Well tonight,
in one sense I have a difficult, impossible task and that is to cover a
subject that needs to be covered thoughtfully and carefully. In another
sense, while very challenging and almost impossible to fully accomplish,
I welcome the opportunity to share with you some insights that will
help you to be discerning as you look at a very important issue in the
Charismatic movement today and that is this matter of speaking in
tongues.
This is at the very heart of the Charismatic movement,
one of their distinctives. There is no question in my mind that if you
were to boil down the Charismatic movement as to its basic, several
ingredients, one of them would be the affirmation that speaking in
tongues is a gift for today, not only a gift for today, but a gift to be
sought by every Christian who wants the fullness of the Holy Spirit and
the fullness of the blessing of God. It is so much a part of the fabric
of the Charismatic movement that it is one of the primary things that
they endeavor to teach the children in that movement.
Someone
sent me a sample of some Charismatic Sunday school literature which is
designed specifically to teach kindergarten children how to speak in
tongues. It's titled, "I've Been Filled with the Holy Spirit," and it's
an eight page coloring book. One page has a caricature of a smiling
weight lifter with a T-shirt and it says, Spiritman, and under him is
printed
1Corinthians14:4,
"He that speaks in an unknown tongue builds himself up." Another page
features a little boy who looks something like, some of you will
remember, Howdy Doody, something like that, with his hands lifted up, a
dotted outline pictures where his lungs would be, this evidently
represents his spirit. Inside the lung shaped diagram is printed this,
"Bal Li Ode Da Ma Ta Las Si Ta No Ma." A cartoon styled balloon then
comes out his mouth and repeats the words, "Bal Li Ode Da Ma Ta Las Si
Ta No Ma." A brain shaped cloud is drawn in his head with a large
question mark in the cloud.
Do you understand the picture? These
gibberish words are in the Spirit and they come out of his mouth, but a
question mark is in his brain. This is how they plant in a kindergarten
child the idea that tongues goes from the spirit to the mouth, without
ever going through the brain, that it is some kind of mystical,
non-cognitive experience that somehow bypasses the brain, and under that
picture is
1 Corinthians 14:14,
"If I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding
is unfruitful." In both cases they have misrepresented the intention of
those verses.
The first verse they assume, speaking in an unknown
tongue, builds someone up, when in fact; Paul was saying it in a
negative sense. It puffs your ego, or it, at best, if you do it in
private, would benefit you, which would be selfish and contrary to any
proper use of spiritual gifts and the second one, "If I pray in an
unknown tongue, my spirit prays, and my understanding is unfruitful," is
a way to say, "Don't do that, because what's the point in having an
unfruitful understanding?"
Yet, as early as kindergarten, people
are learning these things which are in error; this is the typical
Charismatic perspective, by the way. The gift of tongues is viewed as a
holy, mystical ability that somehow operates in a person's spirit and
comes out the mouth and bypasses the mind. Many Charismatics are even
told they have to purposefully switch off their mind to enable the gift
to function, that's pretty much the pattern. I've sat in on a number of
sessions where people were endeavoring to teach someone how to speak in
tongues, and they always follow that same format. Usually they say
something like this, "Don't think of anything, try to empty your mind of
any conscious thought."
Charles and Francis Hunter, who travel
all across the world in healing explosion meetings, have as a part of
their curriculum the seminars in which they teach people how to speak in
tongues. They have as many as 50,000 people in some of their meetings.
Charles Hunter tells people, and I quote, "When you pray with your
spirit you do not think of the sounds of the language. Just trust God,
but make the sounds when I tell you too. In just a moment, when I tell
you, begin loving and praising God by speaking forth a lot of different
syllable sounds. At first make the sounds rapidly so you won't try to
think as you do in speaking your natural language. Make the sounds
loudly at first so you can easily hear what you are saying."
That's
an interesting contradiction. Hunter doesn't explain what point there
is in hearing what you are saying since your mind isn't engaged anyway,
but he continually reminds his audience they're not supposed to be
thinking. He says, "The reason some of you don't speak fluently, is that
you try to think of the sounds so when we pray this prayer and you
start speaking in your heavenly language don't try to think," end quote.
Later he adds, quote, "You don't even have to think in order to pray in
the Spirit," end quote.
Arthur Johnson, in his excellent expose
of mysticism, entitled, "Faith Misguided", a very good book, calls the
Charismatic movement, "The zenith of mysticism," and he does so with
good reason, because there is the desire, in some cases and through some
experiences, to switch off the mind and disconnect yourself from what
is rational, and reasonable, and logical. We've already noted that
earlier in our study and I won't go back and belabor the point, but that
is one of the primary characteristics of "pagan, mystery religions,"
one of the primary characteristics of the Babylonian mystery religions
that have found their way into all kinds of religious fabric through the
history of the world. Nearly all the teachings, distinctive to the
Charismatic movement, are unadulterated mysticism and nothing
illustrates that more perfectly than the way Charismatics themselves
depict the gift of tongues.
They usually describe this gift of
speaking these ecstatic syllables that have no meaning, as a sort of
ecstatic experience that has no equal. They would tell us that it's a
way to experience an emotion and a feeling that is beyond anything else
that you will ever experience. One author quotes Robert Morris, "For me,
the gift of tongues turned out to be the gift of praise. As I used the
unknown language, which God had given me, I felt rising in me the love,
the awe, the adoration, pure and uncontingent, that I had not been able
to achieve in thought out prayer." In other words, I got more out of
prayer I couldn't understand, than I did out of prayer that I could
understand.
A newspaper article on tongues quoted the Reverend
Bill L. Williams of San Jose, he said this, "It involves you with
someone you're deeply in love with and devoted to. We don't understand
the verbiage, but we know we're in communication." If I could just
interrupt and ask you to try that sometime on someone you love very
dearly, and see how effective it is in communication you could probably
judge that statement accurately. He went on to say, "That awareness is
beyond emotion, beyond intellect, it transcends human understanding. It
is the heart of man speaking to the heart of God. It is deep inner heart
understanding. It comes as supernatural utterances bringing intimacy
with God."
