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TONGUES AT CORINTH: Languages, not Ecstasies!
Scripture itself suggests that these Corinthian tongues
-- just like those on Pentecost Sunday -- were not incommunicable ecstatic
utterances. They were clearly linguistic -- that is, spoken in
translatable and recognised human languages. Compare I Cor. 14:21f and Isa.
28:11f with Acts 2:4-11. As Dr. W.B. Godby rightly observes in his
Commentary, cosmopolitan ancient Corinth was "really a mammoth mongrel
of all nationalities."
The international ancient trading city of Corinth had a
very unusual location -- on the slender isthmus in Central Greece, between
the two much larger land-masses of Northern Greece and Southern Greece,
and also between the Adriatic and Ionian Seas to the west and the Aegean
Sea to the east. Corinth's location there was thus similar to that of
Panama City in the new world --on the thin waist of Central America,
between the two great continents of North America and South America, and
also between the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the
east.
In the international trading centre of Panama City
today, at least twenty different languages are regularly spoken. So too in
ancient Corinth. There, none of those various foreign languages was to be
spoken during worship in the Corinthian Church --unless translated.
If so used, those foreign languages were always to be translated into the
Corinthian dialect -- so that all present could understand the message
concerned.
According to the earliest extant comments -- those of
the 185 A.D. Irenaeus and the 190f A.D. Clement of Alexandria -- the
Corinthians tongues were clearly linguistic (and therefore not ecstatic).
So too Origen, Eusebius, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianze, Gregory of
Nyssa, Basil, Hilary, Jerome, Chrysostom, Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodoret,
Vincent, Leo, and Gregory the Great. Likewise Thomas Aquinas, Martin
Luther, and John Calvin. So too Matthew Henry, Lange, Plumptre, Meyer,
Alford, Buswell, E.J. Young, Morton H. Smith, Robert Reymond, Richard
Gaffin, Leonard Coppes, and Francis Nigel Lee. Indeed, even some (Neo-)Pentecostalists
themselves -- such as Harald Bredesen, Carl Brumback, Howard Carter, David
J. DuPlessis, Donald Gee, Harold Horton and Oral Roberts -- also concede
this point.
The Protestant Reformation's John Calvin was quite the
greatest of all post-apostolic Presbyterians. States Calvin, in the
introductory Theme of his Commentary on First Corinthians:
"It is well-known that Corinth was a rich and a famous city of Achaia....
It was near the Aegean Sea on one side, and the Ionian Sea on the other,
and...on the isthmus linking Attica and the Peloponnesus."
Situated on the Grecian isthmus in perhaps the greatest
international trading centre of the ancient world, Corinth -- continues
Calvin -- was a truly multilingual citadel of "bombastic language" and
"chattering speechmakers." Yet the Christian congregation there "had gone
wrong in the use of spiritual gifts." Many demeaned the most excellent
gift of prophecy, and "thought that tongues were more valuable." So Paul
"condemns the fault of holding forth noisily in unknown tongues" -- alias
languages unknown to the listeners.
Certainly there was some miraculous
language-speaking occurring in the Apostolic Church, and perhaps also at
Corinth --until the completion of Scripture (probably around 70
A.D.). On the other hand, in those days too, even the Apostles themselves
sometimes needed interpreters. I Cor. 14:5,27-28. For even the
multilingual Paul (and Barnabas) apparently did not understand the
Lycaonian dialect. Acts 14:11-14. Indeed, Peter too apparently sometimes
used Mark as his interpreter. I Pet. 5:13 (cf. Eusebius's Hist.
Eccl. III:39:15).
Upon the inscripturation of the last book of the Bible,
God's special revelation terminated. This means that all miracles --which
had indeed always been focussed toward and upon the completion
of Holy Writ! -- had then served their purpose. Thenceforth and until
Christ's Second Coming, "those former ways of God's revealing His
will unto His people" are "now ceased!" Thus the Westminster
Confession of Faith 1:1f --doctrinal standard of Presbyterian and
Reformed Churches worldwide.
