In this issue we come to the stage of considering the evidence of scripture. What did happen at Pentecost? What had Jesus promised that the work of the comforter would be? The answer to these questions invites comparisons with 20th century claims that the experience of Pentecost is still happening today.
When Paul wrote to the believers at Corinth he made it clear that if any speak in tongues there should be an interpreter, “but if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence…” (1 Cor. 14:27-28) Paul was seeking to regulate the practice of tongue speaking within the assembly of believers, that all things might “be done decently and in order.” (v.40)
What The Holy Spirit Was Sent To Accomplish
There is, in the eyes of many, some difficulty in reconciling Corinthians and Acts. It is essential to consider Acts first and its testimony on the use of tongue speaking — for this book is the backbone to our proper understanding of much that Paul wrote. It is plain in the opening chapter of Acts and in the concluding chapters of the Gospels that the disciples had no clear idea of what to expect of the nature of the promised Comforter (or Counsellor, r.s.v.) and what it would mean to be “endued with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49) Jesus had said he would not leave them “comfortless”; he had described this “Comforter” as “the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” (John 14:17) Furthermore, “he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” (v.26) In John’s 16th chapter we find the work of the “Comforter” described in careful detail, “… when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment; Of sin, because they believe not on me; Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” (v.8-11) This gave the Apostles some idea of the purpose of the “power” — they had a work of “reproving” to do! (“convince and convict” — Amplified Version) — they were to tackle the princes of this world! They must have been apprehensive!
Jesus continues — “I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth…” (v.12-13) One thing should strike home to us in all this — all that is forecast here is directly relevant to the disciples themselves and in most cases would be fulfilled and accomplished in them. There were many things which Jesus could not teach them then — they could not accept it as a fact that Jesus was going to die — let alone understand why! And the need for a perfect memory —spelled out by direct implication that the things he had taught he would not teach again — theirs would be the task to write it down — or to tell others so that they could.[1] This indicated the superiority of the written testimony (by Divine command)
As our thoughts turn to the waiting disciples in the “room” in Jerusalem we are in a better position to see what they anticipated as they waited for “power from on high”. If we can stand back, as it were, and take in the full perspective of the panorama presented in Acts, we shall better see how their anticipations were realized. First we see the miracles of tongues and healing which brought the crowds around the disciples. This in turn brought the ire of the religious leaders and led to the “reproving” of them in various ways as the Holy Spirit, through the disciples, condemned them. We see the Spirit convicting sinners as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira. It was to “show you things to come,” (John 16:13) and this it did for example in forecasting the imprisonment of Paul. It led them, directed where they were to preach and so on.
If we can keep this whole perspective of the work of the Spirit in our minds, we will see how badly these modern Pentecostal practices have failed in their attempts to appreciate and imitate the outworkings of the first Century Pentecost.
The Effect Of The Filling Of The Spirit
Now we will look more particularly at Acts 2 and the first bestowal of the Spirit. In verse 4, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Compare this with Chapter 4:31: “And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spake the word of God with boldness.” The filling of the Spirit manifested itself in different ways according to the needs of the particular circumstance. It is important to note that they only spake in other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance. They were sitting in the house (ch.2 v.2) when the cloven tongues like fire came. (v.3) But when they spoke in tongues it was “noised abroad” so that a “multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language,” (v.6) which implies that there was some time lapse until a multitude of more than 3,000 could assemble. In the same way, in Ch. 4:31, where the filling of the Spirit resulted in speaking the word with boldness, it seems reasonable to say this really produced what is described in v.33: “And with great power gave the apostles witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.” Here again there is a time lapse from the “filling” to the “utterance” — they had been “assembled together” — but they had to go out to the multitude to “witness.”
The tragedy of dealing with Pentecostals is that it is well-nigh impossible to reason with them from Scripture. As we have observed before — the man with an “experience” is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. However, Pentecostals generally have had to face up to the fact that all the evidence points to the events of Pentecost being a demonstration of literal languages. Looking at the scene objectively, we can see the marvelous wisdom of the Lord in this — for here in Jerusalem were assembled at that particular time “devout men, out of every nation under heaven.” (2:5) What better way for the Spirit to begin its work —the seed would begin to spread into all nations immediately. The impact of the miracle would soon create a situation that would lead to the envy of the priests and bring the Spirit, working through the disciples, into conflict with them —and the convicting of sin would begin.
It should surely be significant that so little stress is made of “tongue speaking” in the New Testament. After the bestowal in Jerusalem “tongues” are only mentioned twice more in Acts. They are not mentioned in any other letter of Paul outside of 1st Corinthians. When Paul gives Timothy instructions on the qualifications of bishops and deacons there is no hint of “tongues” whatsoever. If this “second blessing” of modern Pentecostalism is claimed to be truly Apostolic belief and practice, it is not difficult to demonstrate from Scripture that it is not so. The trouble is that such demonstrations fall on closed ears.
It is for this reason I have hesitated to write much on the angle of Scripture proof in this series — believing that if it is going to be possible to shake the convictions of a modern Pentecostalist, the most likely way will be to introduce doubts into his mind about the validity of his experience.
