Speaking in Tongues a Cessationist View

[Dave L]

According to scripture, God enabled believers to speak to him in a heavenly language. A language unknown except by him and those to whom he gave a gift for interpreting it (1 Corinthians 14:27–28).

Many think the Apostles spoke supernaturally in human languages at Pentecost. And Jews from different nations naturally understood what they said in their own tongue. But Paul says when a person speaks in tongues, they speak to God and not to men (1 Corinthians 14:2). So on Pentecost, the Apostles spoke to God in a heavenly tongue and devout Jews from every nation overheard them in their own native tongue. So they must have received the gift of interpreting too.

God delivered the gift of tongues personally in the baptism of the Holy Spirit during the Jewish outpouring and about seven years later in the gentile outpouring at Cornelius’ house. But all other times he delivered the gifts through an apostles’ hands (Acts 8:18). Scripture does not mention any other means of distribution apart from these.

In the case of the Samarians, Phillip had the gifts but could not pass them on to others. The Samarians believed and had the Holy Spirit as did the Ethiopian eunuch because faith is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. But the Apostles came and laid hands on the Samarians giving the gifts.

But this was not the case with the eunuch. He went on his way rejoicing without any mention of the gifts. So in Acts we see the gift (singular) of the Holy Spirit. That is, the Baptism with the Holy Spirit is the gift. And we see the gifts (plural) of the Holy Spirit the Apostles gave to others through the laying on of their hands.

God placed tongues and interpretation into groups of converts in various regions through the Apostles. So each church would have God’s first New Covenant words spoken personally to them by individual members who received the gift (1 Corinthians 14:2).

We see the laying on of hands in Jerusalem (Acts 6:6), Ephesus (Acts 19:1–7), and Samaria (Acts 8:14–17) and throughout Paul’s journeys where he gave the gifts (2 Timothy 1:6; Romans 1:11). Jesus personally sent Ananias, who according to history was one of the original seventy disciples ordained by Him, through whose hands Paul became healed and filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17).

Using the gifts, they spoke God’s New Covenant words through tongues with interpretation and through prophecy. With this they passed around the Apostle’s writings that would become the New Testament scriptures. Paul said tongues would stop when a better way, one that is perfect or complete comes (1 Corinthians 13:8–10.) The scriptures being a collection of tongues and prophecy gave the complete view where before the individual messages were only fragments of the New Covenant. Instead of seeing through a glass darkly, they now saw face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Paul contrasts tongues, interpretation of tongues, and knowledge with love, faith and hope. If as some say, prophecy, tongues and interpretation remain until the end of the world, Paul's comparison is meaningless.

So Paul inferred tongues would stop sometime before Christ’s return, before love, hope and faith find fulfillment in the new world where only love remains.

Paul urged believers to come behind in no gift until the coming (apocalypse or Revelation) of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:7). This is the same word John uses for the apocalypse of Jesus Christ. What we call the book of Revelation.

So this is likely what Paul saw through a glass darkly. A revelation he knew was coming but didn’t know how or when. Paul urged them to continue seeking spiritual gifts until Christ provided a revelation. We have the Revelation of Jesus Christ (Revelation 1:1) through John about the time speaking in tongues disappears from history. If tongues remained, the entire church would exercise them spontaneously just as they did in Acts. But all later claims to the gifts are sporadic among sects of questionable faith.

Many gifts continue today as permanent endowments to the Church. We have miracles and healings through the prayer of faith (James 5:15). Also pastors, evangelists and teachers with the Apostles and Prophets cast in their writings (Ephesians 4:11). But God removed the apostolic signs and wonders with the death of the last Apostle. And he gave us a more sure word of prophecy than tongues and prophecy could provide (2 Peter 1:17–20).

God withdrew the Apostles, honoring them in the Book of Revelation. He wrote their names in the foundations of heavenly Jerusalem with the names of the twelve sons of Israel. This brought to a close the apostolic age and the gifts that flowed through their hands.

 

[GTW27]

A true doctrine of demons. A seed of doubt, planted in an attempt to leave the church powerless and unbelieving. Woe, Woe, Woe, unto you!

 

[Dave L]

A true doctrine of demons. A seed of doubt, planted in an attempt to leave the church powerless and unbelieving. Woe, Woe, Woe, unto you!

You do not believe the bible, but those who trained you to think like they do.