Holy Writ was then completed. Now, "the whole counsel
of God concerning all things necessary...is either expressly set down in
Scripture or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from
Scripture." Thus, to completed Scripture -- "nothing at any time is to be
added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of
men." Westminster Confession 1:6m.
The Westminster Confession (21:1b) later warns
that God "may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices
of men or the suggestions of Satan." The Confession further insists
(1:8u) that the word 'tongues' -- in I Cor. 14:6,9,11,12,24,27,28 --
uniformly refers to popular vernacular alias "the vulgar language
of every nation. Indeed, it also insists (21:3m) that the command
not to 'pray in an unknown tongue' -- in I Cor. 14:14 -- requires
Christians who utter "vocal" or audible prayer, to do so only "in a known
tongue."
Rev. Dr. Albert Barnes, former pastor of the First
Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, states in the Introduction to
his famous Commentary on First Corinthians: "The merchandise of
Italy, Sicily and the western nations "was landed at Lechaeum on the west;
and the islands of the Aegean Sea, of Asia Minor, and of the Phoenicians
and other oriental nations at Cenchrea on the east. The city of Corinth
thus became the mart of Asia and Europe....
"Its population and its wealth was thus increased by
the influx of foreigners.... Public prostitutes...were supported
chiefly by foreigners.... Individuals -- in order to ensure success in
their undertakings -- vowed to present to Venus a certain numbers of
courtesans, which they obtained by sending to distant countries
[for shipment to Corinth]... Foreign merchants were attracted in this
way to Corinth."
Paul made it clear in I Cor. 12:8-30 that not all but
only some Christians had the gift of (lingual or multilingual) tongues.
Indeed, even the gift of speaking in tongues was quite distinct from the
different gift of interpreting tongues.
Explained Paul: "To one is given by the
Spirit...diversities of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues.
But one and the selfsame Spirit keeps on working all of these,
distributing to each his own -- as He [the Spirit] wills.... God has set
some in the church...[to exercise] diversities of tongues.... Do
all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?" No! I Cor. 12:8-11,28-30.
The exegesis of the Early Church Fathers is faithfully
reflected by the great theologian John Chrysostom. Around 400 A.D. and in
his relevant Homilies, he wrote what is probably the earliest
extant commentary on Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians.
Explains Chrysostom: "One person knew what he spake
himself, but was unable to interpret to another. While another had
acquired both these [gifts], or the other of the two."
To Chrysostom, the language-speakers at Corinth
knew exactly what they were talking about! Yet even so: "Do you not see
where He [God] has set this gift, and how He everywhere assigns it the
last rank?" I Cor. 12:10,11,28,30.
Comments Calvin (on I Cor. 12:10): "The 'interpretation
of tongues' was different from the 'knowledge of tongues.' For those who
had the latter gift, often did not know the language of the people with
whom they had to have dealings. Interpreters translated the foreign
languages into the native speech."
The learned Presbyterian Rev. Prof. Dr. Charles Hodge,
sometime Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological
Seminary in New Jersey, wrote in his excellent commentary on First
Corinthians that 'kinds of tongues' in I Cor. 12:8-10 means "the
ability to speak in languages.... What was spoken with tongues, was
intelligible to those who understood foreign languages....
"What was uttered, were articulate sounds -- the
vehicle of prayer, praise and thanksgiving. I Cor. 14:14-17.... They were
edifying, and therefore intelligible to him who uttered them. I Cor.
14:4,16.... They admitted of being interpreted, which supposes them
to be intelligible..... Though intelligible in themselves
and to the speaker, they were unintelligible to others...not
acquainted with the language used" -- unless translated for them. "The
folly which Paul rebuked -- was speaking in Arabic to men who understood
only Greek!"
The gift of interpretation was distinct from
that of speaking with tongues.... The word gloossai ('tongues')
must here mean languages.... Greek was the language of educated persons
throughout the Roman empire, but it had not superseded the national
languages in common life.... The gift of tongues, however, was not the
ability to speak all languages. Probably most of those who received the
gift, could speak only in one or two....
