Did the gift of “speaking in tongues” cease in the first century? This is a question commonly debated today.
God is the same yesterday, today and forever, says the charismatic. He didn’t stop working among his people all that time ago: He’s active now and His power hasn’t diminished. As if to prove this, we’re supposed to look around at what’s happening in the charismatic portion of the Church and be convinced that it’s a real and powerful phenomenon. It’s happening, so it’s real. Do not dare to question the work of the Spirit, they say.
I would never question the work of the Spirit, but I will question whether what I see is really the work of the Spirit.
My first observation is it’s true that Paul didn’t indicate a time of cessation. He didn’t say that tongues would cease when he and the other apostles of Jesus ended their ministry on the earth, and when the New Testament canon was cemented. This is, however, a possibility. However, Scriptural directions on tongues can lead us to a better understanding of the issue.
THE QUESTIONABLE CASE FOR CESSATION
The most conservative view on cessation has been that tongues were used in the first century by God as a sign to the Jews of judgment. The Jews had rejected Christ, and as Old Testament Scriptures indicated, tongues would herald a coming judgment. This view of tongues being used for judgment in the first century, if at all recognized by charismatics, is quickly dismissed in our time with the insistence that tongues were not only for a sign: the sign nature of the gift was only part of the gift’s purpose.
Let’s briefly take a look at the relevant verses. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, quoting Isaiah chapter 28, verses 11 and 12, stated this:
Brothers and sisters, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults. In the Law it is written:
“With other tongues
and through the lips of foreigners
I will speak to this people,
but even then they will not listen to me,
says the Lord.”
Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers but for unbelievers (1 Corinthians 14:20-22).
There is some considerable scope for discussion here. After all, how would tongues be a sign to the unbelieving nation of Israel if they’re instead used in the Christian church for free expression among believers? The Day of Pentecost saw a huge fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy.
However, rather than delving into this matter, particularly as charismatics turn their noses up at the above argument and dismiss it outright anyway, we can look at the issue from another angle, for those of you who actually want to know the truth.
CESSATION IS A DOUBLE EDGED SWORD
Our charismatic brothers and sisters don’t seem to have noticed (and neither have many of the cessationists) that cessation for them is a double-edged sword. To the conservative claim that Paul was speaking of the first century and the passing of the true apostles, and the completion of the New Testament, when he said that tongues would cease, charismatics point out that there is no date affixed to Paul’s directive, and that to impose one is an attempt to shackle the gift and the power of God.
However, there is still the question of when tongues would or will cease. Cessation hasn’t gone away if we rubbish the idea that tongues would cease in the first century. It’s still there, at some point in history or the future.
Think about it. If tongues are, as charismatics claim, a Holy Spirit language, heavenly languages, or/and angelic languages, and if they accomplish great and mighty things in the spiritual realm as is claimed, how can they ever cease at all? Paul said that tongues will cease: why would he make such a statement if tongues are the words of the Holy Spirit, and the very languages used by angels in heaven?
I’ve examined these claims of tongues being the Holy Spirit talking, and of tongues being powerful angelic languages in previous posts. If this were really the case, Paul would never have made such statements as these:
Now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction? (1 Corinthians 14:6);
You will just be speaking into the air (verse 9);
In the church I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue (verse 19);
If anyone speaks in a tongue, two—or at the most three—should speak, one at a time (verse 27).
If, as is claimed, tongues are the very Spirit of God speaking or praying through the believer, why would Paul limit their use and say they are just words spoken into the air? Why would he tell the Holy Spirit to sit down and be quiet? (1 Corinthians 14:28).
How will tongues ever cease, if they are the words of the Holy Spirit or heavenly languages? Isn’t God eternal? Isn’t God perfect in every way already, and in no need to replace HIs own language at some time in the future? The answer seems obvious to me, but to the determined tongues speaker, there is nothing which could be pointed out from Scripture or logic to deter them from their precious gift.
However, if the gift of tongues were indeed the ability to speak, sometimes miraculously, human languages not learned or naturally spoken by the gifted, and to express things in ways which would not be understood unless interpreted in the hearer’s own human language, we can be confident that one day, as Paul wrote, tongues will cease.
Here’s the summary:
If tongues are the Spirit of God speaking or angelic languages, they cannot cease-but Paul said they will cease. Human languages will cease when that which is perfect has come.
Fuel for Faith, Food for Thought 