Tongues Always Real Language
Now, to come back to the main point of this present article; Acts reveals tongues as an actual language, it doesn’t seem necessary to go into the Greek to prove this — although proof is there if it should be challenged. The 2nd. example in the book is at the conversion of Cornelius (Ch. 10) where the bestowal of the gift is evidently an act of the Spirit directed at convincing Peter and the other Jews that God hath “also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” (Acts 11:18) If it is doubted that the “tongues” here were actual languages we have Peter’s testimony when he returned to Jerusalem to report the matter, “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them, as on us at the beginning.” (11:15) The Holy Spirit had manifested itself in actual languages at the beginning — it did so again now. The record says “For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God” and they were “astonished.” (10:45, 46) This suggests that they spoke in Hebrew or Aramaic; otherwise Peter would not have known that they were magnifying God —and being Romans, their mother tongue would have been Latin. We cannot press these speculations too far as God could have given Peter the “Gift of interpretation.” But this seems less likely. The other mention of tongues in Acts is in Ch. 19. This involved some who had known only John’s baptism. Paul baptised them into Christ and then laid hands on them and they received the Spirit and “spake with tongues and prophesied.” (19:6) When it is remembered that Paul sets the gift of prophecy above the gift of tongues (I Cor. 14:5) we can keep this incident in its right perspective. If these former converts of John the Baptist were Judeans, they would find the gift of tongues helpful to them as they travelled in Asia. This also seems the only logical reason why Paul would claim “I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than you all.” (I Cor. 14:18), for Paul travelled more than them all — even as far as Spain. (Rom. 15)
This illuminates the real difference between Acts and Corinthians. Whereas in Acts the gift of tongues is put to its proper use — a means of witness to or by unbelievers, at Corinth, the gift had been adapted to use in church services. Note that Paul, after affirming that he spoke in tongues more than they all, immediately goes on to say “Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding… than ten thousand words in a tongue.” (14:19) Only the most blind would fail to see that Paul is urging them to concentrate on the more useful gifts in Church services, although not completely “forbidding to speak with tongues.” (14:39)
Tongues For Devotional Use?
There is an attempt by many Pentecostals to make out that the “tongues” referred to in the letter to the Corinthians are not known human languages — but rather an angelic speech designed for our own personal devotions to God. There are two main points made by Paul which pull most of the ground from under this way of thinking. Those who hold this view place their convictions on the text of verses 2 and 4 of the 14th chapter; but notice the line of thought Paul is developing — if no man understands you (v.2) you “speak into the air. ” (v.9) And then in verse 10 we read (Amplified trans) “There are I suppose, all these many (to us unknown) tongues in the world (somewhere) and none is destitute of (its own power of) expression and meaning.” This is a plain enough statement! But he makes a further point in verse 22 — “Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.” And this is demonstrated in Acts! This is what they should be used for and when we glance back at verse 2, “For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men but unto God,” we note it is followed by the words “for no man understandeth him,” showing that the real point is that only God understands him and isn’t this rather a waste! Taken in context, there is no commendation here for men to indulge in this use of the Gift, instead there is a degree of selfishness (v.4) and what is said is a mystery and remains so. (v.2) While we cannot say Paul condemned this practice, it is surely very plain he did not encourage it.
The Need For An Interpretation
The only way tongues could be used in the assembly was for it to be followed by an interpretation. Yet even this Paul does not encourage. He urges them to “be not children in understanding” (v.20) and makes the point that it is a sign to unbelievers. I am reminded of a comment by a former Pentecostal (now a brother) of the tediousness of it all. He recalled the Pastor speaking in tongues for half an hour or more and then taking longer still to give the interpretation. What is the value of this long way round? Another point here is the nature of these interpretations. I have personally heard only one case of tongues followed by an interpretation. It was most unconvincing. The Pastor had spoken at length in his introduction about how mightily the Spirit was going to move amongst them that night. Then a lady in the front uttered some unintelligible syllables for half a minute, the Pastor called for anyone with an interpretation and a woman at the back behind me gave a two sentence interpretation to the effect that there was going to be a great demonstration of the power and healing of the Holy Spirit that night. Thus the interpretation was just an echo of the speaker’s opening oration.
As we have mentioned previously, [2]Koch, in his researches encountered 6 cases of tongue-speaking which he classified as “good” — one of these involved a prayer meeting where there was an interpretation, the other 5 were all cases of the use of tongues in private devotions by an individual (or individuals in one case). His one example of an interpretation I found illuminating. I went to a prayer meeting. It did not cross my mind that there were people present who could speak in tongues. Suddenly a simple woman did just this. The language was very rich in vocals and sounded almost like ancient Greek. When she had finished, she prayed, ‘Lord give the interpretation’ She then prayed a second time and spoke about the triumphant march of the Gospel throughout all the world till the second coming of Christ.[3]
Is this interpretation in accord with Scripture? It is not; and thus proves, of itself, that it is not of God. The main criteria of the other “good” instances appears to be that those involved are “believing”, “real”, Christians. e.g. “She is a brave woman whom I respect a lot. Her life is marked by the signs of God’s blessing.” However, if this is the sole basis of “proof” we must surely hesitate. To be honest to Koch, he does refer back to these “good” instances in his summing up at the end of his book, observing “.
Concerning the gift of tongues, I have not a single example which I can describe without any doubt as being both scriptural and genuine. As I have said, examples 6 to 12 may be genuine but I have no complete assurance that they are. [4]We might also note that only one of these examples is a man; the preponderance of women is a common feature of this whole matter.
Involved in all this is the question of whether, Scripturally, it can be plainly affirmed that the gift of tongues and most other gifts ceased after the Apostolic era? We must beware of making Scripture say what we want it to say, but we must leave this question for the moment.
Sources
[1] It is stated in the writings of the early fathers that John mark derived his Gospel from the personal testimony of Peter to him.
[2] Believer No. 12 p.9.
[3] Koch: STRIFE OF TONGUES p.21.
[4] Ibid p.43.
The Solution