"The man using a foreign language, was able to
understand it. See 14:2,4,16." Thus, he also "may have had the gift
of interpretation in [close]
connection with the gift of tongues." Yet even though
he would "understand the language which he used, he needed [another]
distinct gift to make him the organ of the Spirit in its interpretation."
Naturally, if speaking with tongues were to have been "speaking
incoherently in ecstasy -- it is hard to see how what was said, could
admit of interpretation! Unless coherent, it was [or rather would have
been] irrational. And, if irrational -- it could not be
translated!"
Finally, observes Hodge, the gift of 'diversities of
tongues' refers to "persons having the gift of speaking in foreign
languages. This is put last [I Cor. 12:28-30] -- probably because it
was so unduly valued and so ostentatiously displayed by the Corinthians."
In commenting on I Cor. 12:10, Barnes distinguished
"the power of speaking various languages" from "the power of
interpreting foreign languages -- or of interpreting the
language which might be used by the 'prophets' in their
communications.... This was evidently a faculty different from the
power of speaking a foreign language....
"In an assembly made up of those who spoke different
languages, a part might have understood what was uttered" -- but the rest,
not. So, "it was needful that an interpreter should explain it....
Some had the talent of speaking different languages, or of
interpreting.... Others had not!"
Paul next explained the necessity of using the
various gifts (such as those of tongues) -- lovingly, alias
considerately. Remarked Paul: 'Although I were to speak with the tongues
of men and even of angels -- if I do not have love, I have become echoing
brass or a noisy cymbal!' (Our own word 'noisy' here translates
alalazoon, 'to keep on ringing out' -- to keep on uttering the war-cry
'alala'!)
Here, Paul was not claiming that there are indeed
'angelic languages' -- still less, even if there were, that he or any
other human being had spoken or could speak in such tongues. Indeed, Paul
was not even claiming to have spoken in all the 'tongues of men'
alias every human language.
It is true Paul knew more languages than any
multilinguist among the Corinthians -- and possibly more than all of them
put together (I Cor. 14:18). Yet we know that -- though an accomplished
multilinguist (Acts 21:40f) -- there were some languages he apparently did
not know (Acts 14:11-14).
The 'tongues of men' here, comments Chrysostom, means
those "of all nations in every part of the world.... He did not
mention 'tongues' -- but 'the tongues of all mankind.'"
Hodge comments: "'The tongues of men' are the languages
which men speak.... The gift of tongues was the gift of speaking foreign
languages..., 'all languages human.'"
Barnes comments that this means: "Though I should be
able to speak all the languages which are spoken by men. To speak foreign
languages was regarded then, as it is now, as a rare and valuable
endowment.... Among the Corinthians, the power of speaking a foreign
language was regarded as a signally valuable endowment."
Paul then went on to remind the Corinthians that love
or considerateness will abide forever -- long after tongues in general
(and apparently the various miraculous language-gifts in
particular) -- would cease! 'Love never fails [or falls down]....
But tongues shall cease' of their own accord. 'For...when maturity comes,
then what is incomplete shall be done away with' -- or put itself out of
gear.
We are not in this article out to prove that the
various miraculous gifts (such as those of miraculous healings and
miraculous tongues-speakings etc) would disappear during the
apostolic age, upon the completion of the inscripturation of Holy Writ.
However -- this is indeed the stated position of Augustine II, Luther,
Calvin, the Westminster theologians, Owen, Voetius, Chas. & A.A. Hodge,
Edwards, Godet, Shedd, Warfield, Kuyper, Hughes and Lee.
Nor will we here argue that I Cor. 13:10's "what is
perfect" is the completion of Scripture, around A.D. 70 -- by which time I
Cor. 13:8's miraculous gifts of "tongues" etc. would therefore
"cease." This has been so argued by Edwards, Dabney, Jamieson, Fausset,
Brown, Pink, Reymond, Unger, Du Toit, Gaffin, Judisch and Budgen. Indeed,
we ourselves have so argued -- in our own work thereon, called Miracles
-- What and When?, Brisbane, 1985, especially pp 35-40.