Now remember, all of this is a occurring with
absolutely no understanding of what you're saying. You have no
comprehension of what it is you're saying, and yet it is supposed to
bring you into the deep understanding and intimate communion with God.
The article also quoted the Reverend Billy Martin of Farmington,
NewMexico, who said, "It's a joyous, glorious, wonderful experience."
Reverend Darlene Miller of Knoxville, Tennessee said, "It's like the
sweetness of peaches that you can't know until you taste it yourself,
there's nothing ever to compare with that taste." Another of those
people who have that experience might echo sentiments similar to those,
and I am just quoting you what they themselves say.
You might ask
the question, "What then is wrong with such an experience?" Well, on
the one hand, there really isn't anything particularly evil or immoral
about it if you just disassociate it from the Bible and disassociate it
from Christianity, and if you get some pleasure out of standing in a
corner all by yourself or sitting in your room alone and talking
gibberish to yourself and that does something for you, then I suppose in
and of itself, from a psychological standpoint, that it's not a moral
issue, it may be harmless. If something makes you feel good or makes you
feel somehow better in control of your life, or like you've had some
warm experience, so be it, but don't call it intimacy with God. Don't
say it makes you spiritually stronger. Don't say it makes you delirious
with spiritual joy.
Then ask yourself the question, could I,
through this means be deceived? Could this be dangerous? The answer to
that question has to be yes. A man whom I knew and respected greatly,
now with the Lord, George Gardner, who was pastor up in GrandRapids, who
wrote a very excellent book on this subject was a former tongue speaker
who left the Pentecostal movement, and he poignantly described the
danger of surrendering one's mind and abandoning control of one's self
for the sake of the euphoria of a tongues experience.
He said
it's a very dangerous thing and this is what he wrote in his own words,
"The enemy of the soul is ever ready to take advantage of an out of
control situation, and thousands of Christians can testify with regret
to the end results. Such experiences not only give Satan an opening he
is quick to exploit, they can be physiologically damaging to the
individual. Charismatic writers are constantly warning tongue speakers
that they will suffer a letdown, this is ascribed to the devil and the
reader is urged to get refilled as soon as possible. So the seeker for
experience goes back through the ritual again and again, but begins to
discover something. Ecstatic experience, like drug addiction, requires
larger and larger doses to satisfy.
Sometimes the bizarre is
introduced; I've seen people run around a room until they were
exhausted. I've seen people climb tent poles, laugh hysterically, go
into trances for days, and do other weird things, as the high sought
becomes more elusive. Eventually there is a crisis and a decision is
made; he will sit on the back seats and be a spectator, fake it, or go
on in the hope that everything will eventually be as it was. The most
tragic decision is to quit and in the quitting abandon all things
spiritual as fraudulent. The spectators are frustrated, the fakers
suffer guilt, the hoping are pitiable, and the quitters are a tragedy.
No, such movements are not harmless," end quote.
The first time a
person speaks in tongues there is usually a euphoria because there have
been so many people trying to get them to do that, that when they
finally do that, there's a tremendous sense that they have arrived
spiritually. So psychologically there is a great sense of release and
relief, and then there is immediately the diminishing return. Many who
speak in tongues will understand the tensions that Gardner has
described. He is not the only tongue speaker, by the way, to turn
against the practice and expose its dangers.
A man by the name of
Wayne Robinson, who was once editor-in-chief of the publications of the
Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association, was an enthusiastic tongues
speaker, and he wrote a book, "I Once Spoke in Tongues" and in it he
says this, "In the past few years, I have become more and more convinced
that the test, not only of tongues, but of any religious experience
cannot be limited to the logic and truthfulness supporting it. There is
also the essential question, 'What does it do in one's life?' More
specifically, does it turn a person inward to self concern and selfish
interests, or does it open him up to others and their needs. I know
people who testify that speaking in tongues has been the great
liberating experience of their lives, but juxtaposed with them are the
great many others for whom speaking in tongues has been an excuse to
withdraw from confronting the realities of a suffering and divided
world. For some, tongues has been the greatest thing ever to happen,
others have seen it disrupt churches, destroy careers, and rupture
personal relationships," end quote.
Another former Charismatic
writes, "To say that speaking in tongues is a harmless practice, and is
all right for those who want to, is an unwise position when information
to the contrary is evident. Speaking in tongues is addictive. The
misunderstanding of the issue of tongues and the habit, plus the psychic
high it brings, plus the stimulation of the flesh, equals a practice
hard to let go of, but to equate much speaking in tongues with advanced
spirituality is to reveal one's misunderstanding of Bible truth, and to
reveal one's willingness to be satisfied with a deceptive and dangerous
counterfeit."
That's from Ben Byrd who wrote a book entitled,
"The Truth About Speaking in Tongues." There are others who practice
tongues and can turn the phenomenon on and off mechanically, and without
feeling anything emotional. Recently, I knew of a pastor, know him
personally, who spoke in tongues and led his ministry in that direction
for many, many years, and has since admitted that it was something he
just did. It was nothing spiritual or divine, it was something he just
did himself, there are many like that. They have learned how to do it.
They can turn it on, turn it off, hone the ability to speak in those
familiar sounds that most tongue speaker's use, and they do it without
passion.
Now I've just introduced the subject to you and given
you a little bit of a feeling for it, I want to go into the Word of God
and try to show you some things that you must understand about tongues
so that you will have a handle on it from the Biblical perspective. So
let's talk first of all about the Biblical gift of tongues; we do know
it is in the Bible and we have to deal with that. Now listen very
carefully to what I say, because I don't want to lose you and I am going
to flow through this fairly quickly.
