The Gift of Tongues

Transcript

GR 2256
11/08/2020
The Gift of Tongues
Romans 12:6; 1 Corinthians 12-14
Gil Rugh

Turn to Romans chapter 12 in your Bibles. We’re talking about spiritual gifts. Before we look into this, let’s have a word of prayer together.

Thank You, Lord, for the riches of Your grace, Your wondrous love. Lord, You loved us when we were lost. You demonstrated that love by having Your Son become our Savior by coming to this earth and dying on the cross, providing the wondrous salvation. Lord, we are grateful that Your love continues. It’s an unending love. It’s an eternal love, and how blessed we are to be the objects of that love. Thank You for the riches of Your word. Lord, we come to it, recognizing the privilege and blessing that is ours, to be entrusted with Your truth, to be able to open it and study it together as Your children, to be nurtured and nourished in our faith, Lord, and to have our lives brought into greater conformity with the character of our Savior. In His name we pray. Amen.

Romans chapter 12. We’re talking about committing our lives to the Savior that loved us and died for us. Paul began this chapter by saying, “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice…” In other words, now that he unfolded through the first eleven chapters the greatness of God’s work in providing redemption for us, we are now to live out our new lives. These bodies are His, to be used for His purposes, and he moves into specific areas. The first area he is touching on is the area of spiritual gifts. We’ve been placed into the body of Christ and he uses the analogy of our physical body, and we noted that in verse 4, “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” We’re part of the one body, but we have the individual gifts that make the body function in a unified fashion and carry out all that God intends it to carry out. So, say, logical follow-through on the redemption that Christ has provided for us, that provided that the Holy Spirit would place us into the body of Christ. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…” 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 13, in a section that’s talking about spiritual gifts again. So, a very important area. That means we’re not just a collection of individuals who’ve come together to study God’s word. We are a body of people who have been bound together spiritually by the Spirit of God in this place, and especially enabled with God’s gifts to function in a way that is honoring to Him. This is a key part of presenting our bodies to Him as a living sacrifice. This is the follow-through on that.

Verse 6, “…we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us…” When God placed us into the body of Christ at our salvation, He provided a gift for us. Now obviously, we didn’t necessarily recognize that to begin with. And the analogy again of birth would fit that. A newborn baby born with all the parts, there’s a process of learning the place of each part, and how it should function. And so, we recognize our part in the body. And that may take place over time. We just don’t sit and wait to be discovered, but we look and see how God could use us and through that it will become clear what you are especially gifted, if you will, to do and contribute to the body. Others will recognize that as well.

We’ve moved a little bit beyond just what is in Romans 12 in talking about gifts. Since this is a subject that is misunderstood, and there are differences even among evangelical, Bible-believing Christians. So, we’ve been talking a little broadly. We’re not going to go as much into detail as Paul does in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, which is the fullest discussion of gifts. But we are talking about the fact that some of the gifts given to the church were temporary in nature, because remember, the church was something new. Throughout the Old Testament history, beginning in Genesis 12 really, God was dealing with what would be the nation Israel, out of Abraham’s descendants. As a result of their persistent rebellion against God, God has put them under discipline, which continues to today, and He began a new thing, if you will, called the church in Acts 2. And it is not an individual earthly nation, but it is a spiritual entity comprised of believers from all nations, all races, and so on. Now, with that new beginning, there are new things taking place.

We have a new entity, the body of Christ. So we have spiritual gifts given to that body. That’s what we’re talking about. Some of those gifts would have been given for the early stages of that body because there will be new revelation added to the old revelation, what we have as our New Testament, if you will, beginning particularly with the book of Acts. Since the gospels carry on the life of Christ on earth and they lived under the Old Testament system, the Mosaic Law and so on. God’s still dealing with Israel as a nation, but with their rejection of the Messiah and His crucifixion, the church begins. So with that there are gifts given.

But some of those will be given temporarily; just for the establishing of the church and providing a foundation. We talked about the gift of apostles and what characterized apostles, and noted in Ephesians 2 that apostles and prophets were given as the foundation for the church. But, with there being instruments of new revelation, we have our New Testament. So now, we have the foundation that we build upon for the church. Gifts like that and gifts associated with it. With new revelation being given, you had to have gifts given that would validate the fact that this was new revelation from God, so you have certain miracle gifts associated with that ministry. That indicated there was new revelation being given; God was validating its truthfulness. Apostleship was one of those gifts. John was the last living apostle; he wrote the book of Revelation under the direction of the Spirit of God. That closed out revelation. It’s the last book of our New Testament, but it was the last also of revelation given. He is the last of the surviving apostles, so it was fitting.

