly heralding it. However, in my experience, this is often not how prophecy is treated. The problem from the other side is that cessationists assume that these prophecies are meant to be new, additional special revelation.
Secondly, what I often see happening is that the person with the word of knowledge, dream, prophecy whatever has specific insight into a situation and into people’s lives. This may of course be, as Tom suggests simply through alert observation but can be through sensitive intuition as well. There can be times too (and this is what I understand to be mean by the term “words of knowledge) where the person speaking has insight that doesn’t come from obvious natural methods. It’s something that they could not have possibly known about the person’s past or their future. They are seeing something which only God could have shown them.
When those things are happening, it enables the person to offer insight and advice, in fact, to apply Scripture to the specific situation. It brings a sense of immediate nowness to God’s Word.
None of this undermines the sufficiency of Scripture but rather, becomes part of the means through which God’s Word does the job that it is sufficient for.
Faithroots 