Tongues are only mentioned
in three books in the Bible. Mark, one time in chapter 16 verse 17;
Acts, three times, Acts 2, Acts 10 and Acts 19, and then in 1
Corinthians, those are the only three books of the Bible that mention
tongues. Now earlier in our study you'll remember that we looked into
Acts, didn't we? We saw something about this gift of tongues, as it's
become known, in the Book of Acts. We discovered that when it occurred
in the Book of Acts, it was a known language; we'll say more about that
in a few moments. It had a very specific purpose in God's redemptive
history along with other miraculous events in the apostolic period it
had a very unique purpose. So we have covered the ground I think fairly
well in the Book of Acts, and we saw the unique historical purpose for
that gift.
It was a sign that the Spirit of God had come, that
God was speaking from heaven His truth. It was also a sign to
unbelieving Israel that when they wouldn't listen in the language they
could speak, God would now begin in judgment to speak a language they
couldn't understand, and so as Paul will point out in chapter 14 of 1
Corinthians, it was a sign of judgment. It was given as a sign gift on
the day of Pentecost. Several other times in the Book of Acts it was
given again so that those believers being added to the original Body of
Christ would be seen to be participating in the same Body and receiving
the same Holy Spirit. So it had a unique historical place in the Book of
Acts.
Then it appears in
Mark 16:17,
it simply mentions tongues as one of the gifts that would be expressed
in the time of the Apostles' ministry. Again it fits into that unique
historic apostolic time period in which there was miraculous phenomena,
signs and wonders, as God pointed to the Apostles who were speaking His
truth. On the day of Pentecost this sign drew the crowd to which Peter
preached the Gospel, for example.
That leaves us really with only
one epistle in which tongues is even mentioned, out of the historical
uniqueness of Acts and Mark 16; we come to the Book of 1 Corinthians,
chapters 12 through 14. This is the only epistle where we find anything
about this, and Paul wrote for sure 12 and maybe 13 epistles beyond this
one, and never in any of them does he even mention this. Only in this
very early epistle does any discussion of tongues take place.
Now
Paul wrote these chapters, and you must understand this, to reprove the
Corinthians for misusing the gift. It's very difficult out of this
passage to get any kind of mandate to speak in tongues, to get any kind
of affirmation that this is something to be sought, or something to be
elevated, or something to be used, or something that will last, because
what you have here is primarily a corrective given to the Corinthians,
who had prostituted the gift of tongues into something pagan that wasn't
even representative of the work of the Holy Spirit, and so what he
wants to do is correct and restrict the use of tongues.
Now if we
grant, and I think we must, that at the time of the writing of 1
Corinthians the Spirit of God could still use this unique ability, the
fact that it was still a gift in that time and that place in the history
of the church, we know that, because Paul said, "Don't forbid it. Don't
forbid people to speak in tongues, don't eliminate it. There is still,"
he is saying, "a place for this." Verse 39 of chapter 14 but he says,
"You must regulate it carefully; and then if you took the time to study
through 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, and by the way, if you want to
read in detail I've written my commentary on 1 Corinthians which covers
every verse, every phrase in this whole section, but in this section
there are some regulations.
The guidelines given were these.
Tongues is a sign to unbelievers. It's a sign that God is speaking, it's
a sign to unbelievers. If used in the church it must always be
translated so that it can have the purpose of edifying the believers who
don't know what's being said. Never are more than three people to do
it, and they are to do it in sequence, not at the same time. There is to
be no speaking in tongues unless it is interpreted. Any confusion or
any disorder in the assembly is an indication that what is going on did
not originate with God, it's a counterfeit, it's a prostitution. Women
are never to do it, for they are to remain silent and not to speak in
tongues.
Then as he comes to the end of chapter 14, Paul tells
them to recognize these regulations as a commandment of the Lord is
absolutely imperative, you have no option. In verse 37 he says, "If you
think you're a prophet or you think you're spiritual, then you better
recognize that what I have just said is the Lord's command."
A
few weeks ago when we were meeting with some of the leaders of the
Vineyard they said, "Are there things in our ministry that you would
point out as a violation of Scripture?" and we immediately brought up
the fact that having attended a recent meeting where several thousand
people were present, the leader of that meeting invited everyone, all at
once, all at the same time to begin speaking in tongues. There was
total chaos, confusion, disorder, people pushing chairs back, as we told
you before, falling on the floor, stretching out their limbs, falling
over, fainting, all of that kind of chaos confusion. No translation of
that was going on, women were dominant in it, and all of that violates
the instruction for the legitimate use of the gift, when it was
legitimate in the Corinthian time.
So there are some very clear
restrictions given here. To be honest with you, if those restrictions
were followed in the contemporary tongue speaking movement, the movement
would come to almost a total halt. Again, I point out it isn't
necessary for God any longer to give supernatural sign gifts to point to
those who speak His word since we know who speaks His word. We don't
need a sign we just compare them with the Bible. Once the authority was
given then affirming speakers who speak His truth through signs and
wonders ceased to be necessary. I can tell you in a moment whether
someone speaks for God, all I have to do is listen and compare what they
say with the Bible.
Now also there was another component.
Tongues in the Corinthian church was chaotic, out of order, confused,
way out of its proper place and not only that, the attitude of the
people in using this gift was one of pride, self-centeredness, look at
me, they were putting on a show, they were parading their supposed
spirituality and they weren't using their gift for the benefit of
others, that's why he writes chapter 13, which is all about love.
He
is saying, "In all spiritual gifts the proper motive is love to other
people." He says in verse one of chapter 13, "If I speak with the
tongues of men and angels, and don't have love, I'm nothing but a noisy
gong and a clanging cymbal." I don't care if you're talking human
language or angel talk; anything apart from love is noise, its noise.
Then he launches into the magnificent 13th chapter, the classic in all
of human literature on love, to point to the fact that the Corinthians
had adulterated the gift in its expression, and they had adulterated the
purpose and the motive for it because it was something other than love.
