Happily Unoriginal

I hate the term Cessationist. To me it’s like marrying the girl of your dreams then choosing to describe yourself as 'de-engaged’. It places the emphasis solely upon the fact that something has ceased - overlooking the profound reason that that something has ceased. Namely because something new and beautiful has taken it’s place. For a newly-wed the tortuous engagement period has ceased. It has ceased because it has been replaced by a new and beautiful period - marriage. No longer is the relationship characterised by incompleteness, uncertainty and waiting but rather the opposite - fulness, security, certainty, wholeness and peace. So too with Cessationism. What has ceased is the period in which God’s revelation was incomplete. And it has ceased because God has spoken fully and finally through His Son (Hebrews 1:1). With that said - until I can come up with a better term I do describe myself as a cessationist. Now before give you a few reasons why first a couple of definitions

You aren’t as happy as you ought to be. Were Luther alive he’d tell you that. Strangely he was miserable most of his. He entered his thirties morose and gaunt. Trying to please an un-pleasable God, His existence was an extended episode of the night Cool Hand Luke spent digging, filling, and then digging again a ditch in a prison yard. Regardless of what he did the boss was never pleased. Luther confessed for hours. Fasted for days. Starved himself of sleep to pray. Nothing was enough. It was agonising. Then He died at 63 plump and happy. What happened? He was made fat by grace. The story though well-known begs rehearsing. It was around the year 1515. Luther’s confessor - Johann Von Staupitz - had been long worn out by Luther’s melancholy, sometimes having to endure day long confession sessions as Luther ransacked his memory for known sin - bringing back such minor infractions his confessor, expelling a frustrated sigh burst “if you expect Christ to forgive you, come in wi