Here, however, we are concerned simply with the need
to translate all foreign languages spoken in the congregation. This
translating was needed in the past -- even when those languages were
sometimes spoken miraculously! Similar translation is still needed at the
present -- wherever foreign tongues might (non-miraculously) be spoken
during public worship or public prayer meetings.
Declared Paul: 'He who keeps on speaking in a tongue [viz.
a language], is not speaking to men but to God [and to himself]. For
nobody [else] understands him, even though in spirit he is speaking hidden
things (musteeria).... He who keeps on speaking in a language,
edifies himself.... I would that you all spoke in languages, but
rather that you prophesied. For greater is he who prophesies, than he who
speaks in languages --except he interprets, so that the church may receive
edifying.'
Note here that these 'mysterious things' are not
hidden to his own spirit (pneumati), but only to the spirits
of other Christians. The word pneumati here means his own spirit,
and not the Holy Spirit. For in this sentence --there is no 'Holy
Spirit' [Hagiooi Pneumati]; no 'Spirit' [Pneumati];
nor even a definite article 'the' [or tooi] before this
man's spirit [pneumati]!
The 'hidden things' are therefore mysteries --
but only so, to the foreign spirits of others who may be listening. For
none of the language-speaker's listeners -- nobody (oudeis) --then
understands him. Nobody -- unless his tongue-speakings are
translated, for the listeners' benefit!
Quite different to such untranslated public language-speakings,
however, are 'prophecies' or forthtellings of God's Word --whether spoken
directly into the Corinthian dialect, or whether translated thereinto from
some other language. On the character of prophecy, see my other
article Revival Through Prophesying (Brisbane, 1990). Here,
however, we would only establish that even untranslated
language-speaking was very edifying to -- and therefore thoroughly
understood by -- the language-speaker himself!
Comments Chrysostom: "As in the time of building the
tower [of Babel], the one tongue was divided into many -- so then" with
this Corinthian language-speaking. "The many tongues frequently 'met' in
one man [cf. I Cor. 14:18]....
"The same person used to discourse both in the
Persian, and the Roman, and the Indian, and many other tongues.... The
gift was called 'the gift of tongues' -- because he could...speak divers
languages." Paul "is speaking of them who understand what they
say -- understand it themselves!"
Calvin comments: "The Corinthians were giving undue
attention to the gift of tongues, because it was more showy. For it is the
case that, when people hear somebody speaking in a foreign language,
they are unusually moved to wonderment.... It means a foreign language....
'Mysteries'...I interpret...as unintelligible, baffling, enigmatic
sayings. As if Paul had written, 'Nobody understands a word he says'....
"In our own day...there is a crying need for the
knowledge of tongues.... Since the Holy Spirit has bestowed undying honour
on tongues..., it is easy to deduce what sort of spirit moves those
critics who make strong attacks against the study of languages....
"Paul is referring to all languages...which were such
a great help in proclaiming the Gospel among all the nations.... On the
other hand..., present-day critics are condemning the languages from which
the pure truth of Scripture is to be drawn....
"Do not, however, imagine that Paul is here allowing
anybody to waste the time of the Church by muttering foreign words. For
how ridiculous it would be to proclaim the same thing in many languages,
when there is no need to do so!"
Hodge comments: "If a man comes to me speaking a
language which I cannot understand, no matter how polished or significant
that language may be -- he is a barbarian to me, and I to him [I Cor. 14:]
vs. 10-11.... He who had the gift of tongues, should pray for the gift of
interpretation -- as without the latter gift, however devotional he might
be, his prayers could not profit others [I Cor. 14:] vs. 13-14.... The
gift of tongues...was the gift...of speaking in foreign languages.... The
speaker with tongues was in a state of calm self-control. He could speak,
or be silent [I Cor. 14:]14,28.... What he said was intelligible to
himself, and could be interpreted to others....
"He who speaks with tongues, speaks not to men but to
God.... 'No man understandeth' him...does not imply that the sounds
uttered were in themselves unintelligible, so that no man living (unless
inspired) could understand them.... The meaning is not that
no man living, but no man present could understand. It is
not the use of the gift of tongues that he censures, but the use of that
gift when no one was present who understood the language employed....
