While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” (Acts 13:2)
Ordination in the Christian sense derives its meaning from the Spirit of God. It is not a human invention, nor a matter of ceremonial authority that men can wield at their own discretion. The biblical accounts demonstrate that when someone is ordained to ministry, it is the Spirit himself who calls, sets apart, and equips. Any attempt to establish ordination apart from the Spirit reduces the practice into a parody, a ritual that imitates form but contains no substance. This problem reaches its sharpest expression in the case of cessationism, because cessationism denies the ongoing activity of the Spirit’s gifts. If their theology is true, then the very possibility of real ordination disappears.
The example from Acts 13 is decisive. When the church at Antioch ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” The church did not invent a role for these men. The Spirit himself called them out, and the ordination consisted in recognizing, affirming, and ratifying what God had already decreed. The Spirit remained the decisive factor, not the human act. Without the Spirit, there would be no appointment to recognize, and therefore no ordination to confer. The entire meaning of ordination lies in the Spirit’s decision and empowerment.
Paul’s letters to Timothy add further confirmation. Timothy did not merely receive a title or public acknowledgment when he was ordained. Paul reminded him to fan into flame the gift of God, which was in him through the laying on of hands. Spiritual gifts were conferred at ordination. The Spirit imparted real power through the act, binding Timothy to his calling by divine operation. If cessationism is correct, then such gifts no longer exist to be imparted. In that case, ordination becomes a ceremony without effect. It is a body without breath, a shell without life.
From this it follows that cessationist ordination is no ordination at all. At best it is a symbolic appointment to office, a public recognition of a role that lacks divine sanction. The problem is not merely that cessationists fail to replicate biblical practice in every detail. The problem is that their theology makes biblical practice impossible in principle. If the Spirit no longer calls men through gifts and power, then no one can claim to be ordained in the biblical sense. And since ordination must come from those who have themselves been ordained by the Spirit, cessationists cannot ordain anyone precisely because they themselves were never ordained. Their line of succession is fictitious, their credentials fraudulent, and their ministries the imitation of a reality they reject.
A cessationist church may confer titles, perform ceremonies, and hand down traditions, but what it produces are ministers that are half baked and half faked. They are baked because they may still know something of Scripture, preach doctrines, and carry institutional authority. They are faked because the ordination itself has no correspondence to what God instituted in the word of God. Since those conferring ordination were never ordained in the first place, they can only reproduce the same hollowness in those who follow.
When ordination is reduced to ceremony, it becomes indistinguishable from any other social recognition. It functions much like academic degrees or professional licenses. The candidate may be declared fit for office, given a certificate, and installed in position, but nothing spiritual occurs. The Spirit has not called, gifted, or equipped. The laying on of hands becomes the mere movement of flesh. The words spoken are the traditions of men rather than the decrees of God. The whole act may impress observers, but it changes nothing in the order of heaven.
This kind of ordination remains attractive to people because it grants them recognition, honor, and career advancement. It resembles the appointment of officials in any other organization. For many, this suffices. They desire the appearance of authority without the substance. They want to be called ministers without being equipped by the Spirit. They want to represent God while denying the very gifts that make representation possible. The outcome is an institutional class of leaders who resemble the biblical pattern in outward structure but deny its inward essence.
To say that such ordination is empty is not to say that no one ordained under cessationist hands can ever serve God. A man may still rise up in faith, study the word of God, and believe its promises. God may honor his faith and grant him power directly. But in that case, the benefit comes from faith, not from the ceremony. The ordination contributes nothing. It may even deceive the man into thinking that his strength lies in his title and ceremony rather than in the Spirit of God. The ordination, therefore, is at best useless and at worst a stumbling block.
The reality is that God deals with his people by faith and by his Spirit. Where faith takes hold of his word, the Spirit acts in power. This is the essence of ministry. No ritual substitutes for it. Cessationism removes the Spirit from ordination, and so it eliminates ordination altogether. It leaves behind only a hollow form, a ritual gesture that deceives both the one who performs it and the one who receives it. The ordained person may go forth to preach, but if he accomplishes anything by faith, it will be in spite of the ordination rather than because of it.
The seriousness of this cannot be overstated. Ordination is meant to anchor ministers in divine calling, to connect them to the Spirit’s gifts, and to empower them for their work. To strip ordination of this power is to mutilate the institution beyond recognition. A cessationist ceremony might as well be a graduation, a party, or an inauguration. It signifies nothing that heaven recognizes. It cannot be appealed to as a confirmation of God’s calling. It does not impart gifts. It does not summon the Spirit’s power. It leaves the minister in the same condition as before.
This hollowness reflects the wider emptiness of cessationism. A theology that denies the Spirit’s activity has already severed itself from the living presence of God in his church. It must then substitute ceremony, ritual, and human invention for divine reality. Ordination becomes a telling example of this. What was once the moment of divine commissioning becomes a stage for empty gestures. The participants congratulate themselves on carrying out a venerable tradition, but God has not spoken and God has not acted. The gulf between the appearance of ordination and the reality of ordination widens until there is nothing left to compare.
Real ordination cannot exist where the Spirit is denied. Scripture shows that ordination rests on the Spirit’s call and empowerment. Cessationists themselves have never been ordained, and so they cannot ordain others. Their ceremonies are invalid from the root upward, a chain of imposture that produces nothing but hollow officeholders. True ordination remains inseparable from the ongoing activity of the Spirit, and only those who depend wholly on him and on faith in the word of God stand as ministers in the biblical sense.