Are modern day tongues the tongues of the New Testament?

This is a post on tongues that I made on the xanga site not_blind_faith which is basically a theology discussion blog. Anyway, I thought I'd slightly revise it and put it on here.

Let me say first that I am a noncessationist. I don’t believe that tongues have completely ceased, but rather are lying dormant, and very rarely does God still use them. What is going on in many churches today is not New Testament tongues.

This has two parts. The first part is more of a preachy section from Scripture, and the second is more from personal experience of myself and some friends. In the first section, I have 4 main points, and if anybody here has read “The Final Word” by O. Palmer Robertson (which I highly recommend if you haven’t read it), then you’ll recognize these 4 points from the section on tongues. And some of this is quotes from the book because some places I can't put any better or clear than Robertson has, but I’m not using quotation marks for the quotes from the book because I don't have the time. If I had the time, I’d just retype the whole section of the book.

1. New Testament tongues were revelational.

Unless a person is willing to allow for continuing revelation beyond the Scriptures, the “tongues” heard today cannot be the same as the tongues of the New Testament. In I Corinthians 14:2 Paul says, “He who speaks in a tongue utters mysteries.” The meaning of the word mysterion in the NT inherently includes the idea of the communication of divine revelation. A “mystery” in the NT is a truth about God’s way of redemption that once was concealed but now has been revealed. If you don’t include I Cor. 14:2, mystery appears 27 times in the NT, and each time it is speaking of something once hidden but now revealed (Matthew 13:11; Rom 11:25, 16:25; I Cor. 2:1&7, 4:7, 13:2, 15:51, Eph 1:9, 3:3-4&9, 6:19-20 just to name a few). In this case, one who “utters mysteries” is communicating truth that has been made known to him by divine revelation.

I Corinthians 14:4-5 says that prophecy is greater than tongues because it edifies the church, unless the speaker of the tongues interprets which brings it up to equality with prophecy. Tongues, like prophecy are a verbal gift and verbal gifts edify by communicating understanding. So it is understanding that edifies, and the hearers of tongues won’t be edified by it, unless it is interpreted. I tongues are equal to prophecy when they are interpreted, then they would have an equal purpose. What was the purpose of prophecy? The intent was to communicate his verbally-inspired, infallible and inerrant Word to his people. By speaking in tongues, a person was delivering the very Word of God, completely infallible and inerrant.

For this reason, the tongues being spoken today in the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches cannot be the same as the New Testament tongues without saying that God’s revelation is not complete.

2. New Testament tongues were foreign languages.

Acts 2:6, where tongues first appeared, says “Each one heard them speaking in his own language.” There is no indication anywhere in Scripture that the tongues being spoken in the church after Pentecost had changed. Acts 10:47 says that the Gentiles who had spoken in tongues did so because “the Spirit came on them just as it did on us at the beginning.” This is evidence that the tongues had indeed not changed. So, the tongues being spoken in Acts 2:6 by the apostles is the same as in Caesarea by the Gentiles – speaking in a foreign language never studied by them. So, one would assume that these same tongues were the ones being spoken in Acts 19:7 when they were at Ephesus. Paul visited Corinth before this visit to Ephesus, so the tongues that he would be talking to the Corinthians about must be the same as in Acts 2.

Both in Acts and I Corinthians, tongues are spoken of as “other tongues.” The Greek here is may be translated as “other languages.” The tongues in I Corinthians were translatable, which suggests that they were actual foreign languages. Because the tongues of the first century were foreign languages, the tongues of today, which do not appear to be foreign languages, must be regarded as a phenomenon not endorsed by the New Testament Scriptures.

3. New Testament tongues were for public consumption, not private use.

All gifts of the Spirit were for the benefit of Christ’s church. By a gift of the Spirit, one person is enabled to minister to others. In I Corinthians 14:18-19, Paul thanks God that he speaks tongues more than all of the Corinthians. He is contrasting his experience in speaking in tongues, which was for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom in general, with the practice of tongues that were going on in Corinth because they were putting too much emphasis on speaking in tongues. He says the in a church setting, among the body of believers, he would rather speak 5 words they could understand than speak ten thousand words in tongues. Paul shows here that the emphasis should be on the edification of the body of believers which he said earlier in the chapter can’t be accomplished without an interpreter. New Testament tongues were never meant for private consumption. If tongues are a gift for the church, they should be brought out into the open for the benefit of the church.