"Mysteries mean divine truths...which God has
revealed.... To make the word mean 'things not understood'...is
contrary to the usage of the word.... The difficulty was in the
language used, not in the absence of meaning.... The
implication is that these tongues were foreign to the hearers....
Therefore it is said, 'no man understands him'....
"The prophet spoke in the native language of
his hearers; the speaker with tongues, in a foreign language....
The speaker with tongues did not edify the church, because he was not
understood. He did edify himself, because he understood himself!
This verse, therefore, proves that the understanding was not in abeyance,
and that the speaker was not in an ecstatic state....
"'That the church may receive edification'...proves
that the contents of these discourses delivered in an unknown tongue, were
edifying and therefore did not consists in...enigmas and
dark sayings. This passage also proves that the gift of interpretation,
although distinct from that of tongues, might be -- and doubtless often
was -- possessed by the same person, and consequently that he understood
what he said!"
Comments Barnes: "It was necessary to correct an
erroneous estimate which they [the Corinthians] had placed on the power of
speaking foreign languages.... He [Paul] then proceeds to set forth the
advantage of speaking in intelligible language.... Though Paul himself was
more signally endowed than any of them, yet he prized far more highly the
power of promoting the edification of the church, though he uttered but
five words, if they were understood -- than all the power which he
possessed of speaking foreign languages [I Cor. 14] ver. 18-19....
"They were not most earnestly and especially to desire
to be able to speak foreign languages, or to work miracles. But they were
to desire to be qualified to speak in a manner that would be edifying to
the church. They would...highly prize the power...of speaking foreign
languages.... [Yet] the ability to speak in a plain...manner so as to
edify the church...was a more valuable endowment than...the power of
speaking foreign languages....
"The faculty of speaking intelligibly, and to the
edification of the church, is of more value than the power of speaking a
foreign language.... He did not undervalue the power of speaking foreign
languages when foreigners were present; or when they went to preach for
foreigners. See [I Cor. 14] ver. 22... It was only when it was needless,
when all present spoke one language, that he speaks of it as of
comparatively little value."
Continued Paul: 'If I come to you speaking with
tongues, what shall I profit you -- except I shall speak to you either by
revelation or by knowledge? ... Even lifeless things which give off
sounds, whether pipe or organ, unless they give off a distinction
in the sounds -- how shall what is piped or harped be known? For if
the trumpet gives an uncertain sound -- who shall prepare himself to the
battle? So likewise you, unless by the tongue you utter words easy to
be understood -- how shall that which is being spoken, be known?
For you shall be speaking into the air!'
Calvin comments: "Paul takes himself as an example....
He therefore asks them what use it would be to them if he were to employ
strange languages when speaking to them.... Paul is speaking here about
sounds which are products of a certain technical skill. As though he said
-- 'A man cannot give life to a harp or flute, except by producing sounds
which are adjusted in such a way that they can be picked out! How
absurd then that actual men, endowed as they are with intelligence, should
utter indistinguishable and unintelligible sounds!'"
Comments Hodge: "The obvious design of the
illustration, is to show the uselessness of making sounds which are not
understood.... The simple point of the analogy is that, as we cannot know
what is piped or harped, or be benefited by it, unless we can
discriminate the sounds emitted -- so we cannot be benefited by
listening to one who speaks a language which we do not understand."
Barnes comments: "If he [Paul] should come among them
[the Corinthians] speaking foreign languages -- it could be of no use
unless it were interpreted to them.... Paul had the power of speaking
foreign languages [I Cor. 14] ver. 18. But he did not use this power for
ostentation or display, but merely to communicate the gospel to those who
did not understand his native tongue....
"Foreign tongues spoken in their assembly would be
just as useless in regard to their duty, their comfort and edification
--as would be the sound of a trumpet, [unless] when it gave one of the
usual and intelligible sounds by which it was known what the soldiers were
required to do. Just as we would say that the mere beating on a drum would
be useless -- unless some tune was played by which it was known
that the soldiers were summoned to the parade....
