In Christian theology, a cessationist is someone who believes that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing, ceased with the apostolic age. This view holds that such supernatural gifts were given to the early Christian community for the foundational period of the Church—to authenticate the apostles’ ministry and help establish the first churches. Once the Scripture was canonized and the Church firmly established, cessationists argue, the need for these miraculous gifts diminished and thus they ceased.
Cessationism is often contrasted with continuationism, which is the belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit have continued to the present day and are available to all Christians. Cessationists typically base their beliefs on interpretations of key biblical passages, such as 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, where Paul discusses the cessation of prophecy and tongues, interpreting “the perfect” as the completion of the New Testament canon or the maturity of the Church.
This theological perspective impacts how cessationists understand Scripture, pneumatology (the study of the Holy Spirit), and ecclesiology (the study of the Church), often emphasizing the sufficiency of Scripture and the normative guidance of the Holy Spirit through the biblical text rather than through ongoing supernatural manifestations.