I Corinthians 14:28 states that if no “interpreter” is present to provide the meaning of what someone has said in a tongue, then the speaker must keep silent in the church, and must “speak to himself and to God.” This doesn’t endorse a private gift that doesn’t function publicly in the church. The whole point of this passage is to provide orderly control of multiple gifts as they function in the church. “Two or at the most three” should speak in tongues, and someone must interpret according to I Cor. 14:27. The question here is not whether or not tongues are private or public. Instead, the question is when tongues may function in the assembly, and the answer is that tongues may function properly in the church only when there is an interpreter present.

4. New Testament tongues were a sign.

In Acts 2:16-21, it is indicated that by speaking in tongues they were fulfilling Joel’s prophecy. Joel said that sons and daughters would prophecy. He doesn’t say anything about speaking in tongues, but if the apostles’ act of speaking in tongues is truly a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, then speaking in tongues is a form of prophecy.

Tongues is mentioned explicitly 3 times in the Old Testament (Isaiah 28:11; Deut. 28:49; Jeremiah 5:15). These three passages indicate that tongues are a sign of covenantal curse for Israel – when foreign languages overrun Israel, they will be a sign that God’s judgment has come. Paul explains the passage from Isaiah. He says that tongues are a sign (I Cor. 14:22). In this case, tongues function as a sign in the history of redemption indicating that God is making a change. God was indicating that he would no longer speak a single language to only one single people. Before this time, God had only spoken to Israel. By the gift of tongues at Pentecost, God indicates that He intends to speak in many languages to many peoples. Tongues signified a distinctive judgment for Israel. Jesus speaks of this same judgment when he says in Matthew 21:43, “The kingdom shall be taken from you and given to a people bringing forth the fruit thereof.” Tongues served as a sign of judgment for Israel, but also as a sign of the great blessings of God to all the nations of the world, including Israel. The new covenant was for people of all nationalities, not just for Israel. Tongues marked the transition to a truly world-wide gospel.

Think of a road sign that tells you a sharp turn is coming up so you need to be careful. That road sign is helpful and you are thankful for it. But once you pass that sharp turn, you don’t need the road sign because it doesn’t help you anymore. Tongues were a sign to indicate a change of direction, and that change has been taken, and just as that road sign, they are not needed anymore.

Tongues were a revelation from God of His divine truth. But we now have the Bible which is the perfect revelation from God, so there is no further prophetic word that is needed from tongues. The divine mystery is now fully revealed in Scripture. So, instead of speaking in tongues, we are now to use the Bible. Just as tongues were “a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers (I Cor. 14:22),” the Scripture is what we need to proclaim to unbelievers. Paul goes on to say that prophecy (Scripture) not tongues is what will ultimately make believers out of unbelievers.

Like I said earlier, the second section of my response is from personal experience. I have visited a couple churches before that had “tongues” speaking going on and they definitely weren’t anything near what the New Testament talks about. I was at a church that was a “non-denominational” church but was pretty much a Pentecostal/Charismatic church. I was sitting there listening to the sermon, and about every 5 or 6 minutes the preacher would speak some gibberish that sounded pretty much like the same 10 or 12 words being spoken over and over again and people started yelling out praise God because the pastor was speaking in “tongues.” It was not edifying, but actually more distracting than anything else. And then people around me started speaking gibberish, all at the same time as each other. The Bible says that no more than 2 or 3 should speak in tongues, and not at the same time, and only with an interpreter. There was no interpreter, so they basically violated all the rules about speaking tongues within a church even if tongues were around today.

A missionary in South America that I know knew many languages and dialects from the region in which he was ministering. He visited a church, and people started speaking in “tongues” and the missionary got out as fast as he could. The people were actually saying demonic chants praising Satan and cursing Jesus. Now, I’m not saying that all churches where they speak “tongues” are praising Satan, but you kinda gotta wonder about it.

The reason I am a noncessationist is because of one other person that I know that was sitting in a Baptist church that was completely anti-tongues, and all of a sudden one of the deacons stood up and started speaking something that none of the members of the church understood. An oriental couple was there visiting because they had been invited by another couple that had been trying to witness to them. They understood what the person was saying because he was speaking the dialect of the area that the oriental couple had come from. The couple proceeded to accept Christ because this man that never had studied any other language than English had spoken the gospel in their language. That story was told to me by someone that I would trust with my life, so that’s why I don’t think tongues have completely ceased. But they are more likely in a dormant state, and God uses them every now and then. And besides, early church fathers around the second and third centuries were puzzled when they read of tongues, because apparently tongues-speaking was not occurring that they knew of.

Sorry this is so long, but that’s all for now.