Chapter Heb 2: 3, 4In the sometimes heated discussions over the question of the duration of certain spiritual gifts, one argument has persisted from the side of charismatics: There is no prooftext that any spiritual gift has ceased. As impressive as this argument sounds, a couple of responses should be given. First, if the NT was written by men who in fact exercised these sign gifts, why should they say that such had ceased? It would be difficult to find a text in which this point would be explicit. Second, the NT apostles by and large expected the Lord’s return in their lifetime (cf. 1 Thess 4:15: “we who are alive, who are remaining until the coming of the Lord”). Hence, we should not expect them to make any statements regarding the cessation of gifts, since that would presuppose that they knew the Lord’s return would be delayed. In order to find such a statement, we would need to construct the following scenario: A member of an apostle’s band writes a letter after that apostle had died. Further, in the letter he finds some reason to explicitly mention something about sign gifts.
Such a scenario is difficult to imagine. Happily, the NT provides not only one, but two books that fit such a picture: Jude and Hebrews. And both address--to some degree at least--the issue of gifts and authority. Our purpose in this paper is to look more closely at one text, Hebrews 2:3-4.
Hebrews 2:3-4 is a text often put forth by cessationists that certain spiritual gifts have ceased. The text reads as follows: (3) pw'" hJmei'" ejkfeuxovmeqa thlikauvth" ajmelhvsante" swthriva" h{ti,” ajrchVn labou'sa lalei'sqai diaV tou' kurivou, uJpoV tw'n ajkousavntwn eij" hJma'" ejbebaiwvqh, (4) sunepimarturou'nto" tou' qeou' shmeivoi" te kaiV tevrasin kaiV poikivlai" dunavmesin kaiV pneuvmato" aJgivou merismoi'" kataV thVn aujtou' qevlhsin.(“[3] How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which was at first declared by the Lord, and was attested to us by those who heard him, [4] while God was also bearing them witness with signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will”).
The argument that this text refers to the cessation of certain gifts is based on an inference in the text, viz., that since the first generation of Christians were explicitly eyewitnesses to certain sign gifts, the second generation of Christians was not. Usually books that address the issue of gifts don’t go further than this point. One has to wonder how valid it is, however.
Several things in the text need to be examined to see whether this text has any validity for the cessation of sign gifts. First, the genitive absolute in v 4 (sunepimarturou'nto" tou' qeou'/ “God bearing witness”) needs to be addressed. A couple of points should be mentioned.
(1) On a purely syntactical level, the genitive absolute does not of course relate to anything. But it is not like the vocative--that is, it is not extra-sentential. Rather, it is virtually a constructio ad sensum. That is, it is merely a Greek convention for expressing adverbial relations, usually of a temporal nature.
(2) Thus, it is neither helpful nor accurate to leave a genitive absolute dangling. The genitive absolute exists precisely because the subject of the genitive participle is different from the subject of the verb in the main clause. But the genitive absolute construction is still dependent on the time of the main verb.
(3) So to what is it semantically dependent? The genitive absolute is most naturally subordinated to the aorist ejbebaiwvqh (“was attested, confirmed”). To take it back to the future ejkfeuxovmeqa (“shall we escape”) in v 3 is stretching things, although the meaning would fit a continuationist position (“How shall we escape . . . while God bears witness with signs and wonders . . . ?”). Still, not only the distance, but the awkwardness of meaning poses a problem. That is, the conditional participle (ajmelhvsante") makes perfectly good sense (‘if we neglect. . .’) as the modifier of the future verb. But what is the relation of the genitive absolute construction to the verb? Over 90% of genitive absolute constructions are temporal (the next largest category is causal). If that is the case here, what is the meaning? Is it something like, “by what means can we possibly escape this great salvation while God is bearing witness to us”? The sense connection is lacking, no matter how you construe it. Take this a step further. It is even more improbable that the genitive absolute is subordinated to the conditional participle: “if we neglect . . . while God is bearing witness . . .” The force of the argument would have been considerably strengthened had the author said, “if we neglect so great a salvation which God bears witness to . . .” But that would require an adjectival participle--which, by definition, does not fit the genitive absolute construction. This leaves one of two options left: (a) the aorist indicative, ejbebaiwvqh, as the word to which the genitive absolute is semantically (not technically syntactically; see above) subordinate to. This makes perfectly good sense; besides, the structure fits most naturally: “it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God bore witness . . .” Or (b) the substantival aorist participle tw'n ajkousavntwn: the idea then would be that when eyewitnesses heard the message, God bore witness to them. This also makes good sense, and seems to be allowed for by the loose connection of the GA (genitive absolute construction) with the verbal element in the substantival participle. As such, it yields a nice text for cessationism. There are, however, three problems with it: (i) the aorist indicative is closer to the GA; (ii) GAs are normally semantically related to finite verbs (though they sometimes are attached to infinitives; I do not know of any examples off-hand in which they are attached to substantival participles, though this does not strike me as impossible); (iii) the overall meaning is more logically connected if the author is arguing that the confirmation was made by accompanying signs, rather than that the hearing was accompanied by such signs.