We talk about sign gifts. Sign gifts were evidences of God’s supernatural working. They were miracle gifts. I want to talk about the gift of tongues. We looked at a couple passages of Scripture like 2 Corinthians 12:12, which says that the signs of a true apostle were performed among you. That word “signs” is used for miracle gifts, giving evidence. They were signs of something. Signs that Paul was a true representative apostle of Jesus Christ, and what he was writing was the word of God. Even Peter recognized that when he was writing as an apostle. He said some twist the writings of Paul, even as they do the rest of Scripture. So he puts the writings of Paul on the same level as the Old Testament Scriptures. Paul said, I have the evidential gifts that are signs that what I am saying is the word from God. We looked in Hebrews 2:3-4, where those who received the word from God passed it on to us, God bearing witness with them with signs, wonders, and various miracles. So we just didn’t decide these were gifts associated with direct revelation. That was necessary because there were many false teachers around in those days, as we’ve seen as we’ve moved through the New Testament, just as there were in the Old Testament. So there were in the New Testament.

One of the major gifts was apostles. We’ll talk about prophets in a moment, but one of the sign gifts was the gift of tongues, and I want to talk a little bit about that because there’s misunderstanding of tongues. I guess they are still going on. I don’t get those television channels, but I have seen them and observed them where they are in the Charismatic movement and even on those channels sometimes the person speaking will just burst out in supposedly a special language that is God speaking in and through them. And it becomes a question what was the gift of tongues because we have to sort out.

First, we have to determine from Scripture just what the gift of tongues was. There are two possibilities. One, it was a unique language sometimes identified with 1 Corinthians chapter 13. “If I speak with the tongues of men and angels…” So, it was a unique, angelic kind of language not in anyway connected with the earthly language we speak. But we don’t have any evidence that angels spoke their own language. If they did it’s not recorded, because every time they speak in Scripture they speak in the language of the person they are addressing. So, I don’t think babbling speech qualifies. I will talk a little bit about this with some of the evidences.

The other is that “tongue” is a normal word for a language. We even use that today. What tongue do you speak? That may be a little bit dated, but since we use our tongue to form our words, the sounds, and shape the letters, and so on that go on to make up the words. Well, it becomes a synonym for a language, and that seems to fit. The New Testament indicates that tongues refer to foreign languages. I think a tongue is a language that you didn’t learn, but you could now speak. Like if you never studied Mandarin, one of the Chinese languages. Well, now all of a sudden you start speaking it or German or another language, but you had never studied it. So, I think it refers to a foreign language.

It’s used of the physical tongue in the bible, we won’t look at all those references. You can look up in a concordance the word “tongue” and you’ll see often it just refers to the physical tongue. It’s used of a foreign language. We’re not going to look at every reference, but I put some references down. Just turn to Revelation, chapter 5, verse 9, and you’ll see this as an example. In verse 9, “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the book, and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.’” Obviously, in that context he’s talking about tongue, every language from every tribe on earth, every language on earth, every people, and every nation. And those other references would be similar to that.

The second reason that would indicate we are talking about a foreign language is how it is used in Acts chapter 2. Come back to Acts chapter 2. And this is the first example of tongues that we have in the Bible. Not the first use of tongue as your physical tongue or even as a language, but used in the context that we’re talking about, as a gift and a manifestation, an evidence of the supernatural working of God. This is the day of Pentecost when the Church is being established for the first time. So we would think that we would go here to find out what the gift of tongues is, when here it is used in the context of the establishing of the Church. That is at least a reason to think it might establish what tongues is. What I’ve done in the “a” and “b” points here, point “a” in Acts 2, verse 4 and verse 11, use “glossa.” We get “glossolalia” which is the combination of “glossa,” tongue and “laleo,” to speak. So, glossolalia is speaking in tongues. So it uses the word “glossa.” We might pronounce it “glossa.”

Point “b,” in Acts chapter 2, verse 6 and verse 8, use the word “dialekto” and you can get that. We get the English word dialect from this word. There’s no disagreement on what it means. A dialect is a language. So let’s look at these passages. Acts chapter 2, verse 4, “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.” And then down in verse 11, “Cretans and Arabs--we hear them in our own tongues…” Well, they are obviously talking about their own language. This is the amazing thing. We can hear people whose language is different than ours because these were people who were coming from different places in the empire for the feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem and the language they used. But they said, we are hearing them in our own tongue, so obviously they are not saying we’re hearing a babbling speech we’ve never heard before. We are hearing them in our own tongue. So they are in the context. Verse 4, “…and began to speak with other tongues…” In verse 11, says that tongues mean that they were hearing the Cretans speak in their own tongues. Maybe they began to speak in Hebrew or another language that they came from in a different part of the empire.