"To apply the case. If you use a foreign language --
how shall it be known what is said, or of what use will it be, unless it
is made intelligible by interpretation? ... The practice of the papists
accords with what the Apostle here condemns -- where worship is conducted
in a language not understood by the people!"
Declared Paul: 'There are, it may be, very many kinds
of sounds in the world. But not one of them is without significance.
Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the sound -- I would be
a barbarian to him who keeps on speaking [in his own foreign
language].
'And he who keeps on speaking [in a tongue foreign to
me] --would be a barbarian to me. So too you. Inasamuch are you do keep on
being zealous about spiritual gifts -- seek to excel, to the
edification of the church!'
Chrysostom comments that there were "so many tongues"
in the Apostolic Church. He specifies further: "So many 'voices' of
Scythians, Thracians, Romans, Persians, Moors, Indians, Egyptians, [and]
innumerable other nations."
Calvin comments: "Our speech ought to be the
reflection of our minds.... It is therefore pointless and absurd for a man
to speak in a gathering of people, when the hearer understands not a word
of what he says and cannot even catch the slightest inkling to show him
what the speaker means. Paul is therefore quite right in regarding it as
the height of absurdity that a man should prove to be a 'barbarian' to his
audience, because he talks away in an unknown language....
"The Greeks, who looked upon themselves as the only
people who were good speakers and had a refined language, called all the
other peoples barbarians -- because of their rough and boorish way
of speaking. But in fact, no matter how cultivated a language may
be, even it can be described as 'barbarous' -- when nobody can understand
it!"
Hodge comments: "'There are ever so many...languages
in the world'.... The context...shows that the reference is to human
speech. Therefore, the words genee phoonoon should be translated
'kinds of languages.' Gen. 1 & 11. And no one of them 'is without
signification' -- i.e., inarticulate. The phrase is phoonee
aphoonos -- 'a language which is no language' --that is, without
significancy (which is the essence of a language)! The very point is that
as all languages are significant, so the languages used by those who spoke
with tongues were significant. The difficulty was not in the language
used, but in the ignorance of the hearer....
"The sounds uttered, are significant.... The man does
not make a mere senseless noise, but speaks a real language. Therefore, if
I know not the meaning of the voice (i.e., the language) -- I shall
stand in the relation of a foreigner to him, and he to me. Otherwise, it
would not be so! If a man utters incoherent, inarticulate sounds
which no man living could understand -- that would not make him a
foreigner. It might prove him to be deranged, but not [to be] a
stranger! The word barbarian means simply one of another
country.... In this passage...barbarian means simply 'foreigner.' Comp.
Rom. 1:14; Acts 28:24; Col. 3:11.
Comments Barnes: "Paul meant to indicate that there
were perhaps, or might be, as many languages as the Jews supposed -- to
wit, seventy [compare Genesis chapter ten. Calvin's successor] Beza and
others suppose it means that there may be as many languages as there are
nations of men. Bloomfield renders it, 'Let there be as many kinds of
languages as you choose.' Macknight, 'There are, no doubt, as many kinds
of languages in the world as ye speak'....
"The argument is, that as all the
languages that are in the world, however numerous they are for utility,
and as none are used for the sake of mere display -- so it should be with
those who had the power of speaking them in the Christian church. They
should speak them, only when and where they would be understood....
"The meaning of the voice [refers to]...that
language that is uttered.... What I say, will be unintelligible to him
[the foreigner]; and what he says, will be unintelligible to me. We cannot
understand one another any more than people can who speak different
languages.... A barbarian...means one who speaks a different or a
foreign language."
Declares Paul: "He, therefore, who speaks in a foreign
language [while in the congregation] -- let him pray that he himself may
translate it [for the benefit of his otherwise-uncomprehending 'foreign'
listeners]! For if I pray [publically] in a foreign language [known to me
but not known to my foreign listeners], my spirit then indeed
prays" -- even though the spirits of my foreign listeners do not. Isa.
28:11-12 cf. I Cor. 14:21-22.