 

[Willie T]

According to scripture, God enabled believers to speak to him in a heavenly language. A language unknown except by him and those to whom he gave a gift for interpreting it (1 Corinthians 14:27–28).

Many think the Apostles spoke supernaturally in human languages at Pentecost. And Jews from different nations naturally understood what they said in their own tongue. But Paul says when a person speaks in tongues, they speak to God and not to men (1 Corinthians 14:2). So on Pentecost, the Apostles spoke to God in a heavenly tongue and devout Jews from every nation overheard them in their own native tongue. So they must have received the gift of interpreting too.

God delivered the gift of tongues personally in the baptism of the Holy Spirit during the Jewish outpouring and about seven years later in the gentile outpouring at Cornelius’ house. But all other times he delivered the gifts through an apostles’ hands (Acts 8:18). Scripture does not mention any other means of distribution apart from these.

In the case of the Samarians, Phillip had the gifts but could not pass them on to others. The Samarians believed and had the Holy Spirit as did the Ethiopian eunuch because faith is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. But the Apostles came and laid hands on the Samarians giving the gifts.

But this was not the case with the eunuch. He went on his way rejoicing without any mention of the gifts. So in Acts we see the gift (singular) of the Holy Spirit. That is, the Baptism with the Holy Spirit is the gift. And we see the gifts (plural) of the Holy Spirit the Apostles gave to others through the laying on of their hands.

God placed tongues and interpretation into groups of converts in various regions through the Apostles. So each church would have God’s first New Covenant words spoken personally to them by individual members who received the gift (1 Corinthians 14:2).

We see the laying on of hands in Jerusalem (Acts 6:6), Ephesus (Acts 19:1–7), and Samaria (Acts 8:14–17) and throughout Paul’s journeys where he gave the gifts (2 Timothy 1:6; Romans 1:11). Jesus personally sent Ananias, who according to history was one of the original seventy disciples ordained by Him, through whose hands Paul became healed and filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17).

Using the gifts, they spoke God’s New Covenant words through tongues with interpretation and through prophecy. With this they passed around the Apostle’s writings that would become the New Testament scriptures. Paul said tongues would stop when a better way, one that is perfect or complete comes (1 Corinthians 13:8–10.) The scriptures being a collection of tongues and prophecy gave the complete view where before the individual messages were only fragments of the New Covenant. Instead of seeing through a glass darkly, they now saw face to face (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Paul contrasts tongues, interpretation of tongues, and knowledge with love, faith and hope. If as some say, prophecy, tongues and interpretation remain until the end of the world, Paul's comparison is meaningless.

So Paul inferred tongues would stop sometime before Christ’s return, before love, hope and faith find fulfillment in the new world where only love remains.

Paul urged believers to come behind in no gift until the coming (apocalypse or Revelation) of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:7). This is the same word John uses for the apocalypse of Jesus Christ. What we call the book of Revelation.

So this is likely what Paul saw through a glass darkly. A revelation he knew was coming but didn’t know how or when. Paul urged them to continue seeking spiritual gifts until Christ provided a revelation. We have the Revelation of Jesus Christ (Revelation 1:1) through John about the time speaking in tongues disappears from history. If tongues remained, the entire church would exercise them spontaneously just as they did in Acts. But all later claims to the gifts are sporadic among sects of questionable faith.

Many gifts continue today as permanent endowments to the Church. We have miracles and healings through the prayer of faith (James 5:15). Also pastors, evangelists and teachers with the Apostles and Prophets cast in their writings (Ephesians 4:11). But God removed the apostolic signs and wonders with the death of the last Apostle. And he gave us a more sure word of prophecy than tongues and prophecy could provide (2 Peter 1:17–20).

God withdrew the Apostles, honoring them in the Book of Revelation. He wrote their names in the foundations of heavenly Jerusalem with the names of the twelve sons of Israel. This brought to a close the apostolic age and the gifts that flowed through their hands.

A "true" Church of Christ statement, parroted in the best of their standard tradition. LOL

 

[Dave L]

A "true" Church of Christ statement, parroted in the best of their standard tradition. LOL

This is what Scripture teaches. You are welcome to challenge each point I made and offer a better conclusion.

 

[CoreIssue]

God gave the gift of tongues and still does.

But as with all gifts it is given for purpose.