In point “b” the use of the word “dialect” chapter 2, verse 6, “And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and they were bewildered, because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.” And you have noted in the margin note on that, “dialect.” So again, they speak in a tongue and that’s equated with they are speaking our language. Cretans, Arabs, here they are hearing them speak their own language. So these apostles for example speaking up, these people speaking didn’t learn all these languages, and now they are speaking them. There’s a miracle going on and everybody recognizes it. Down in verse 8, you have the same thing, “And how is it that we hear each of them in our own language (our own dialect) to which we were born?” And here’s some examples, “Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt…” and on you go. All these different people that have come to Pentecost, thousands. Amazing! They are speaking our language. How are they doing this? All of us with our diversity hearing the language to which we were born. So, I don’t think there’s any question that the use of tongues here is referring to the ability to speak in languages you have not learned or studied. And what is it doing? It’s demonstrating something supernatural going on.

The third point here, and we want to go to 1 Corinthians chapter 14. And this is in the context where Paul is writing more extensively about spiritual gifts. It started in chapter 12. Look at chapter 14, verse 21. “In the Law it is written, ‘By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people, and even so they will not listen to Me,’ says the Lord.” There are two passages that give this information. I put Isaiah first because that’s most connected with this. Deuteronomy 28:49 says the same thing. Come back to the Isaiah chapter 28 passage. Isaiah 28, look at verse 11, “Indeed, He will speak to this people through stammering lips and a foreign tongue.” A foreign language. Now this is important. Go back to Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 49. This is in the context if you are disobedient to the Law I’m giving you. Verse 45, “So all these curses shall come upon you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed…they shall be a sign and a wonder on you and your descendants forever. Since you did not serve the Lord…you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you. The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as the eagle swoops down; a nation whose language you do not understand…”

You see what’s going on in Israel? The evidence of a foreign language being spoken in the nation Israel in their history was an evidence of what? They had been conquered. They had come under the judgment of God. For example, the Assyrians had swept in and now we are hearing this language we don’t even know spoken among us. The Babylonians come in and the Persians, different nations come in and when you heard a foreign language being spoken broadly in the land of Israel it was an indication God had brought you under judgment. That’s what’s happening in Acts chapter 2. It’s amazing! But anybody familiar with the Old Testament, we’re hearing this foreign language; it was God telling Israel.

Come back to 1 Corinthians, chapter 14. That’s why Paul quotes from those two passages, particularly the Isaiah passage in speaking to the Corinthians, in verse 21, “In the Law it is written, ‘By men of strange tongues...” When the Law was written they weren’t talking about a babble speech. It may have sounded like babble, but everybody knew it was a language. It was a foreign tongue because God had brought judgment on Israel. “‘…even so they will not listen to Me…’” verse 21. In spite of what God said, the repeated judgment, Israel was experiencing that because they were under the domination of the Romans while Paul wrote. Any independence they had was granted to them by the Romans. We have that with the crucifixion of Christ. Who had to approve it? The Roman government, Pontius Pilate. The Jews said we don’t have the right to carry out His execution. Why didn’t they have the right? Because the Romans hadn’t delegated it to them. So on the day of Pentecost, that language being spoken, and remember that is a Jewish festival. These are Jews and any Gentiles would have been converts to Judaism that came up to celebrate the feast. And now they are hearing this language. It’s a miracle on that occasion, but it is a reminder that judgment has fallen. You know what’s happening in Acts 2? The Church is beginning. God has set aside Israel as a nation, and the presence of these languages not only are an indication something miraculous is happening, but they are an indication that the judgment of God has reached its severest level for the nation Israel. It’s not just a nation conquering them and they are hearing that language. They are being replaced, if you will, by nations that will speak other languages because the Gentiles, as we’ve seen in chapters 9, 10, and 11 have been placed into the center of God’s work of salvation in the church age.

So Acts chapter 2 is crucial and then you look into 1 Corinthians 14 and Paul connects it with what the Law says. So during the time of the apostles this gift of tongues was an ongoing manifestation in this unique way to the nation Israel, you are under judgment. Now after the church has been founded, that gift is not any longer necessary to be carried on, because we have the rest of Scripture that explains things, as Paul has done for us earlier in chapters 9, 10, and 11 of the book of Romans. God doesn’t have to keep doing the same thing, providing the same evidences. But He did from the beginning of the Church and through that early period of the Church. It was not only a miracle gift connected with the ministry of apostles and new revelation, but it was an ongoing reminder that the Jews were under God’s judgment. His work was being carried on among the nations where diverse languages were being spoke.

