From Ben Witherington's Blog.

I never thought I would see such a gross generalization aimed at making some one's view look ridiculous, but here it is. I have not yet read the entire post, but I saw this sentence, and had to post it here, it's humourous, in some way, and not so humourous in others.

In a post on Pentecostalism, Ben Witherington III has this gem of a sentence right in the middle(ish):

"The cessationists argue that God ran out of juice."

Now, I am definitely not a Pentecostal. And I think that I might label myself a cessationist (up to a point). I don't want to tie the Holy Spirit to my own understanding, but at the same time, I need to take seriously that God's revelation is his Word, which is the Biblical canon. As a Reformed believer, I believe that God works in our hearts, the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, through the means of the preaching of the Word and the sacraments. I am not going to go so far as to say that these are the only ways that he does this, but these are the usual ways, the regular means by which the Holy Spirit works in our hearts.

Now, for those who have the entire canon, and live in a 'Christian' culture, I don't think that the spiritual gifts (like speaking in tongues) are necessary. Especially as the Pentecostals understand it, as a baptism with the Holy Spirit showing that one has reached a certain maturity of faith (As far as I understand, please correct me if I am wrong). I am not going to say that God cannot work in this way, that would be putting my own understanding above God. But I am also not going to say that God needs to work in this way, or even does as regularly as many Pentecostals seem to think.

To say that cessationsists believe that God 'ran out of juice' seems to be a bad rhetorical device, aimed at making people prefer one argument for another not on their own merits, but because one is made to look ridiculous. Witherington most likely did not mean it this way (he is a good scholar, one whose labours I have used in the past, and will continue to use), but some more precision and care in his use of language might be better. I don't know of any cessationists (not that I know all of them personally) that would argue that God cannot do these kinds of things anymore. 'Does not' and 'Cannot' are two very different ways of speaking.