Paul says, "I don't care how you talk. I don't care whether you
talk in human languages or whether you talk angel talk, and that's
hypothetical, because every time angels ever speak they speak in the
language of men," but he says, hypothetically, hyperbolically, "I don't
care if you talk angel talk, if you're not motivated by love, its noise,
absolute noise." Unfortunately, some of the Charismatic people have
taken Paul's statement, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels," and they say, "You see, the tongues of men are our normal
language, and the tongues of angels are our secret private prayer
language," and they believe that the gift of tongues is a private prayer
language, a heavenly language known only to God that transcends the
mind as we said earlier, it's celestial speech.
It's interesting
to me that if it's celestial speech, and if it's angel talk and comes
from God, why is it that somebody has to sit you down and teach you how
to do it? There is no warrant in this text for such a view; Paul was
simply expressing a hypothetical case, just as in the subsequent verses.
He says, "If I have the gift of prophecy, and if I know all
mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, but don't have love, I am nothing." If I could move the earth
and didn't have love, what would it matter? "And if I gave away
everything to feed the poor, and delivered my body to be burned, and
didn't have love, what good would it be?" This is all hyperbole. He's
not really suggesting things that are, but he's taking it to its
furthest expression. No matter what you did, no matter how great it was,
without love it's nothing. As I said, angels don't ever appear in
Scripture talking in anything other than human language. You can compare
Luke, chapter 1 and chapter2 for a good illustration of that.
Nowhere
then, and this is very important, nowhere does the Bible teach that the
gift of tongues is anything other than human languages. If you have a
question about that, all you need to do is to go back to Acts 2. Go back
there with me for a moment, verse 4, "They were all filled with the
Holy Spirit and began to speak with other languages, it's the word
language, we'll see that in a minute, they speak with other languages,
as the Holy Spirit was giving them utterance."
Notice that they
didn't have to learn how to do it? Somebody didn't sit them down in a
chair and say, "Empty your mind and start talking in unintelligible
syllables." No, the Spirit gave them utterance and they began to speak.
Really; and what did they speak? It's very clear, "The multitude came
together," verse 6, "They were bewildered, they were from everywhere,"
by the way, "They were each hearing them speak in his own language." It
wasn't doubletalk, it wasn't gibberish, it wasn't angel talk, it wasn't
celestial speech, it was just different languages.
"And they were
amazed and marveled, saying, 'Why, are not all these who are speaking
Galileans?'" See Galilee was a kind of a hick town area, hay seeds lived
up there. Nobody was educated, they certainly didn't learn languages up
there, they could barely speak their own language. "Aren't these
Galileans? How is it that everybody's hearing them in our own language?
The Parthians and the Medes and the Elamites, and the residents of
Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and
Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors
from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs; we hear them in
our own languages."
This is incredible. It was very clear what
the gift was, it was an ability to speak a language you hadn't learned.
In that language they were declaring the wonderful works of God and
everybody was hearing them, but the people were saying, "This isn't some
human exercise. Something has happened here today that is divine." So
it was a sign that God had come in a marvelous way, and God had poured
out His Spirit on this church, on these 120, and the church was born,
and they all could see that a supernatural event had happened. The
church was born and the unbelieving Jews now were getting, but were
hearing the judgment predicted come to pass.
God had through the
prophet Isaiah said, "The day is coming when, because you don't hear me
when I talk your language, I am going to talk a language you don't
understand, and that's a sign of judgment," and after all the judgment
was coming wasn't it? They had rejected and crucified their Messiah.
It
was a sign that God had done something wonderful, that God had brought
the spirit and the church was born. Gentiles and Jews all together would
come to Christ and form one body; and it was a sign to unbelieving
Israel that they were going to be put outside, set aside, and that the
God who spoke once to them in a language they could understand, and gave
them the oracles and the covenants and the promises in the Hebrew
tongue, would now speak in a language they didn't understand as a
judgment.
But very clearly it was language. The word in Acts 2 is
glossa,
it means language. They were hearing people speak in their own
language. That's all; it wasn't some angel talk, some gibberish, some
gobbleygook, some nonsense talk. Then it says also they were hearing in
their own
dialektos, dialects, that also we find used in Acts
chapter 2. So there were unbelievers present at Pentecost hearing God's
message in their own languages and their own local dialects, not
ecstatic gibberish.
Now when you come to 1 Corinthians,
curiously, the King James version has chosen to add the word unknown,
unknown tongue, and some Charismatics have sort of felt that that gave
them the right to say they weren't languages. The King James says, "An
unknown tongue," you'll notice, if you have a New American Standard,
they took the word unknown out. Why? Because it wasn't in the original,
they spoke in a tongue. What is it?
Glossa, a language.
Whatever
the gift is here in the Corinthian Church, it's the same as it was
then. This is early in the life of the church and God was still
speaking, and God was still identifying Himself through this miraculous
expression of languages that had never been learned by these people, and
it was a wondrous thing, and it showed them that God was in their midst
and God was speaking and it was also a continuing sign of judgment on
Israel, but it was a language again. The word unknown never appears in
the Greek text, it was a language.
There is an interesting
footnote to that you can look through carefully. Notice the plural and
singular usages of the word language, and that's helpful. I believe when
he uses the singular of
glossahe's referring to the false
gibberish, and when he uses the plural he's referring to languages,
because you can't have plural gibberishes. There aren't kinds of double
talk and gobbleygook and gibberish, there's only gibberish. It doesn't
have a plural, but that is something you can study in the commentary and
examine on your own.
Now also, you'll notice in 1 Corinthians,
that Paul insists verse 13 of chapter 14, that any time someone speaks
in a language you must pray that he may interpret. When tongues are
spoken in a church someone must interpret. Down in verse 27, "If any one
speaks in a language, it should be by two or at the most three, and
each in sequence and let someone interpret; and if there isn't an
interpreter, then stay silent and just pray to God," because it would be
selfish, self centered and have no edification for the church, plus it
wouldn't accomplish anything. Right? Because if I am going to be the
instrument of God by which He reveals His presence and I say some things
that nobody understands, and nobody translates it, nobody knows whether
it was real or legitimate and nobody knows what the message from God
was, so it had to be translated for edification and to make the point.