A fourth indication, the word “kinds” used in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 10. “…and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another kinds of tongues.” That’s what it is connected with in 1 Corinthians 12, like verse 10, “kinds of tongues” and the word is “genos.” We bring it over; Greek doesn’t have a soft “g,” but we bring it over into words like genealogy. It’s the word geno and it means kinds. Well, different “kinds of tongues,” so this is not just angelic language. He’s talking about different kinds of languages. That’s these and I put on there if you went to a Greek dictionary and looked up the Greek word geno, these aren’t Greek letters. I transliterated them over, but you would find it means nationality, race, kindred people. In Philippians chapter 3, verse 5, it is translated by the word “nation.” So, you can see what it means as there are different nationalities of tongues, people languages. These kinds of things indicate the meaning of the word.

It’s used on special occasions in the book of Acts. We find it on four special occasions. The use of tongues in the book of Acts, so we have a slide for that also. I put on the bottom there, “The gift of tongues was a supernatural ability to speak a foreign language that a person did not know.” That’s what the gift of tongues is. The supernatural ability to speak in a foreign language which a person did not know. So if I’ve never studied any language you put in and I just began to speak, that would be the gift of tongues.

Its first use is in Acts chapter 2, in the context of the Jews. And we’re going to find when you move through the book of Acts that the gift of tongues is manifested in connection with moving the church in its outreach to a new people group, if I can use that. So, in the book of Acts we are going to start with the Jews and in the early part of Acts the church is Jewish. Any Gentiles would have come out of the converts to Judaism and maybe some isolated individuals, but basically it’s Jewish. And we know that Peter, when you get to chapter 10, wasn’t even ready to go to the Gentiles. Boy, I wouldn’t go to Gentiles with the gospel. So, it starts out with the Jews and the gift of tongues we saw in Acts chapter 2.

You come to Acts chapter 8 and you have another special group, the Samaritans. The Samaritans were mixed blood Jews. In other words, when Jews had been carried off into other parts by conquering people which was the practice of conquerors to deport people from their homeland, you deport all but the poorest, most insignificant people and transplant them to another part of your empire because they are less likely to stir up rebellion, because they don’t belong there. They don’t have any connection there. They’re not going to develop a desire to regain their homeland. So that’s what the Assyrians did when they conquered the northern ten tribes. That’s what the Babylonians did. Why did Daniel end up being in Babylon? Because he was one of those people who were deported. Jeremiah was given a choice by Nebuchadnezzar, you can stay in the land and Nebuchadnezzar left the poorest, most insignificant people there. They are not the kind of people that are going to be in a position to stir up a rebellion. So, you keep moving people around in your empire, so their only connection is to you and to the empire that is over them because you put me in a foreign land. I don’t know anything about this land. I don’t know anything about the situation here. I’m not going to start an uprising for something that doesn’t belong to me.

Jeremiah had to encourage the Jews that were transported to parts of the Babylonian empire and into Babylon, to build houses, settle down, plant fields because you’re going to be here for a long time. Their desire was to go back home. So, you come to the Samaritans. These are people that have been transported to other parts of the empire and had gotten assimilated, so they intermarried and started their own religion which is one of those mixtures. Remember the woman of Samaria at the well and she couldn’t even believe a Jew would be talking to her, and then she wanted to talk about where is the right place to worship. We Samaritans worship at our place. You Jews worship at your place. Which is the best place? That’s what’s going on. So, the Samaritans are mixed blood. The Jews wouldn’t have anything. Remember in the return to the land, the mixed-blood Jews don’t have any inheritance with us because we’re not going to corrupt our race.

Then the third use of it, I didn’t go into where it’s used for time. In Acts 8 you’ll find the gift of tongues being used. That indicated that this is a genuine work of God because the same thing that began with the Jews in Acts chapter 2 now happens with the Samaritans. So now if it wasn’t the same tongues and just a babble speech, the Jews would never have accepted it. It would have been viewed as the Samaritans doing what they did, trying to create their own form of this. So it had to be the same thing as Acts 2 or it just wouldn’t have passed the test for the Jews. “But they were speaking the same kind of language that we heard being spoken” so we accept it as genuine.

When you come to Acts chapter 10 what happens? You find the Gentiles speaking in tongues. In Acts chapter 11, Peter got called on the question by the Jewish leadership which were the apostles of the church and the church was headquartered in Jerusalem. That’s when the church reached out to these other areas, to the apostles who remained in Jerusalem. So that’s why in Acts chapter 15, you have the Jerusalem council. We go up to where the foundation of the church is and the headquarters of the church is, if you will. The apostles are in Jerusalem and Peter is called in to question here because they want to know, why did you go to the house of Gentiles and preach the gospel? You see they do not understand God’s plan yet. You can see it’s a developing thing going on in the book of Acts and verse 15 what did Peter say? He tells them how an angel instructed him to go. We need further proof, verse 15, “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as He did upon us at the beginning.” Verse 17, “Therefore, if God gave to them the same gift as He also gave to us after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

