Secessionist vs Cessationist

The Difference between a Secessionist and Cessationist

Currently, I am preparing a study for our high school youth group on 1st John. As I work through various commentaries and the thoughts and words of brothers who have come before me, I came across a group of people in John's day called Secessionists. This is different then the group who are called Cessationists.

Secessionists

A formal definition would be a person who favors formal withdrawal from membership of a federation or body, especially a political state. In the context of John's day, the Secessionists claimed to know God, have fellowship with God, and have eternal life. John's purpose, however, was not to correct the secessionists (the letter was not written for them), but to show his readers that the secessionist claims were false.1 The Secessionists boasted being born again, but also boasted that they were without sin. John writes to refute their heretical statements, and to encourage the church to hold fast to the teaching of Christ. 

Cessationists

Cessationism deals with a completely different doctrine. Here the argument is regarding spiritual gifts, and whether they continue to be available to the church in our modern day or whether their operation ceased with the end of the Apostolic Age of the church. Warfield makes the argument that history and scripture that gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing ceased with the Apostolic Age. Warfield writes that scripture shows these gifts belonging solely to a period of inspired revelation and that their cessation shows the completeness of that inspired revelation. "Cessationism does not imply that God has removed His power and activity from the church. It teaches that he has ceased using sign miracles. But He still answers prayer. He still fills His people with the power of His Spirit to equip them for His service."2 

I'm a Cessationist, not a Secessionist

Reformed theology teaches that while God still indwells His people with the Holy Spirit, and that things happen in this world that we cannot explain, the power does not lie within us humans to heal, to speak in tongues, or to prophesy. 

Does God speak through His inerrant word? Yes. 

Does a preacher expound upon the word of God by the power of the Holy Spirit? Yes. 

Does God heal, according to His will, in answering of prayer? Yes. 

Does God still send revival? Yes. 

Being a Cessationist does not mean we somehow lower the power of the Holy Spirit compared to the Father and the Son. It does mean that we should understand that the Holy Spirit is living and active, and indwells inside the soul of the believer. It does not take away from God's power to say that the gifts of the Apostolic Age do not continue. In fact, it gives us hope as we look forward to the coming Kingdom, when we will know our God in a perfected way. 

1 Kruse, Colin G. 2000. The Letters of John. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos.

2 Cairns, Alan. 2002. In Dictionary of Theological Terms, 80. Belfast; Greenville, SC: Ambassador Emerald International.