You will also notice there is that word, interpretation; it is
Hermeneuo,
which means translation. All he's saying is, "If somebody speaks a
foreign language, make sure he gets translated." That's not so difficult
to understand. If someone speaks a foreign language, make sure they get
translated, why? So that everybody is edified, so that everybody can
learn. Verse 5 of 1Corinthians 14 he says, "Greater is one who
prophesies than one who speaks in languages, unless he interprets, so
the church may receive edifying."
Now do you see here, it's never
to be done in private, it would be pointless. Wherever in the Bible
does it say that you are to speak in a private tongue? Never, a private
ecstatic, angelic speech never; it's hard for me to argue against those
who say that tongues is a private prayer language because I can't go to
some text and correct them because there isn't any text. They just made
it up, it's a pure invention, it's a non-existent viewpoint. Some of
them try to use Romans 8, "The Holy Spirit makes intercessions for us
with groanings which cannot be uttered." How obvious is that? In the
first place it is the Holy Spirit and He's making the intercession, and
He's doing it with groanings that can't be uttered, not groanings that
can be uttered, and it isn't us, it's Him. How could you ever convolute
that? There isn't any Scripture to support it, all you have here were
times when God desired to speak in a language that the people didn't
know in order to reveal His supernatural presence and His Word, and then
it was translated for the edification of everyone, it was a very
unusual situation. It happened early on; apparently at the time of
Corinth it was still going on. We hear nothing about it from then on, in
all the rest of the New Testament, and when it was done, it was totally
restricted and very clear guidelines were given.
Another
indication, as I noted to you, that Paul had in mind human languages, is
in verses 21 and 22, and that's what I refer to. Where he says, "In the
law it is written, 'By men of strange tongues and by lips of strangers I
will speak to this people, and even so they will not listen to Me.'"
Paul says this is a fulfillment of
Isaiah 28:11-12, and
Isaiah 28:11-12
is clearly a prophecy telling the nation of Israel that God will speak
His Word in Gentile languages. You understand how hard that was for a
Jew to accept? God is going to talk in a Gentile language? Unthinkable,
absolutely inconceivable to a Jew, but that was God rebuking Israel in
their unbelief, and therefore, in order to be a meaningful sign of
judgment to the Jew it had to be Gentile foreign languages because it
was the Gentiles that the Jews despised and thought God would never
speak through a Gentile. If it was angelic speech that point would be
nonsense.
Now what was going on in Corinth obviously violated the
standards that God had set down and so He reiterates them through the
Apostle Paul, but clearly we can conclude then that the Corinthians were
involved in counterfeiting tongues. True Biblical tongues were not
gibberish they were languages. They were Gentile languages and they were
used only when interpreted for the edification of the church so that
whatever it was that God wanted to supernaturally say was clearly
understood by everybody.
Frankly, whatever normally passes for
tongues in the Pentecostal Charismatic movement today is not true
language, that and that alone eliminates it. Modern tongue speaking,
often called
glossolalia, which simply means to speak languages from
glossaand
laleo, to speak languages, isn't the same as the Biblical gift.
William
Samarin is a professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto. He
has done some extensive research and writing on this. He says, "Over a
period of five years, I have taken part of meetings in Italy, Holland,
Jamaica, Canada, and the United States. I have observed old fashioned
Pentecostals and neo-Pentecostals, or Charismatics. I have been in small
meetings in private homes as well as in mammoth public meetings. I have
seen such different cultural settings as are found among Puerto Ricans
of the Bronx, the snake handlers of the Appalachians, and the Russian
Molikhans of Los Angeles. I have interviewed tongue speakers and tape
recorded and analyzed countless samples of tongues. In every case,
glossolaliaturns out to be linguistic nonsense. In spite of superficial similarities,
glossolaliais fundamentally not language."
William Samarin is one of many men who have made studies of
glossolalia,
there are abundant tapes available of it. The studies all agree that
what we are hearing today is not language, and if it is not language
then it is not the Biblical gift of language. The mystery religions,
remember, in and around Corinth, as we have already noted in our earlier
studies, were involved in ecstatic speech and they were involved in
trance like experiences. I have done some extensive study in years past
on the Oracle of Delphi, and the mystical gibberish and ecstatic speech
that was all wrapped up in that horrible orgiastic religion and some of
the Corinthians who were involved in all of that stuff had come into the
church with their past pagan stuff and corrupted the gift of tongues by
counterfeiting it, and using these past ecstasies as if they were the
work of the Spirit. What they were doing, by the way, is very similar to
modern day
glossolalia, and Paul was trying to correct them by
telling them such practices circumvented the whole point of the gift of
languages and didn't qualify.
It got so bad at Corinth that it
actually was shocking, absolutely shocking. Notice verse 2 of chapter 12
he says, "You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray,"
that's a technical term for flipping out, going into a trance, being
spaced out, "You were led astray to the dumb idols, however you were
led." I mean you just followed the flow of the mysticism and the
ecstasies, you just flipped out, you went into your trance, you did that
when you were pagans. Verse 3, "Therefore I make known to you," listen,
"No one speaking by the Spirit of God says 'Jesus is accursed.'"
Stop
right there, this is unbelievable. Do you know what was happening? Some
of those people were flipping out into their trance and cursing Jesus,
and because it was in a trance like thing they claimed to be the gift of
tongues, people were accepting it on the basis of the phenomena, even
though the content was blasphemous. What this tells us is that some of
this stuff may be more than some humanly induced gibberish, it may be
satanic and demonic.
