Note by Phil Scovell.
I obtained the electronic text version of this sermon many years
ago by downloading it from a bulletin board system (BBS) long
before the internet days. The comments which follow about the
transcription of the text are not mine but those of the one who
did the translation work. My rebuttal is also displayed on this
website for those who are interested in reading both sides. The
transcribers contact information is at the end of this document
but I doubt it is valid after all these years.
End Of Note.
CHARISMATIC CHAOS AND SPEAKING IN TONGUES
By
John MacArthur
The following message was delivered at Grace Community Church in
Panorama City, California, By John MacArthur Jr. It was
transcribed from the tape, GC 90-61, titled "Charismatic Chaos"
Part 10. A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of
Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412.
I have made every effort to ensure that an accurate transcription
of the original tape was made. Please note that at times
sentence structure may appear to vary from accepted English
conventions. This is due primarily to the techniques involved
in preaching and the obvious choices I had to make in placing
the correct punctuation in the article.
It is my intent and prayer that the Holy Spirit will use this
transcription of the sermon, "Charismatic Chaos" Part 10, to
strengthen and encourage the true Church of Jesus Christ.
Charismatic Chaos - Part 10
"Speaking in Tongues"
by
John MacArthur
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 Kindergartner
children how to speak in tongues. It's titled, "I've Been
Filled with the Holy Spirit," and it is an eight paged 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 1
Corinthians 14:4, "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, and 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," (sp.). A
cartoon styled balloon then comes out his mouth and repeats the
words, "Bal Li Ode Da Ma Ta Las Si Ta No Ma," (sp.). 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,
noncognative 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?"
And 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. And 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 to. 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
[that] they are not supposed to be thinking, quote, 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!" Later
he adds, "You don't even have to think in order to pray in the
Spirit!"
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, and he said this,
It involves you with someone you are deeply in love with
and devoted to. We don't understand the verbiage, but we
know we are 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 are 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,
New Mexico, 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 is nothing ever to compare
with that taste." And other of those people who have that
experience might echo sentiments similar to those. And I am
just quoting you what they themselves say.
And 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.
And then ask yourself the question, "Could I, through this means
be deceived, could this be dangerous?" And 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
Grand Rapids, 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 the tongues experience. He said it is 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!
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 is a
tremendous sense that they have arrived spiritually. And 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
withdrawal 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.
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 Bird (sp.) who wrote a book entitled, "The Truth
About Speaking in Tongues." There are others who practice
tongues and can turn the phenomena on and off mechanically, and
without feeling anything emotional. Recently, I knew of a
pastor, knew 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 speakers use, and they do it
without passion.
Now, I have 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 16:17); Acts (three times, Acts 2, 10, 19); and
then in 1 Corinthians. Those are the only three books of the
Bible that mention tongues. Now, earlier in our study you will
remember that we looked into Acts, didn't we? And we saw
something about this gift of tongues, as it has become known, in
the Book of Acts. We discovered that when it occurred in the
Book of Acts, it was a known language (we will 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. And 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. And 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:
1. Tongues is a sign to unbelievers. It's a sign that God is
speaking. It's a sign to unbelievers.
2. 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.
3. Never are more than three people to do it, and they are to do
it in sequence, not at the same time.
4. There is to be no speaking in tongues unless it is
interpreted.
5. 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.
6. Women are never to do it, for they are to remain silent and
not to speak in tongues.
And then as he comes to the end of chapter 14, Paul tells them to
recognize these regulations as a commandment of the Lord as
absolutely imperative: you have no option. In verse 37, he
says, "If you think you are a prophet or you think you are
spiritual, then you better recognize that what I have just said
is the Lord's command!" And 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. And
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 and 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.
And so there are some very clear restrictions given here. To be
honest with you, if those restriction were followed in the
contemporary tongue speaking movement, the movement would come
to almost a total halt. And 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. And he is saying, "In all spiritual gifts the
proper motive is love to other people." And 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. It's noise.
And 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 are
not motivated by love, it's 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.
And as I said, angels don't ever appear in Scripture talking in
anything other than human language. You can compare Luke,
chapter 1 and chapter 2 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!" And 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), 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 double-talk, 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 is 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. And 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." And 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 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"
(Gk.) [and it] means language. They were hearing people speak
in their own language. That's all, it wasn't some angel talk,
some gibberish, some gobbledygook, some nonsense talk. And then
it says also they were hearing in their own "dialektos" (Gk.)--
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 [Bible], they took the word "unknown" out. Why?
Because it wasn't in the original! They spoke in a tongue.
What is it? "glossa" (Gk.) a language.
Whatever the gift is here in the Corinthian Church, it is 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, 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 "glossa" he'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 gobbledygook 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 will 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 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" (Gk.), which means translation. All he is 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.
[In] verse 5 of 1 Corinthians 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-existence
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 can 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. Do 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 [they] 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" (sp. Gk., which simply means to speak
languages from "glossa" and "laleo" to speak languages) isn't the
same as the Biblical gift.
William Sameron (sp.) 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
(sp.) of Los Angeles. I have interviewed tongue speakers
and tape recorded and analyzed countless samples of
tongues. In every case, "glossolalia" turns out to be
linguistic nonsense. In spite of superficial similarities,
"glossolalia" is fundamentally not language!
William Sameron (sp.) 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 is 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 are 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
benefit 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 to the principle of love, which he
covered in chapter 13. If you do it for yourselves you miss the
whole point. It should never be done, except it be 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.
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 tongues
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."
Well, first of all it is 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 (sp.), Locke, 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 desire the greater gifts
(1CO 12:31), 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 will 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, "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;" there are
those two things: prophecy and knowledge. And what's going to
stop them is "the perfect" (in verse 10).
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
is 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 then 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
will come a time when they cease, and they will 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 are 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, when you look at
theology, [when] you look at the Bible itself, I believe that 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 [as]
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 is ever
recorded. Miracle gifts like tongues and healings are mentioned
only in 1 Corinthians, 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, and 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 that God had begun a new work which encompassed
the Gentiles, and once that message was made, and that it 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 are 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 is
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 it's 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'll 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 is no mention of tongues. Cleon Rodgers (sp.) 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. Chrysostom, 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 (sp.) 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' teachings on
justification by faith and claimed to be able to speak in
tongues. And then there were the Shakers, they were an
American sect of Quaker roots that flourished in the mid 1700's,
the 18th century. 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 a
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 [with] 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 is 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
will say things like this,
What's the use 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."
Boy, that's pretty great stuff! Or they might say,
When I started praying in tongues I felt, (and people told
me) I looked 20 years 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.
Now, 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? And 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? And 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 is 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 is 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 is involved in parapsychological
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 will "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 have 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 [Charismatic Chaos], and when
you get a copy you can read them in detail, give evidence of the
fact that motor-autonomism (sp.), 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. And 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 have 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 are looking for something to prove that they
are really Christians, and so they want to find some act, some
verbalization, some physical thing that can help convince them
their Christianity is real. And 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 have experienced.
Now 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! Does 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! And 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 into 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 will 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.
Transcribed by Tony Capoccia of
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