“For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: BUT…we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;“
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭1‬:‭22‬-‭23‬ ‭KJB

My initial approach to resolving the issue of whether or not the so-called sign gifts of the Spirit continue today, revolved around determining what exactly these verses in 1 Corinthians 13 mean:

”Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away…But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.“. 1 Corinthians 13:8,10 KJB

The primary question that needed to be answered was: what does “perfect” mean in this context? While I loathe going to the Greek to correct my Bible, I do not mind digging deep into my interlinear in order to determine the meaning of an ambiguous or confusing word or phrase. “Perfect” is clearly in need of clarification in this critical verse. Does it mean Jesus, who of course is, was, and always will be perfect, or is there something else that might be a better, or more accurate fit in this context?

“Perfect” is translated from the Greek word “telios” (G5406,Strong’s), which is a neuter word. Jesus is not neuter in scripture – ever. He’s always masculine in the Bible – every single time He is mentioned, either by name or by pronoun. That means, without any ambiguity, that “perfect,” in this context, cannot mean Jesus Christ. It must mean something else…something else that, like Jesus, is perfect. I could (and have before, on this blog) lay out the manifold scriptures which state that the written word of God is perfect, but because most Christians are aware of this critical fact, I will instead leave us with this one, short passage:

”The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.“
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭19‬:‭7‬-‭10‬ ‭KJB

God’s point via Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13, is that we won’t need sign gifts, or even more spiritual knowledge, once we have God’s actual (and perfect) words in our hands. Paul alludes to the transition away from the sign gifts (which were required by the Jews in order to prove that a prophet was from God:Moses,Elijah,Elisha, etc.)to the scriptures in 1 Corinthians 1:22-23, when he states:

“For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: BUT we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;“1Cor.1:22-23KJB).

Despite the lies of the great Bible destroyers in Rome, the canon of New Testament scripture was generally accepted in Bible believing churches by 126AD (per researcher and author of more than 100 books on Bible and Christian history, David Cloud). Long before that, Paul’s letters (and the gospels) were being copied feverishly and transmitted throughout the Christianized world and beyond. For more detailed information on the early church and the spread of scripture, see, Bill Cooper (1947-2021), a relentless researcher and prolific writer on the validity, historicity, and authenticity of both the Old and New Testament canons, and regarding the dissemination of New Testament manuscripts early in the second half of the first century. His research on Cave 7, Qumran, Dead Sea Scrolls, is unparalleled regarding evidence of pre-68 AD dates for Mark, Acts, Romans, 1 Timothy, James and 2 Peter. (Please contact Guillon’s Christian supply in Statesville and King, N.C., for information about his books).

Now that we have the complete and final word of God via scripture, and have been warned multiple times in the Bible not to add or take away even a single letter (Deuteronomy 4:2, 12:32; Proverbs 30:5-6; Revelation 22:18-19) we most certainly don’t need (and shouldn’t want) vain men pretending to have super powers telling us what God is allegedly saying now. We already have the actual, verified words of God in scripture- words that Peter declared were even more certain than the audible voice of God the Father, spoken from a cloud at the transfiguration (2 Peter 1:16-21)…and we have ALL of them.

HEALING

Not one soul on earth has the gift of healing today, not a single one. While many claim to have the personal power to heal, and then blame the victim’s alleged lack of faith when they aren’t actually healed, only God can heal today, and at His will not ours. If anyone truly had that gift, then the Holy Spirit of God would compel them to clear out all the children’s hospitals in America. Paul couldn’t even heal Timothy, Trophimus or Epaphroditus later in his ministry, as we will see below. If Paul can’t, then no man today can either:

“Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.“1 Timothy 5:23.

”Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellowsoldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants. For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick. For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.“
‭‭Philippians‬ ‭2‬:‭25‬-‭27‬ ‭KJB

”Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.“
‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭4‬:‭20‬ ‭KJB

Obviously Paul would have healed his beloved disciple and son in the faith, Timothy, if he could have, especially given the constancy of his illnesses. Epaphroditus and Trophimus were also his dear friends and fellow ministers of the gospel, but we think Paul callously left them sick and dying?? It defies common sense and is contrary to his character for Paul to have left his beloved brethren suffering. He would have healed them immediately and perfectly if he could have. Therefore, we can know with great certainty that healing rests solely with God, not men.