Imagine saying, "Jesus is accursed" and
thinking that because the phenomena was ecstatic, it was acceptable. In
chapter 14 verse 2 Paul criticizes the Corinthians, "For one who speaks
in a language doesn't speak to men, but to God; for no one understands,
but in His spirit He speaks mysteries." He's not suggesting that you do
that, he's not suggesting that you go off all by yourself and speak in a
foreign language, or speak some kind of mystery, speak some kind of
gibberish. He's condemning that, he's criticizing that, he's using
irony; he's pointing out the futility of speaking in tongues without an
interpreter, without it being edifying, because only God knows if
anything was said. If you go off and do this privately, only God knows
what you're doing. you're just mumbling mysteries.
Spiritual
gifts were never intended for that, never, and so in verse 4 he says,
"The one who speaks gibberish," and here I think he is referring to
gibberish in the singular, "does nothing but build himself up; but the
one who prophesies edifies the whole church," and of course, he compares
tongues with prophecy. Even the legitimate gift of tongues took a
second seat, for sure, to prophecy, which everyone clearly understood.
But his point in verses 2 and 4 is that never was any spiritual gift for
self edification. So to say that I have my private prayer language to
build myself up and become Spiritman, strong, full of spiritual muscle,
is to miss the whole point. You do know don't you that your spiritual
gift really isn't for your benefit? Do you know that? Your spiritual
gift is to the benefits of others. "As each one has received a spiritual
gift," Peter says,
1 Peter 4:10, "Employ it in serving one another."
Paul
is not commending the use of tongues for self edification, but
condemning people who were using the gift in violation of its purpose
and in disregard of the principle of love, which he covered in chapter
13. If you do it for yourself you miss the whole point. It should never
be done, except it is interpreted, right? That eliminates the private
prayer language.
They were using tongues in Corinth and it wasn't
even the real language gift; it was a fabrication coming from their
pagan background. It was a counterfeit and they were doing it to build
themselves up; it was egocentric, it was to make them appear spiritual.
They wanted to exercise the most spectacular, showy display in front of
other believers. Paul's point is that nobody profits from that kind of
exhibition except the person speaking in tongues, and the chief value he
gets out of it is to build up his own ego.
Now tongues posed
another problem in Corinth, used as they were in Corinth; they obscured,
rather than clarified the message they were intended to convey, they
made it difficult. Look at verse 16 he says, "If you bless in the spirit
only, how will the one fills the place of the ungifted say the 'Amen'
at your giving of thanks, since he doesn't know what you are saying?"
What a statement. "For you are giving thanks well enough, but the other
man is not edified." In other words, he says, the tongue speakers in
Corinth were being selfish. They were ignoring the rest of the people in
the congregation. They were muddying the message the gift was designed
to communicate, doing it to gratify their own egos to show off and
demonstrate their spirituality, and nobody could even say Amen because
nobody knew what they were saying.
You may be giving thanks well
enough. I mean, it is possible that you may be even exercising the true
gift, but the way you're doing it doesn't edify anybody. I tend to think
that what he is saying here is mostly a condemnation. In light of all
this, somebody might say, well look at the end of chapter 12, it says,
"Earnestly desire the greater gifts." Shouldn't we take that as boy we
really ought to desire this, that has to be properly understood?
See
that little phrase, "But earnestly desire the greater gifts." People
say, well see that's a good reason for you to go out and desire this
gift. But that - first of all it's in the plural, not singular. It
doesn't say an individual Christian should desire a certain gift. He
already has said in chapter 12 verse 11, that the Holy Spirit gives
whatever gift He wants to whoever He wants. It isn't the question of
desire, it is sovereignly given. What he is really saying here is this;
it should be translated this way, "You are coveting the showy gifts." It
isn't an imperative; it really should be an indicative. It's a
statement of fact not a command, and by the way, in the Greek the
imperative and the indicative are the same form.
Albert Barnes
takes it as the indicative; so do many other commentators Doderidge,
Locke, and McKnight. Barnes observes that the Syriac New Testament
renders the verse the same way. The New International version has it
right. The New International says, "You are eagerly desiring the greater
gifts, you're seeking these showy things." Then he says, "But I want to
show you a better way; not that way. You're jealously coveting
spectacular things, it's a rebuke, I'll show you a better way," and then
he goes on to describe love, and then in 14 he goes on to describe the
proper use of the gifts, so they were abusing these things in a number
of ways.
Now a statement that Paul makes in chapter 13 bears
repeating to you, because it suggests to us that tongues would come to
an end. That it served a purpose in the apostolic era, but it would end.
I don't want to get too tied up, but look down in verse 8, "Love never
fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy they will be done away; if
there are tongues they'll cease; if there is knowledge it will be done
away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect
comes, the partial will be done away." Now the statement made here in
verse 8 is that tongues will cease. It means literally to cease
permanently. It says there is going to come a time when they stop;
prophecy and knowledge will be done away. That's a passive verb,
something will stop prophecy, something will stop knowledge, but we know
what it is because verses 9 and 10 tells us, "We know in part, we
prophesy in part;" there are those two things, prophecy and knowledge
and what's going to stop them is the perfect, in verse10.
You
say, what's the perfect thing? I believe it is the eternal state. When
the eternal state comes, prophecy will end and knowledge will end, but
they haven't ended yet, and there's going to be a flourishing of
knowledge, and a flourishing of prophecy in the millennial Kingdom until
the perfect comes, the perfect state, the eternal state, prophecy and
knowledge will go on and than they will be stopped. Something will act
on them to stop them, but tongues will cease by itself, it's a middle
voice verb, tongues will cease by themselves. There'll come a time when
they cease, and they'll cease permanently.
Now this poses a very
interesting problem. We need only to ask one question, did they cease?
Because if they did, they ceased permanently, right? Did they cease?