Now again, if those Gentiles at the house of Cornelius were just babbling away in something that was not recognizable, no, Peter says it was the same thing that happened to us at the beginning. So this is what God used to keep the church solidified, otherwise you would have had a Samaritan church grow out. You would have had a Gentile church grow out. You’d have had the Jewish church grow out. So this guaranteed that there would be a centralized recognition. Because also in each of these areas who is bringing the message? The apostles, so there is one source at the center. So the Samaritans would look to the apostles. The Gentiles would look to the apostles. The Jews from Acts chapter 2 were looking to the apostles and it was all validated by the same gift. And that’s important because what? We have a centralized authority now. We say, well, we don’t have the apostles. The Roman Catholic Church tried to reproduce that, but that doesn’t have scriptural support because we don’t need apostles anymore. Why? We have the completed revelation of God that He has left with us. Every individual church is accountable to God and has its own structure established with elders and deacons.

We have one other group where tongues become prominent and that’s in Acts chapter 19. And these are the disciples of John. This is going to assure that you don’t have a separate church develop in Judaism, among the Jews, because John the Baptist was a key prophetic figure. Remember there had not been a prophet in Israel for four hundred years. And John the Baptist came on the scene and there was question from John’s disciples to Christ’s disciples. Now in Acts chapter 19, verse 1, “Now it happened while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the upper country and came to Ephesus, and found some disciples. He said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’ They said to him, ‘No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.’” They are not saying they don’t know if the Holy Spirit exists. Remember John the Baptist preached “…there is one coming after me who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” We didn’t hear the Holy Spirit came. Evidently, they were not present at the day of Pentecost. You know, not everybody could come.

We don’t know why but they were not aware of what had taken place. Well, what were you baptized into? We were baptized into John’s baptism. Well, in verse 4, “And Paul said, ‘John baptized with the baptism for repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.’ And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.” You have to know, what John said and promised has happened, the Messiah came. “There were about twelve men in all.” What happened, verse 6, “And when Paul had laid hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.” We’ll talk about prophesying. Well, they had the same gift. And what did that do? It connected them to Paul’s ministry. He is the apostle to the Gentiles and the key figure now in the Church. So, you have that connection again. The Jerusalem Council helped solidify that with Paul leading the way there as the apostle to the Gentiles. And it was agreed, Paul would be the apostle to the Gentiles, Peter would focus on the Jews. But there was a solidifying there and a recognition that we are receiving the same message and carrying out the same ministry. You don’t have a church developed in the disciple of John to go their own way, because now they know they have evidence of God’s work of salvation and connects them to the apostle Paul. The unity of the church is crucial at this time. You have these four groups. The history of the early church is the book of Acts. The church starts in Acts chapter 2 and you see how it unfolds and develops and you have the different groups now that we’re reaching out to with something new that was happening beginning in Acts 2, the founding of the Church.

Tongues had a special place to play. Here’s an evidence. These believed and Paul lays hands on them and they begin to speak in other languages. It’s a recognition to Paul that these people have been accepted by God as His now. They are part of the Church. It’s a testimony to these people. We spoke in languages we never knew. This gift would fade out over time. With the passing of the apostles and the completion of Scripture it’s not needed anymore. Well, wouldn’t it be helpful if we had these miracles going on? No! Because we’re going to be in the same position. If they will not believe Moses and the prophets, they won’t believe even if one is raised from the dead. So, while miracles occurred through the Old Testament, at times they didn’t confirm. Even the miraculous resurrection of Christ, an undeniable miracle. It was preceded when Christ raised Lazarus from the dead. Did that change the hearts of the Jewish leaders? No. You know what they decided? We not only have to kill Jesus of Nazareth, we’re going to have to kill Lazarus because he’s living proof that this man Jesus raises the dead. We can’t tolerate that. So you see it’s not a matter of miracles. Miracles have a place in the plan of God, confirming during these new times of new revelation, but God’s not in the practice of continuing.

