From Hebrews 2:3–4, can it be argued that sign gifts were given to the early church to validate the gospel, but when the gospel was validated we no longer needed the signs, and they disappeared?
This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘Finding Your Place in the Body of Christ’ (1989).
My first answer is, of course there is. Benjamin Warfield, that tremendous Biblical scholar from America, held that view, and to this day so do a great many more of his particular persuasion. There is a sense in which they're biblically right, because one of the gifts mentioned in the New Testament has ceased forever: the gift of an apostle. Let me quote you the definitive Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 15:5–9 Paul is pointing out that our Lord Jesus appeared in resurrection first of all to Peter, who was the first of the apostles, of course. Then to the twelve, then to more than five hundred brothers at once. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all to Paul—'Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me' (1 Corinthians 15:8). Paul says that he is the last apostle; beyond him there were no other apostles, in the classical sense of that word.
In 1 Corinthians 9 he appeals to his qualification. The necessary qualification for an apostle in the classical sense is that he had seen the Lord. 'Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord' (1 Corinthians 9:1–2).
And in 2 Corinthians 12 he says that the apostles were marked out by the doing of certain signs. 'The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works' (2 Corinthians 12:12).
If you read Acts very carefully, particularly the early chapters, you'll find that not all the believers went around doing miracles; it was the apostles who did the signs. Notice how carefully it is said: 'Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles' (Acts 5:12).
God did special signs to validate the apostles. Why is that important? Well, we need to know who the apostles are because of the doctrines we're meant to believe. Who has the authority to lay down Christian doctrine? Listen to Paul, 'I, Paul, say to you' (Galatians 5:2). What right has he to talk like that? If I stood out in front of you and said, 'I, David, say to you,' you'd say, 'It's about time you went home!' I don't have that authority, but Paul did because he was an apostle in the classical sense.
He was the last of them, and those apostles were validated by special signs. If everybody could go around doing signs, you wouldn't know who were apostles and who weren't, would you? In that sense, signs have ceased. But you will notice that tongues and prophecy were not the signs of apostles. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 that many spoke with tongues and prophesised. They weren't the signs of an apostle.
Some say that 1 Corinthians 13 was a slightly different thing. 'As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away' (1 Corinthians 13:8–10). 'The perfect' was the completion of the canon. Well, if that's what it means, tongues, prophecies and knowledge have ceased. But on the earlier occasion I gave you reasons for thinking why I do not believe that that is what Paul is saying. As far as I'm concerned it refers not to the canon, but to the coming of the Lord.