Such a scenario is difficult to imagine. Happily, the NT provides not only one, but two books that fit such a picture: Jude and Hebrews. And both address--to some degree at least--the issue of gifts and authority. Our purpose in this paper is to look more closely at one text, Hebrews 2:3-4.
Hebrews 2:3-4 is a text often put forth by cessationists that certain spiritual gifts have ceased. The text reads as follows: (3) pw'" hJmei'" ejkfeuxovmeqa thlikauvth" ajmelhvsante" swthriva" h{ti,” ajrchVn labou'sa lalei'sqai diaV tou' kurivou, uJpoV tw'n ajkousavntwn eij" hJma'" ejbebaiwvqh, (4) sunepimarturou'nto" tou' qeou' shmeivoi" te kaiV tevrasin kaiV poikivlai" dunavmesin kaiV pneuvmato" aJgivou merismoi'" kataV thVn aujtou' qevlhsin.(“[3] How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which was at first declared by the Lord, and was attested to us by those who heard him, [4] while God was also bearing them witness with signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will”).
The argument that this text refers to the cessation of certain gifts is based on an inference in the text, viz., that since the first generation of Christians were explicitly eyewitnesses to certain sign gifts, the second generation of Christians was not. Usually books that address the issue of gifts don’t go further than this point. One has to wonder how valid it is, however.
Several things in the text need to be examined to see whether this text has any validity for the cessation of sign gifts. First, the genitive absolute in v 4 (sunepimarturou'nto" tou' qeou'/ “God bearing witness”) needs to be addressed. A couple of points should be mentioned.
(1) On a purely syntactical level, the genitive absolute does not of course relate to anything. But it is not like the vocative--that is, it is not extra-sentential. Rather, it is virtually a constructio ad sensum. That is, it is merely a Greek convention for expressing adverbial relations, usually of a temporal nature.
(2) Thus, it is neither helpful nor accurate to leave a genitive absolute dangling. The genitive absolute exists precisely because the subject of the genitive participle is different from the subject of the verb in the main clause. But the genitive absolute construction is still dependent on the time of the main verb.
(3) So to what is it semantically dependent? The genitive absolute is most naturally subordinated to the aorist ejbebaiwvqh (“was attested, confirmed”). To take it back to the future ejkfeuxovmeqa (“shall we escape”) in v 3 is stretching things, although the meaning would fit a continuationist position (“How shall we escape . . . while God bears witness with signs and wonders . . . ?”). Still, not only the distance, but the awkwardness of meaning poses a problem. That is, the conditional participle (ajmelhvsante") makes perfectly good sense (‘if we neglect. . .’) as the modifier of the future verb. But what is the relation of the genitive absolute construction to the verb? Over 90% of genitive absolute constructions are temporal (the next largest category is causal). If that is the case here, what is the meaning? Is it something like, “by what means can we possibly escape this great salvation while God is bearing witness to us”? The sense connection is lacking, no matter how you construe it. Take this a step further. It is even more improbable that the genitive absolute is subordinated to the conditional participle: “if we neglect . . . while God is bearing witness . . .” The force of the argument would have been considerably strengthened had the author said, “if we neglect so great a salvation which God bears witness to . . .” But that would require an adjectival participle--which, by definition, does not fit the genitive absolute construction. This leaves one of two options left: (a) the aorist indicative, ejbebaiwvqh, as the word to which the genitive absolute is semantically (not technically syntactically; see above) subordinate to. This makes perfectly good sense; besides, the structure fits most naturally: “it was attested to us by those who heard him, while God bore witness . . .” Or (b) the substantival aorist participle tw'n ajkousavntwn: the idea then would be that when eyewitnesses heard the message, God bore witness to them. This also makes good sense, and seems to be allowed for by the loose connection of the GA (genitive absolute construction) with the verbal element in the substantival participle. As such, it yields a nice text for cessationism. There are, however, three problems with it: (i) the aorist indicative is closer to the GA; (ii) GAs are normally semantically related to finite verbs (though they sometimes are attached to infinitives; I do not know of any examples off-hand in which they are attached to substantival participles, though this does not strike me as impossible); (iii) the overall meaning is more logically connected if the author is arguing that the confirmation was made by accompanying signs, rather than that the hearing was accompanied by such signs.
