Objection: Scripture Does Not Foretell a Revival of Sign Gifts in the Churches in the Last Days

It doesn’t have to!

There is a sneaky underlying assumption behind this objection.  Its author is a cessationist, meaning that he believes that the gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 died out, so they are no longer in operation in the church.  Thus, for these gifts to ever appear again, there must be a “revival” of these gifts.  But Scripture does NOT teach that the manifestations of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 will ever cease until “that which is perfect” has come (1 Corinthians 13:10), at which time we will know everything fully.  Unless the objector wants to claim that he knows everything while the rest of us see through a mirror dimly, he has to admit that such a time has not come.  Now the cessationist crowd believes that the “perfect” was the completion of the New Testament canon, but we still don’t know everything today, so that can’t be so.  Thus, the “sign gifts” have been operating since the book of Acts, are still operating today, and will continue to operate until the end of the age.  No “revival” of them is necessary – they are still for today!  So we should definitely expect “sign gifts” to be in manifestation in the last days.

Another flaw of this objection is that the Bible writers considered themselves to be in the last days already – while the apostles were still doing miracles.  If they saw miracles in the last days, we should see miracles in the last days.  There is only one set of last days with the same rules – not some “early last days” and “late last days” with different rules.

We could also get into an interesting end-times discussion about Scriptures pointing to the last days, but this particular objector only focused on sign gifts, so I’ll leave it at that.