They're not going to be around when the perfect thing comes, clearly
verse 9 only refers to prophecy and knowledge being around at that
point, tongues will cease by itself. Nothing will stop it; it will cease
by itself, it will just end. Now our Charismatic friends tell us that
all the gifts continue and tongues have not ceased. We believe they
have, and how can we support that? Just very briefly, when you look at
history, you look at theology, you look at the Bible itself, I believe
you can demonstrate that tongues ceased and that when they ceased they
ceased, and that was it.
First of all, tongues was a miraculous,
revelatory gift, and we have noted repeatedly in this study, the Age of
Miracles and Revelation ended with the Apostles and those who worked
along side of them. The last recorded miracles in the New Testament
occurred around A.D. 58; note that, because the last book wasn't written
until A.D. 96 so you have almost 40 years with no supernatural wonders
going on, even in the time in which the New Testament is still being
written. From A.D. 58 to A.D. 96 when John finished the Book of
Revelation, no miracle was ever recorded. Miracle gifts like tongues and
healings are mentioned only in 1Corinthians, which is a very early
epistle. Two later epistles, Ephesians and Romans, both discuss
spiritual gifts, but neither mention these sign gifts. Isn't that an
interesting point? The later epistles discussing the gifts don't mention
the sign gifts. No mention is made of the miraculous gifts; only in
this very early epistle. By that time miracles were already looked on as
something in the past, read Hebrews 2, 3, and 4, it was something
already in the past. Apostolic authority had already been affirmed, the
message needed no further confirmation, and before the first century
ended, the New Testament was written, circulated through the churches,
the revelatory gifts had ceased to have a purpose and so they passed
away.
Second, tongues were identified as a sign to unbelieving
Israel. They signified God had begun a new work which encompassed the
Gentiles, and once that message was made, and that was made clear to
Israel, it was really not necessary to keep repeating it. Again, it was a
period of transition, they had been the people primarily involved in
the old covenant; now the church was in the new covenant in the time of
transition. The sign was made to Israel, that's done with. We're now in
the new covenant, no sense in repeating and repeating and repeating and
repeating the sign.
O. Palmer Robertson articulates it this way,
"Tongues served well to show that Christianity, though begun in the
cradle of Judaism, was not to be distinctively Jewish." Now that the
transition between old and new covenants has been made, the sign of
transition has no abiding value in the life of the church. Today there's
no need for a sign to show that God is moving from the single nation of
Israel to all the nations. That movement has become an accomplished
fact, as in the case of the founding office of Apostle, so the
particularly transitional gift of tongues has fulfilled its function as
covenantal sign for the old and new covenant people of God. Once having
fulfilled that role it has no further function among the people of God.
Furthermore,
the gift of tongues was inferior to the other gifts. It was primarily a
sign gift; it couldn't really edify the church as prophecy, that is,
preaching and teaching could. It was easily misused to edify oneself and
build oneself up, and since the church meets for edification, better to
pursue prophecy. Furthermore, history records that tongues did cease. I
don't need to go into all the details. You find, as I said, it begins
to cease after 1 Corinthians, it doesn't appear any more. Peter never
mentions tongues, James never mentions tongues, John never mentions
tongues, Jude never mentions tongues, they just don't talk about them.
In
the post apostolic age there's no affirmation of tongues. Cleon Rogers
wrote, "It is significant that the gift of tongues is nowhere alluded
to, hinted at, or even found in the apostolic Fathers, which came after
the early church. Chrysotom, Augustine, those Early Church theologians
of the Eastern and Western Churches, considered tongues absolutely
obsolete and non-existent."
During the first 500 years of the
church, the only time you really see any claim to tongues are the
followers of Montanist, who was branded a heretic. The next time any
significant tongue speaking arises is in the late 17th century. A group
of militant Protestants in the Sevenall region of southern France began
to prophesy, experience visions, and speak in tongues, now we're talking
the 17th century. They were known as the Sevenall Prophets and they
were remembered for their political and military activities, not their
spiritual legacy. Many of their prophecies were unfulfilled. They were
rabidly anti-Catholic and advocated the use of armed force against the
Catholic Church. Many of them were consequently persecuted and killed by
Rome.
At the other end of the spectrum were the Jansenists, who
were Roman Catholic loyalists who opposed the Reformers' teaching on
justification by faith and claimed to be able to speak in tongues. Then
there were the Shakers, they were an American sect of Quaker roots that
flourished in the mid-1700's, the 18thCentury. They were led by Mother
Ann Lee; and Mother Ann, a strange name for someone like her, because
she regarded herself as the female equivalent of Jesus Christ and
claimed to be able to speak 72 languages and believed that sexual
intercourse, even in marriage, was sinful. Now how you can believe that
and be called Mother Ann Lee, I'm not sure. Not only that, how you can
believe that teaching and expect your movement to last, I'm not sure.
They spoke in tongues while dancing and singing in a trance. In the
early 19th century Scottish Presbyterian pastor, Edward Irving, and
members of his congregation practiced speaking in tongues and some of
these other Charismatic things. They became known as Irvingites. Their
movement was discredited, false prophecies; they were attributing some
of their gifts to evil spirits. They became the Catholic Apostolic
Church, taught many false doctrines, embraced several strange and
bizarre things, created apostolic offices, etc.
Now all of these
supposed manifestations of tongues were always identified as heretical,
fanatical, unorthodox, outside the church, and we conclude that when
they ceased they ceased, and there have been continual off and on
fabrications of counterfeit tongues. Since these gifts did cease, the
burden of proof is on the Charismatics to prove that what's happening
today is valid. Why do we always have to get backed in the corner and
prove our case? Why don't they take the Bible and prove theirs and look
at history as well and do the same?
Some have said, well this is
the final outpouring of the Spirit, no it's not. The final outpouring of
the Spirit Joel wrote about, will be in the millennial Kingdom, this is
not the millennial Kingdom, and so there's so many doctrinal,
historical issues at hand. Now that leads us to a concluding thought,
what kind of things are they doing then? What is going on? How do we
explain what they do? Well, if you ask them they'll say things like
this, "What's the use of in speaking in tongues? The only way I can
answer that is to say, what's the use of a bluebird? What's the use of a
sunset? Just sheer, unmitigated uplift. Just joy unspeakable and with
it health, and peace, and rest, and release from burdens and tensions."