There is a question on this very area that I’ll talk about when we get into the tribulation. Not when we get into the tribulation but when we do the question and answer time and I talk about the tribulation, because we’re not going to be in it. So I’ll keep repeating this but I want this to be fixed because people jump into this matter and it becomes an emotional experience. I have attended these meetings. My background in the early years of my salvation with my family, while I was living at home, we belonged in the holiness movement. They believed in a second work of grace and the Holy Spirit coming upon you is validating that you were now being baptized by the Holy Spirit. They didn’t speak in tongues but they had the same kind of emotional experience where you were overcome. I’ve sat there with members of my own family standing up. All of a sudden they couldn’t contain themselves and speaking, praising God, and now we just add tongues to that. And when you are in that you sense this is genuine. I should be getting this. And every meeting ended, if you have not been baptized with the Spirit you need to come forward. We will pray for you. And I’ve been down there many times. Had them put their hands on me and pray for me and do this and that. It becomes an emotional thing. And once a person has some kind of emotional experience it’s very hard for them to say that’s not real, because it was real to them. But if it doesn’t conform to Scripture it can’t be acceptable. And I’ve had these conversations and been told, you cannot deny my experience. Well, there’s an element of truth. I can just say that it’s not what the Scripture says the coming of the Holy Spirit is. Oh well, that’s subjective. No, that’s why we have to go through and be careful we follow this step by step or we end up with some kind of mixture. And that’s the very thing that was being avoided. It’s all going to be under the authority of the apostles and the revelation given to them. That’s why the apostles and the prophets are the foundation of the church. We don’t go outside of this book to find out what we need. And you have to be careful we don’t read into this book our experience that becomes authoritative for interpreting this book. So that’s the danger.


So, concerning tongues we can conclude. We have a slide for this. The unique purpose of tongues was to demonstrate God’s judgment. We add that to the list because we already mentioned that, particularly for Israel. And also then is supported then by the transition. So, in Acts chapter 2 it demonstrated the coming of the Spirit in a new and unique way which was a demonstration, that even out of the ministry of John the Baptist when the Messiah comes, He’ll baptize with the Holy Spirit. But the nation was under judgment and there is an evidence that is a result of the Messiah’s coming, people are being baptized with the Holy Spirit. And then when you reach these other groups it is a validation that connects it. But we added that it also demonstrates God’s judgment. Tongues, we can come to this conclusion. They were earthly languages that a person had not learned. It wouldn’t be a miracle if you stand up and begin to speak in a language that you’ve learned. You say, well, it’s not my native language, but I studied it. No. So it’s got to be an earthly language.

Point two, they are used in connection with the reaching of major new groups in the book of Acts. We just looked at that. So, it’s not happening all the time, everywhere, but they were used in the book of Acts in the history of the church, particularly in reaching out to new groups.

Third, they are always found in connection with the ministry of an apostle. And we find the gift of tongues at the church at Corinth. The church at Corinth was what? A result of the apostle Paul’s ministry. He writes that he established it. I shouldn’t be having this trouble with you recognizing me. I’m your father in the faith. You learned the word from me. It came from me. So, these gifts, miracle gifts, are always in the connection of an apostolic ministry. Even when Paul had left Corinth, the gift of tongues was still evidently being exercised there. Paul had to write back with some guidelines for it but it was a reminder. When did we get these gifts? Well, when Paul was with us. They are always found in connection with an apostolic ministry.

Fourth, they demonstrated the judgment of God on Israel. A little more time on that gift even though it’s not specifically mentioned in Romans 12, but I know questions will come and it’s one of the questions I do get from people because we do have these charismatic groups in our city and they are influential. I’m not saying they are not believers, but we have to hold ourselves as believers to the guidelines and authority of Scripture.

Okay, I think I’ll stop there. I was planning on talking about the gift of prophecy and then the other gifts. We will wrap them up and move on. Paul doesn’t elaborate it because in other places he does and it’s all going to be part of Scripture. So, the Spirit doesn’t have him go into the elaboration he does in Corinthians. Maybe I ought to say one more thing. Why should I not get myself in trouble? Come over to 1 Corinthians 14. Paul is talking about the gifts of the Spirit. He’s talking about prophecy. He’s talked about tongues. He’s giving guidelines here. We’ll come to this with the gift of prophecy in our next study, but in verse 34 of 1 Corinthians 14 I’ll mention this, and we’ll probably come back to it, we’ll look more into 1 Corinthians 14. “Let the women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak…” It’s strange that prominent speakers in these movements are women. But they are not permitted to speak in the churches. So I take it they didn’t get the gift of tongues, so they shouldn’t be speaking. They shouldn’t be exercising those gifts. They are not permitted to speak. They are to “…subject themselves, just as the Law also says.” And this is a universal principle. We will come back to it, but you can mull it over if you’re not familiar with this. “…just as the Law also says.”

This has been God’s plan since back through the Old Testament, the plan from the beginning that men would lead. We see this breakdown in major ways. We’ve just gone through an election and they keep saying how wonderful it is now that we have more women moving into these positions of leadership. It’s God’s universal principle from creation. The man was created first then the woman. That establishes a priority and an order. All of this is a rebellion against the order God has established and a manifestation of their rejection of His word. For the world, equality means sameness and it comes to mean more than sameness because we have to give them the position of prominence because they haven’t had it. We’re going to do away with “patriarchy,” which is, men being in the position of leadership. We are in rebellion against the Creator and His purposes and that’s why he can take you back to the Law. There was no Church in the Old Testament but the Church is God’s people, just as Israel in the Old Testament was God’s people. God’s people are expected and required to obey God. So it’s true. He doesn’t instruct the world. People say, well, those are just instructions for the Church.