After Pentecost tongues decreased and ceased to be even be mentioned in the Bible. That does not mean the gift is no longer given, it just means it's purpose at the time is fulfilled.

When you see the word of faithers and others on TV babbling away those aren't tongues. They are con man theatrics.

You don't need tongues to know you receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes at repentance and gives the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then indwells the believer.

As with the gift of healing, these TV showman have repeatedly been proven to be liars.

I grew up near a Pentecostal preacher who did all these things. A true liar and con man equipped with even VD.

So do not discount gifts of the spirit easily. Also do not acknowledge them quickly.

 

[Dave L]

God gave the gift of tongues and still does.

But as with all gifts it is given for purpose.

After Pentecost tongues decreased and ceased to be even be mentioned in the Bible. That does not mean the gift is no longer given, it just means it's purpose at the time is fulfilled.

When you see the word of faithers and others on TV babbling away those aren't tongues. They are con man theatrics.

You don't need tongues to know you receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes at repentance and gives the baptism of the Holy Spirit, then indwells the believer.

As with the gift of healing, these TV showman have repeatedly been proven to be liars.

I grew up near a Pentecostal preacher who did all these things. A true liar and con man equipped with even VD.

So do not discount gifts of the spirit easily. Also do not acknowledge them quickly.

This is false until you can prove tongues came in any other way beyond the two outpourings or through an apostle's hands.

 

[Dave L]

For any wanting to research this at a seminary level, here are notes on a book by Douglas Judisch. Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne In. The book is pricey on Amazon but available elsewhere.

Notes on “An Evaluation of Claims to the Charismatic Gifts” by Douglas Judisch


Judisch notes the term “charismatic gifts” is not found in the NT. Rather, the term is simply the plural “charisma” (“gifts”), a word used not only of the supernatural gifts such as tongues, prophecies, and miracles - the “supernatural” gifts - but also of redemption, the pastoral office, and continence. Therefore, Judisch actually prefers the term “prophetic gifts,” which he defines to include tongues, the interpretation of tongues, the word of knowldedge, and the discernment of spirits, as well as actual prophecy. He accepts prophecy as meaning delivery of words taught by God (and therefore capable of including a predictive element, although not necessarily so), not as merely “teaching.” “Healing by demand” is also included, because it was often used as an authenticating sign of God’s prophets in the OT. (pg. 13)

Judisch’s thesis is that it is contrary to the word of God to claim prophetic gifts in the postapostolic era. (pg. 15)
He supports this in five ways:
I. The Means of Authentication

Judisch demonstrates through 13 theses that words represented as being from God can be authenticated only by an apostle or somebody personally sanctioned by an apostle. Since that is not possible today, modern instances of the prophetic gifts cannot be authenticated. The only authentic revelation from God we now have is the Scriptures, since these are the words of the apostles and those who were sanctioned by them.

Along the way in this chapter, Judisch notes that the office of the prophet is not carried over unchanged from the OT into the NT, any more than were the offices of king and priest. In relation to this, “supernatural signs are not to be its means of authentication.” Judisch notes that we are warned several places in the New Testament that false prophets would come with lying signs and wonders. (pg. 24)

II. The Means of Distribution

Judisch shows that in the scriptures only the apostles could bestow the prophetic gifts. This is demonstrated in, among other places, Acts 8 where Philip (the evangelist, not the apostle) preached the Word and brought salvation to the Samaritans, but only the apostles could bring, through the laying on of their hands, the Spirit in His role as the giver of the prophetic gifts.
He also uses Hebrews 2:3-4 -

...how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation,
which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was
confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing
witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles,
and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?

He points out that the Greek for “was confirmed” is aorist indicative, which denotes completed past action, and that the present participle “bearing witness” is therefore also referring to events in the past, since the grammar demands the action referred to must be contemporaneous with the main verb. Note that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are explicitly classed with the signs and wonders that bore witness to the truth of the salvation preached by the apostles. The conclusion is that the apostles (“us who heard him”) were “the single medium for the distribution of the prophetic gifts.”

