Christians today talk a great deal about the Holy Spirit, but often with very little clarity. Questions about spiritual gifts, miraculous signs, and the work of the Spirit in the church abound. These are not abstract questions. They’re shaped by living in a time when Pentecostal movements have influenced large portions of Christianity. That influence has naturally raised one of the most debated questions of the modern church: Do all the spiritual gifts mentioned in Scripture continue today?
Or to put it more specifically: Does God still give the gift of healing to individual Christians? Does he still grant the gift of prophecy? What about apostleship or speaking in tongues?
Christians across the world ask these questions not because they doubt God’s power, but because they want to understand what God promises to give his church. And that requires clarity about what Scripture teaches.
What Are the Spiritual Gifts?
Before addressing whether certain gifts continue, it helps to remember what the New Testament actually lists as spiritual gifts. Scripture gives several lists, including Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4. When you gather them together, you get a helpful picture:
Encouragement, leadership, giving, faith, mercy, wisdom, knowledge, miracles, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing, service, discernment, teaching, shepherding, evangelism, apostles, and prophets.
Christians in every tradition agree that these gifts appear in the New Testament. The question is not whether these gifts once existed—everyone agrees they did—but whether all of them continue today in the same way.
Two Views: Continuationism and Cessationism
Historically, Christians have fallen into one of two broad categories.
1. Continuationists believe all the spiritual gifts continue today. A well-known summary of this view was articulated in the Lausanne Covenant of 1974, which argued that the Spirit gives the same gifts for the same purpose today as in the Apostolic age. In other words, continuationists expect miraculous gifts—including prophecy, healing, and tongues—to function today just as they did in the early church.
2. Cessationists, by contrast, agree that the Spirit continues to give gifts to the church, but they argue that certain gifts had a specific purpose that has now been fulfilled. Gifts such as prophecy, miracles, healing, apostleship, tongues, and continuing revelation ceased with the end of the apostolic era. Cessationists believe these gifts functioned primarily as sign gifts—visible confirmations of the authority of Jesus’ chosen messengers until Scripture was complete.
Importantly, cessationism does not teach that the Spirit has stopped working, or that God no longer heals, intervenes, or performs miracles. Rather, cessationists believe God continues to act miraculously but no longer grants individuals the gift of performing miracles or healing at will, the way Peter and Paul did.
Why Have Many Christians Held a Cessationist View?
Cessationism often surprises people. At first glance, it can sound like a denial of Scripture’s teaching on spiritual gifts. But historically, Christians who hold this view do so precisely because of Scripture.
When you read the book of Acts carefully, the miraculous gifts always serve the same purpose: they validate the message of the gospel and the authority of its messengers. Peter heals the lame man in Acts 3 not as a general ministry of healing, but as a divine sign authenticating his preaching. The miracle points people to Jesus, revealing the source of the power, and it calls them to repentance and faith.
This pattern was similar in the Old Testament as well. Moses, Elijah, and Elisha perform miracles during moments when God’s word is not recognized or is being directly challenged. Their miracles serve the same function as those in Acts: they testify that this messenger speaks the true word of God.
In both the Old and New Testaments, miracles function as God’s way of saying, “Listen to him.”
Once we grasp that function, the cessationist argument becomes clearer: if these gifts served to authenticate apostles and prophets while God’s revelation was still unfolding, then once the apostolic age ended and Scripture was complete, the purpose of those gifts also came to an end.
Apostleship and Prophecy: Gifts with Built-In Expiration
Two gifts in particular help illustrate this: apostleship and prophecy.
To be an apostle, one had to be a direct witness of the risen Jesus (Acts 1:21–22) and carry the authority to write Scripture. Paul explicitly says he was “the last” of the apostles (1 Cor. 15:8). The death of the apostles and the closing of the biblical canon mean this gift necessarily ceased. Even continuationists agree that there are no apostles today in the New Testament sense.
Prophecy follows the same pattern. In Scripture, prophets declare the very words of God with the authority of “Thus says the Lord.” Their message is never tentative. It is never conditional on later review. It is never subordinate to Scripture. Because Scripture is now complete, no new revelations of equal authority are being given. If someone today claims to prophesy but insists their words are not authoritative and must be checked by Scripture, they are not describing biblical prophecy—they are describing something altogether different.
And if the gift of apostleship has ceased, and biblical prophecy has ceased, then at minimum the door is open for the conclusion that other sign gifts may also have ceased.
Does God Still Work Miracles? Yes.
Does he give the gift of working miracles? That’s different.
This distinction is crucial. Cessationists do not believe God has stopped working in supernatural ways. They gladly affirm that God heals, intervenes, and miraculously directs his people today. They simply deny that he gives believers the ability to perform miracles at will, as Peter did with the lame man or Paul with Eutychus.
Some claim to possess the gift of healing today, but the “healings” tend to look dramatically different from those in Scripture. In Acts, people with lifelong conditions are healed instantly, publicly, and undeniably. In modern contexts, alleged healings frequently involve unverifiable conditions such as chronic pain or temporary ailments. The difference in scale and certainty makes it clear that what we see today is not the biblical gift of healing.
A Secondary Issue, Not a Salvation Issue
It’s important to emphasize that faithful Christians disagree about this. Continuationists and cessationists can worship together, serve together, and partner in gospel ministry. This is a secondary doctrine. What Christians must agree on is that the Spirit is active in the church, that all true spiritual gifts come from him, and that Scripture is sufficient for everything we need in life and godliness.
Asking the Right Questions
Wherever you land, here are three questions worth considering:
- If certain gifts have clearly ceased (like apostleship), is it possible others have as well?
- If prophecy continues, should such revelation be viewed as authoritatively as Scripture itself—remember that prophecy in Scripture was always authoritative and announced with the authority of “Thus says the Lord”?
- If gifts continue unchanged, why do modern expressions look so different from their biblical counterparts?
These questions help clarify what Scripture is teaching—and what it is not.
Christians should celebrate the Spirit’s work, rejoice in his power, and pray boldly for God’s intervention. But we must also take care to understand the purpose of the gifts God gave in the early church, and the difference between God performing miracles today and God granting individuals the gift of working miracles.
The Holy Spirit is active. God still works powerfully. But Scripture also helps us see how, when, and why he chooses to act—so that our confidence rests where it belongs: on Christ, on his Word, and on the Spirit who applies that Word to our lives.