That’s true, but who else is He going to instruct? The unbeliever, the child of Satan out there? Here’s what you should do. They’re not listening. They won’t! But the Church is a place where you see the creating purposes of God carried out. We’ll say more about that in conjunction with the gift of prophecy, but the Church slides into these matters. I read a positive review this past week. Maybe I’ll bring it with me so you can share my agony. In an evangelical seminary they were reviewing a book written by a woman and he was saying what a great book it was and pastors ought to read this. And the woman was saying we need to move away from patriarchy. Wait a minute! You know, it’s bad enough the woman writes the book, but here’s the theology professor at an evangelical seminary writing a glowing review of it in their theological journal. So, the battle goes on. I thought I’d add that since it will be included. 1 Corinthians 14 is dealing with tongues and prophecy, so we’ll come back into 1 Corinthians 14.

Let’s have a word of prayer then I want to deal with some questions. Thank You, Lord for Your word and Lord, those who have been redeemed by Your grace so wonderfully as we have studied in Romans. We do want to present our bodies, every part of our being, everything we do with these physical bodies, to You as a living and ongoing sacrifice. We want to be obedient to You. Lord that means we will be going contrary to the thinking of the world around us and sadly sometimes contrary to the actions and thinking even of fellow believers. Lord, may we be careful to be obedient in all areas. Bless our discussion now. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.

Okay, some questions. I’m going to pick up with some that may go back a little bit just because they tie to where we are on spiritual gifts. And I have some dates on this, so I know that some of them I’ve had for a while. This one relates to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verses 8 to 13. If you want to turn there it’s where the bible talks about some spiritual gifts being done away with.

***Could this be referring to the fact that these gifts will not be used in heaven? Could “the perfect” be referring to heaven? He’s talking in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 beginning with 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 with. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known. But now faith, hope, and love…” they are abiding. They are permanent.

***What are we talking about? What is “the perfect?” Some believe that’s the coming of Christ and then we’ll be perfected and there are reasons for that. No question that when Christ comes the Church will be perfected. Of course these gifts, temporary gifts, for sure no longer will be necessary. But I think there’s something more immediate. We’re talking about the gifts, the gifts given to the Church, I think may be talking about the passing away of some of these gifts. That word “perfect” means something that is complete. It can be used of a goal. It can be used of maturing. We are to be perfected, matured. It has that kind of meaning and range of meaning. So, we think of maturing, be brought to be what we ought to be. You see the comparison, verse 11, “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child…when I became a man, I did away with childish things.” That doesn’t mean now I’m a man I am absolutely perfect, but it does mean I have matured. I have grown to be what I was intended to be. A child is expected to grow to adulthood, but that does not mean now there’s no other development. So that’s the kind of comparison. I think that’s what he’s doing, and the church starts out incomplete. I mean the Corinthians are getting the letters of Paul, but they won’t get the letter of John, the book of Revelation for another thirty years. So, there’s a process there. So, they won’t have everything God intends for them in moving out of that state. By getting the letters that Paul writes to them, that’s part of it. This is the first letter. When he writes 2 Corinthians he’ll be giving additional revelation that’ll help them further mature. When other parts of Scripture become available, that’s maturing.

Come over to James chapter 1. Just after the book of Hebrews, the book of James. And James is talking about this, our growth, our maturing. And we have to have a growing faith. We have to be growing. Verse 2, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” And endurance is one of the characteristics of what? Maturing. I mean that child, that little two or three year old, my grandson Jack came in to see me this morning at my desk. He comes up, walks up to the front of my desk where I’m sitting behind the desk, and he says, “I’m Batman.” He had a Batman costume for Halloween. Oh, you’re Batman? And then his sister Chloe says, “I’m Robin” because she dressed as Robin. But you know, he had no attention span. I’m ready to talk to him and he says, “Bye, I’m going to see Mimi” and he walks out the door. That’s a child’s attention span. I just came in, I’ve seen you, good-bye. That’s why we have Children’s Church. That’s why we have the programs geared for the young ones from little up so they don’t just sit here as I address adults in a way that they’re not yet ready to grapple with. They’re being taught where they are and as they mature, then they take on more serious stuff.

