But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

1 Corinthians 13:10

In last week’s article, we saw that miracles would cease once the New Testament Scriptures were written in their entirety (1 Corinthians 13:8-12; cf. Rom. 12:2; James 1:25).  This leaves the question of how exactly miracles came to pass away.

To determine that from Scripture, we must first note that the ability to perform miracles came from the Holy Spirit (12:4-11).  The Spirit “remained” on Jesus after descending upon him at his baptism (John 1:32-33; cf. Lk. 3:22; Is. 11:1-4a; 61:1-2a; Lk. 4:16-21), meaning that the Spirit had been given to Jesus “without measure” (John 3:34).  “Measure” (metron) has to do with portions measured off from the whole, determined extents or limits.  Thus, Jesus had the Spirit without limits.  In like manner, the Spirit was given to the apostles similarly, “resting on each one of them” (Acts 2:3-4), implying that they also received the Spirit without measure (cf. Lk. 24:49; Acts 1:8; John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; 16:12-15).  This is proven by the record of the various kinds of miracles attributed to Jesus and his apostles, which shows when compared to the list of miraculous spiritual gifts in the Corinthian letter (12:4-11) that they possessed all of the miraculous spiritual gifts (e.g., John 2:24-25; Matt. 12:28a; 21:21-22; Acts 2:4-12, 14-36; 3:1-10; 5:1-12; et al).

The same could not be said of the others in the early church who possessed miraculous spiritual gifts.  Paul had already rhetorically pointed out to Corinth that not all of them had spiritual gifts and that they should earnestly seek after “the higher gifts” (12:28-31a; 14:1-5, 13, 39), thus showing that those who did have spiritual gifts did not possess all of them.  Additionally, miraculous spiritual gifts were given to those within the early church by apostles laying their hands on them (e.g., Rom. 1:11; 2 Tim. 1:6) rather than by the Spirit himself descending and remaining on them as was the case with Christ and the apostles.

For example, consider the fact that while the Holy Spirit was given to all who repented and were baptized on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38-39; 5:32), we do not read of anyone other than the apostles having any kind of miraculous spiritual gift for several chapters, thus indicating that receiving the Spirit upon obeying the gospel did not mean one was given miraculous spiritual gifts.  Then, when the Hellenistic widows were being overlooked in the daily benevolence of the church, the apostles asked the congregation to bring to them disciples who were already “full of the Spirit” (due to having obeyed the gospel per passages like Acts 2:38-39 and Romans 8:9-11) to be put in charge of this matter (Acts 6:1-4).  Stephen and Philip were among those chosen by the Jerusalem church, and the apostles laid their hands on them (vs. 5-6).  Only then do we read of someone other than the apostles having miraculous spiritual gifts: Stephen (Acts 6:8) and Philip in Samaria (Acts 8:5-7).

When the Samaritans believed Philip’s preaching, they were baptized (Acts 8:12).  However, two apostles still had to make the journey to Samaria to lay their hands upon them so they could “receive the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:14-18).  Since they had already received the Holy Spirit himself at baptism (Acts 2:38-39; 5:32), their further reception of the Spirit upon apostles later laying their hands on them could only mean that they would then receive measure of miraculous spiritual gifts.  It is also noteworthy that Philip, who had miraculous spiritual gifts already, did not lay his hands upon them and thus spare the apostles the trip to Samaria.  This shows that the only way early Christians could receive the ability to perform miracles was if an apostle laid his hands upon them.

By the time the New Testament canon reached completion with the writings of the apostle John, all of the apostles had been martyred save John, who would die of natural causes shortly after finishing his inspired writings.  At this point, no apostles would remain to give miraculous ability through the laying on of their hands.  Thus, miracles would cease around this time…the same time the New Testament reached completion (1 Cor. 13:8-12).

What would then remain?  “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (13:13).

— Jon