III. The Purpose of the Prophetic Gifts

Judisch states the purpose of signs and wonders, including of the prophetic gifts, was “to prove the authority of the apostles as the infallible teachers whose oral and written instruction was to serve, together with that of the prophets whom they confirmed, as the foundation of the New Testament church (Eph. 2:19-20).” (pg. 35)
IV. The Explicit Testimony of Paul

1 Corinthians 13 is used to show that the prophetic gifts were to pass away. Judisch now believes (he did not use to) that the “that which is perfect” that is referred to in chapter 13 is the completion of revelation through the writings of the apostles. Using the Greek of the passage, Judisch shows that instead of “that which is perfect,” the translation of the Greek term “to teleion” to be preferred is “the complete thing;” just as the better translation of “that which is in part” is “the piecemeal thing.” Tongues and prophecy in the apostolic era were merely piecemeal revelations which are not needed now that Christians have all of the apostolic revelation in the scriptures.

Judisch gives three good reasons why “that which is perfect” probably is not meant to refer to our perfect knowledge of Christ given only when we enter heaven:

1) It is foreign to the text.

2) It destroys the contrast between the “piecemeal” things and the “complete” thing. The “piecemeal” things must be some constituent part of the “complete” thing.

3) “Verse 13 makes the point that while prophecies, tongues, and prophetic knowledge will disappear, faith, hope, and love go on. Paul cannot be thinking then of a contrast between this life and the life to come. For although love will go on into eternity, faith and hope will not.” (pg. 47)

V. The Explicit Testimony of Daniel.

Judisch, who is a professor of Old Testament exegesis at Concordia Seminary in Fort Wayne, by the way, uses Daniel 9:24-27 to show that after the Messiah has come, prophecy is sealed up:
Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon

thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make
an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity,
and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal
up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
Know therefore and understand, that from the going

forth of the commandment to restore and to build
Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven
weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be
built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be

cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the
prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the
sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood,
and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one

week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the
sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the
overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate,
even until the consummation, and that determined shall be
poured upon the desolate.


VI. The Implicit Testimony of Zechariah

Another Old Testament passage is used to show that “prophecy was not to continue indefinitely in the messianic age,” Zechariah 13:2-6 -
And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the

LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the
idols out of the land, and they shall no more be
remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and
the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.
And it shall come to pass, that when any shall

yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that
begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live;
for thou speakest lies in the name of the LORD: and
his father and his mother that begat him shall
thrust him through when he prophesieth.
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the

prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision,
when he hath prophesied; neither shall they wear a
rough garment to deceive:
But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman;

for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.
And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds

in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which
I was wounded in the house of my friends.


by Douglas Judisch. (n.d.). Notes on “An Evaluation of Claims to the Charismatic Gifts” .

 

[CoreIssue]

This is false until you can prove tongues came in any other way beyond the two outpourings or through an apostle's hands.

Yet another negative proof claim.

 

[Dave L]

Yet another negative proof claim.

It's not there. And you add to scripture saying these are not the constraints God placed the gifts under.

 

[CoreIssue]

 

[Willie T]

This is what Scripture teaches. You are welcome to challenge each point I made and offer a better conclusion.

Oh, you said some Scriptural things. (The CoC always did, and I credit them for being great students) But, as they always did for the 12 years I was there, they come up with many false conclusions, such as I bolded in my earlier quote.

 

[Dave L]

Martin was off on some other things too. But good on the cults.

 

[Dave L]

Oh, you said some Scriptural things. (The CoC always did, and I credit them for being great students) But, as they always did for the 12 years I was there, they come up with many false conclusions, such as I bolded in my earlier quote.

I'm not CoC nor have I ever studied anything from them.

 

[farouk]

This is what Scripture teaches. You are welcome to challenge each point I made and offer a better conclusion.

We have the complete Bible now. In Apostolic times it wasn't yet complete; this was the context.

 

[CoreIssue]

Martin was off on some other things too. But good on the cults.

He backed everything he said scripturally and literally.

You cannot say the same.

 

[Willie T]

I'm not CoC nor have I ever studied anything from them.

You might want to check them out. You would fit right in with them.

 

[Dave L]

You might want to check them out. You would fit right in with them.

If they agree with me on cessation, I might learn more from them.

 

[Dave L]

He backed everything he said scripturally and literally.

You cannot say the same.

I know what Martin taught. And it was good for the most part. But he was off on some things as well.

 

[Willie T]

If they agree with me on cessation, I might learn more from them.

Actually, I learned a whopping amount of "Bible" from their schools. And I will always be grateful for that. (They far exceed the studiousness of the Baptist world I was raised in.) But, I also swallowed some of their conclusions, that were never found in Scripture.