Well now, James is I think talking about that. In James chapter 1, verse 18 he uses the example of a birth. “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth…” We were born again. Peter wrote very similar to James, “We are born again by the living and abiding word of God.” That’s what he’s talking about. So he talks about our conduct. In verse 21, “…putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness...” We are to be growing and our life is to be changing. “…in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word...” You have to take in the word, assimilate it, and respond to it. It’s the same word that caused you to be born again. If you didn’t hear “the word of truth,” the gospel, you weren’t saved. And you believed that, but you take in the word, that implanted word, it’s a living word and it causes you to grow. “…receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not just hearers who deceive themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror...” And you see what it is in the margin? It is the face of his birth.

He looks at himself in the mirror, but he goes away and forgets what he sees. So, I look in the mirror and I see a twenty-three year old handsome man and doesn’t have glasses. Yeah, I’m telling my wife exactly how I look. You ought to be thankful for having a hunk like me for a husband. And she says, go look in the mirror again. Why? You forgot what you saw. That’s what he’s saying. You look into the word. It’s a mirror and you are to see yourself, but you are to see what God wants you to be, to transform you. So verse 25, “But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, (the realm in which he lives) not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” He goes on to talk further. Well, there’s that word “perfect.” That’s the same word as we had in 1 Corinthians 13, “but when the perfect comes, then the partial will be done away with.” And the same analogy, when I was a child I thought as a child, I acted as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. James is talking the same kind of picture and analogies. Here, we mature. We don’t forget what we see when we look in God’s word. We see what we must be and that guides our conduct. Our conduct is guided by His word, not our feelings. So we’re not a forgetful hearer, we are an effectual doer. It’s “the perfect law, the law of liberty.”

Come over to chapter 2 of James, verse 12, “So speak and so act, as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.” He doesn’t use the word perfect there, but he’s already used it in chapter 1, verse 25. The perfect law is the one of liberty. It’s not the Mosaic Law. It’s now the law of Christ, our New Testament Scriptures. We are not without authority over us. God’s word is our authority. We’re expected to learn it. It’s not the Mosaic Law. He uses the word “law” because James has a particularly Jewish audience. In verse 1 he’s writing to the twelve tribes of the diaspora, Jews scattered in other places, and he’s showing them we are not under the Mosaic Law, but we are not lawless. Now the new revelation is our authority. The old revelation is an authority we learn from, but we are not under the requirements of the Mosaic Law. We are under now the new revelation that has been given and is being given. James is one of those writers. So, you give attention to the law of liberty, that perfect law.

So that connection seems to me, in the context being very similar, from childhood to adulthood. Well, the perfect law. Now we have everything we need. Like I said, Paul’s going to be executed in the middle 60’s, what 68 A.D. somewhere in there. John won’t write Revelation until 95 A.D. rounded off to about thirty years. There were still things that they couldn’t put together that only the book of Revelation organizes. It didn’t change any prior revelation but it now organizes it so that we can understand and then it adds things. And while we are talking about the book of Revelation I was asked about the prophets.

***The two prophets in Revelation 11, will they be giving new revelation? I assume they will. They are prophets. They come on the scene. We are back to God dealing with Israel. We are in the Tribulation. Now the Church has been raptured to heaven and God now is completing His work with the nation Israel. So again, yeah, the ministry of the prophets will again be revived and there will be additional things revealed for that phase as God brings things together. It won’t change anything that has been revealed but it will give new insights, understanding, and clarification.

Ok, I have some other questions. I know you think, he only gets to one question. He’ll never get to my question. Well, that’s probably so because I can’t answer it, it’s too hard, so I’m expanding on the others. No, I try to get to the others, but I want us to be clear as we can on these. So, where I am, 1 Corinthians 13, “when the perfect comes” it’s talking about the “perfect law of liberty,” that which will bring maturity to us, a greater maturity. And the word of God is what? “Like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the word that you might grow with respect to your salvation,” 1 Peter chapter 2. And he said at the end of chapter 1, it’s that word that caused you to be born again, now you grow. And in his second letter he’ll say that Paul writes things hard to understand. But if you twist them and distort them, you’re on the way to destruction because they are necessary for our growth, maturing. That’s what we are doing. We are being perfected, matured, completed. And the finality of that will be at the Rapture of the church.

Ok, let’s pray together. Thank You, Lord for Your word. Lord, You gave it to us so that we would understand it and Lord we are growing. For a variety of reasons, we grow at different rates. Sometimes because we are distracted with other things as we don’t give our attention to Your word. Sometimes we have misunderstood it, misinterpreted it, we were misguided, improperly taught, but Lord, we are responsible and will be accountable to You. So, we want to handle it carefully, search these things diligently. Thank You for loving us and giving us this truth as a treasure entrusted to us. Lord, now as we go out, You will direct us to various places, put us in various situations. We’ll confront different difficulties, different opportunities. In it all may we be faithful. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.