PROPHECY

Peter does an excellent job of explaining what prophecy was, and what we have from God today in its stead…a more sure (certain) word of prophecy, the holy and perfect scriptures:

”For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.“
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1‬:‭16‬-‭21‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Peter makes the point that, in the days of the true prophetic, the holy men of God who gave us true prophecies, received them directly from God and they were always 100% correct. If they were not 100% accurate, this is what God said should happen to them:

”But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.“
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭18‬:‭20‬ ‭KJB

Despite that clear and deadly prescription for false prophecies in the day of actual God-ordained prophets, we still have the Bill Johnson’s (Bethel Church, Redding Ca.), and his protégés, claiming that their prophecies are only correct around 50% of the time! Yet millions of biblically illiterate thrill seekers from around the world make pilgrimages to Bethel just to hear the kind of foolishness and guesswork that Jeremiah warned us about. The passage below is long, but is the perfect indictment against the NAR and its perverse leaders who claim to be modern day apostles:

”Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD. They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you. I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal. Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words every one from his neighbour. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that use their tongues, and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD. And the burden of the LORD shall ye mention no more: for every man’s word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of hosts our God.“
‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭23‬:‭16‬-‭17‬, ‭25‬-‭27‬, ‭29‬-‭32‬, ‭36‬ ‭KJB

It’s much easier to listen to a man with a large and charismatic personality up on grand stage flooded with lights, prophesying pleasant nonsense, then it is to study the actual words of God in scripture with pen and paper, as 2 Timothy 2:15 KJB exhorts us to do:

”Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.“
‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭2‬:‭15‬-‭16‬ ‭KJB (“study” is deleted out of the new versions btw).

As Peter taught us, the scriptures are even more certain than the voice of God the Father speaking from a cloud at the transfiguration! If I have those perfect words on my phone and by my bed, why would I ever even want some vain and proud man claiming to be a prophet, tell me anything about God’s will or my future? The scriptures contain all things necessary for life and godliness. ALL things. See, 2 Peter 1:2-4.

EPILOGUE

I could have gone on and on about how the Holy Spirit NEVER testifies about Himself, but only about Jesus (John 15:26), how the spirit of prophecy isn’t fortune telling but the testimony of Jesus (Revelation 19:10), and how no apostle ever taught us to call on the Holy Spirit to come to us or fall on us. If we are saved, He is in our hearts…forever! (Ephesians 1:13). But I’ve been deceived too….

When I attended a charismatic church as a pre teen, I faked speaking in tongues just like everyone else in that church did. We were told to open our mouths and just start blabbering. That we did – and it was sort of fun, feeling exceptionally spiritual at age 10, even though I had a haunting feeling that it was all fake. It turns out that several in leadership at that little church outside of Charlottesville, Virginia, including the founder, dumped their families for lives of wanton homosexuality. Child abuse and neglect were also rampant in that church. Sexual sin is not a stranger to these churches and ministries. (See, Kathryn Kuhlman, Todd Bentley, Bob Jones (NAR guy), Amy McPherson, IHOP, Benny Hinn, the Crouches (TBN TV) and many, many, more).

Looking back, the sin issues in my charismatic church doesn’t surprise me it all. We were taught little to no Bible doctrine, and every church service or prayer meeting felt like a crazed emotional roller coaster … up and down, up and down, based not on the movement of Holy Spirit of God, but based on the rising and falling of the music, and the cadence of the “pastor’s” voice. He knew well how to manipulate, not just a ten your old boy, but a congregation of 60 – 70 adults, many of whom pretended to get slain in the spirit, a wholly unbiblical concept.

Unfortunately, I attended other similar churches in two different states. They all had the exact same emotional, manipulative, fleshly feel, clearly controlled by a spirit, but definitely not a holy one.

I encourage everyone who reads this article to cease from the words of men, and to flee from emotion, to the perfect words of the living God.

”Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.“
‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭17‬:‭5‬-‭8‬ ‭KJB

For an excellent analysis of what “tongues” was, please listen to the sermon below by pastor Jim Blalock:

Tongues and the early church, an in-depth scriptural analysis

More articles by the author of this post:

The Beauty and Power of the Written Word of God

“Greater works than these….” What did Jesus mean by this statement?

Prayer: how to approach God using examples from scripture

Evangelizing the Florida Keys: A mission trip to the southernmost region of the USA

Money and the Ministry: what does the New Testament teach us on this topic?

Romans 9, rightly divided: a biblical response to the Calvinist view of this chapter

The Pretribulation Rapture: My Journey Frok Pessimism to Optimism By the Word of God