“Greater works,” man. But don’t Google the phrase unless you wish to experience a virtual waterboarding at the hands of a cabal of sad-sack cessationists, which pernicious teaching I — having mentioned — shall now obliterate.
This bit of I Cor. 13 is often given in support of the idea:
“8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.”
— I Cor. 13:8-10 NIV
The cessationist claim is that, “Tongues and prophecy have ceased because ‘the perfect’ has come,” and there is built on to this a whole stream of conjecture meant to lead us all to agree that ‘the perfect’ simply must be the completed canon of scripture. Well, if that is the correct understanding of what “the perfect” is, then it is certain that tongues and prophecy have ceased.
Well, and good, but for this:
Paul compares two contrasting periods of time: a “now,” and a “then,” and in Paul’s “now,” there are tongues, and prophecy; although only in part, because — as he also explains — in that “now” people only know in part. Paul also writes of a “then”; a time period that he claims will begin with the coming of “the perfect,” and he says that in the “then” the things he previously mentioned will pass away. Paul used a Greek word that literally means “useless” to convey that these things are going away because they won’t be of any use, anymore.
Paul goes on to sound the death knell of cessation by giving the world a simple test by which anyone may readily discern whether or not the present hour is part of Paul’s “now” or part of Paul’s “then”:
“12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
— I Cor. 13:12 NIV
In Paul’s “now” we see dimly, we know in part, we prophesy in part, etc. In Paul’s “then” we shall know fully EVEN AS WE ARE FULLY KNOWN. Since there exists only One by whom any man may be fully known the meaning is clearly this: “Then I will know fully, just as God fully knows me.”
If, as any sane man must admit, you do not know fully, just as God fully knows you, then I welcome you to Paul’s “now” wherein tongues, prophesy, and the like have not yet become useless things, and so have not yet passed away.
Absolutely. Not only that (and I do always look for confirmation from Scripture when I think something is from God) but I have seen too many healings that can only be called miraculous to think they have stopped. And not the kind where the “healer” kicks the “healed” in the gut.
And at the Asuza Street Revival I understand a man who knew no Hebrew spoke in perfect Hebrew, as attested by the Hebrew speaker who heard him preach.
When reality and theology clash, check theology. God is the God of both, so they should always be in concert.