Well
that's pretty great stuff, or they might say, when I started praying in
tongues I felt, and people told me I looked 20years younger. I am built
up, I am given joy, courage, peace, the sense of God's presence, and I
happen to be a weak personality who needs this.
Well that kind of
testimony is a pretty heavy pitch, pretty powerful. If it can give you
health, happiness, and make you look younger, then the potential market
is unlimited. On the other hand the evidence to support such claims is
dubious. Would anyone seriously argue, seriously, that today's tongues
speakers live holier lives? Live more consistent lives than believers
who don't speak in tongues? What about all the Charismatic leaders in
recent years whose lives have proved to be morally and spiritually
bankrupt? Does the evidence show that Charismatic churches are, on the
whole, spiritually stronger and more solid than Bible believing churches
that do not advocate the gifts?
The truth is, you must look long
and diligently to find a Charismatic fellowship where spiritual growth
and Biblical understanding are genuinely at the heart. If that kind of
stuff doesn't produce more spiritual Christians or believers who are
better informed theologically, then what is it doing? What of the many
former tongue speakers who testify they didn't experience peace,
satisfaction, power, joy, or find the fountain of youth when they spoke
in tongues.
Why does it produce so much disillusionment? Why is the
emotional high in the initial ecstatic experience harder and harder to
duplicate? No, it's significant to note that Pentecostals and
Charismatics can't substantiate their claim that what they are doing is
the Biblical gift. There's really no evidence to prove it. There's no
evidence that it's language. You say then, what is it? Could be demonic,
could be satanic.
I think it was in Corinth, in some cases,
could be that. Ecstatic speech is a part of many pagan religions in
Africa, East Africa. Tonga people of Africa, when a demon is exorcised,
sing in Zulu even though they say they don't know the Zulu language.
Ecstatic speech is found today among Muslims, Eskimos, Tibetan monks.
It's involved in para-psychological occult groups. Did you know that the
Mormons, even Joseph Smith himself advocates speaking in tongues? It
could be demonic.
Secondly, it could be learned behavior; you
just learn how to do it. If you can go to the Hunter's seminar, they'll
jump start you. It could be psychological. It could be a kind of a
self-induced hypnosis, a kind of a trance, where you just yield up all
of your will, and you yield up your vocal cords and you empty out your
brain, and the power of suggestion takes over and you become
psychologically induced, and once you've that experience, you then learn
to do it and just do it. Many studies have been done to show that it is
psychological, but the burden of proof is really not on us to prove
what it is. Suffice it to say that this unique gift given for the
apostolic time is irreproducible today, and whatever purports to be that
is not that, it is something counterfeit.
A myriad of studies,
which I'll deal with in the book, and when you get a copy you can read
them in detail, give evidence of the fact that motor-autonomism,
ecstasy, hypnosis, psychic-catharsis, collective psyche, memory
excitation, and all other kind of terms are used to describe people who
go into these kinds of trance like experiences. Then on the majority of
occasions it is just learned behavior, you just learn to say it and so
you say it.
It is interesting to me that I have listened to
people speak in tongues in many different parts of this country, on many
different occasions, through many years, and I find very similar
verbiage, so what they learn kind of gets filtered and passed through
the whole movement. Why do people want to do this? Why are they getting
into this? Well, many people are hungry to get whatever is missing in
their spiritual life and they don't know that it is all about learning
the Word and walking in the Spirit.
They think they can get it in
one big dose, in a sort of a shot, a jolt out of heaven. Many people
are hungry to express themselves spiritually and they've been coming to
church for years and they aren't involved, and they find a place where
they can speak out and go through this expression, and it kind of
releases their pent up feelings.
Some people want acceptance and
security. Some people need to somehow verbalize their spirituality
because they have so many doubts, that they're looking for something to
prove that they're really Christians, and so they want to find some act,
some verbalization, some physical thing that can help convince them
their Christianity is real. Some people have been sitting in dead, cold
churches for so long that the lifelessness, that permeates their
religious experience, causes them to cry out for something other than
what they've experienced.
Having said all that let me say this,
there are a lot of things worse than speaking in tongues. Can I throw
one at you? Gossip, that surprise you? If you speak in tongues, that's
bad, but it doesn't normally affect other people in a negative way. If
you gossip that will, so I just needed to say that as a footnote, unless
we walk out of here and think because we don't speak in tongues
everything is under control. Better you should talk gibberish that
nobody understands, than gossip, just to put it in perspective. Well, I
have more to say, but I don't have any time to say it, and I've got to
come back in two weeks and move to the next theme.
Let's pray.
Father, thank You for the clarity of Your Word. We want to basically
understand these issues in the light of Your Scripture. We want to love
our true brothers in Christ who are in this movement. We do recognize
what Your Word teaches about this gift, and yet Lord, we want to be
sensitive and gracious and loving to those who are caught up in it.
Father, we do pray that You'll help us understand that what You want is
not for us to blank out our minds, but to love You with all our heart,
and soul, and mind, and strength. That what You desire out of us is not
that we think on nothing, but that whatever is true and pure, and
lovely, and honest, and of good report, we think on these things. Not
that we have a blank mind but that we have a renewed mind.
Lord,
not that we seek some mystical, inexplicable experience, but that we
come to know You, the true and living God, and Your Son Jesus Christ,
through the knowledge of the Word, wherein we are made strong. Father,
we will find no benefit spiritually in mystical, ecstatic, emotional
highs, but we do find great benefit in the truth, committed to our
hearts through the Word and applied by the Spirit, and so we pray
Father, that You will direct us continually into Your truth, that we
might live for Your praise, in Christ's Name, Amen.