"For my own spirit knows my own home language,
when I pray in it." Isa. 26:9 cf. Lk. 1:47 & Rom. 8:16. "But 'my
understanding' is 'unfruitful'" -- if I pray publically in my own home
language. Because I should have realized that the spirits of my 'foreign'
listeners would not be able to follow me in my own home language, unless
translated for them. For I should have had the 'understanding'
to have anticipated that, when 'foreigners' have to listen to me praying,
they themselves can listen to me only un-fruit-fully -- if I
pray publically in my own home language inaccessible to my 'foreign'
listeners!
The Westminster Confession (21:3m) refers to this text
I Cor. 14:14. It does so to prove that "prayer is by God required...to be
made..., if vocal, in a known tongue" -- alias a humanly recognized
language.
Both Pentecostalists and Neo-Pentecostalists claim
Paul here means the following: "Whenever I pray supernaturally in a tongue
or ecstatic utterance, it is really the Holy Spirit down within me Who is
then doing the praying! It is not my own conscious understanding which is
doing the praying at that particular time. No, at that particular moment
-- my own understanding is quite 'un-fruitful' and uncomprehending!
"This is so, because I do not then understand what the
Holy Spirit is praying through me. At that time, I am only praying
'spirit-ually' -- but not understanding-ly! For then, I am merely a
non-understanding alias a mind-less tool of the Holy Spirit.
Indeed, it is not really me at all that is then doing the praying. But it
is the Holy Spirit Who is then praying -- in me, and through me, and in
spite of me."
Oral Roberts was a world-famous Classic Pentecostalist
leader at the time he turned Neo-Pentecostalist and joined the liberal
Methodist Church. Declares Roberts: "When one uses his new tongue through
the Spirit's utterance, he cannot speak in his own normal tongue at the
same time. Paul gives us the sense of this in I Corinthians 14:14, 'For if
I pray in an unknown tongue my spirit prayeth but my understanding is
unfruitful.' Paul indicates here that when one prays in tongues..., his
intellect relinquishes active control of the speech centers....
"Paul continues...: 'I will pray with the spirit' [viz.
in tongues].... 'I will sing with the spirit' [viz. in tongues]....
I Corinthians 14:15.... When a believer speaks in tongues, he is either
praying or singing or giving thanks to God with his spirit, rather than
with his intellect. This is in harmony with Paul's explanation in I
Corinthians 14:2.... When one is praying 'in the Spirit,' he is praying or
speaking in tongues. Paul uses this term again, in Ephesians 6:18....
"Speaking in tongues...may cause such emotions as
rest, peace, quietness, soft inner glow -- as well as [alternatively]
ecstatic joy.... The intellect relinquishes...its absolute control....
Paul reached a point where he had to bind his intellect.... He had to quit
talking in his own language, and quit thinking in his own mind. He simply
prayed in tongues. Thus Oral Roberts: The Baptism with the Holy
Spirit, Tulsa, 1964, pp. 22f,31,42 cf. p 28.
M.M. DeVilliers declares: "No Christians can pray and
praise the Lord, like those [viz. the (Neo- )Pentecostalists] who
have been baptized by the Holy Spirit.... The person who has already tried
to laud and praise God without being baptized in the Holy Spirit -- but
who then tries again, after he receives the full baptism -- knows that
Pentecostalists are able to glorify God only through the power of the Holy
Ghost.... Sometimes the loveliest songs of praise and other spiritual
songs in strange tongues, are heard -- through the Holy Spirit -- in the
services of despised and persecuted Pentecostalists....
"In Bartleman's How Pentecost came to Los Angeles,
we read that... 'the Spirit dropped the heavenly chorus into my soul....
No one could understand it.... It was indeed a 'new song' in the
Spirit.... The singing in tongues was exercised, as the Spirit moved the
possessors.... It was sometimes without words; other times in tongues....
People fell under the power of God, danced, and did lots of other things.'
I Cor. 14:15 states: 'I will pray with the
spirit' and 'I will sing with the spirit.' Yet from this,
DeVilliers has jumped to the conclusions of 'dancing' and 'doing
lots of other things.' Indeed, DeVilliers even calls this 'dancing
in the Spirit' and 'doing lots of other things in the Spirit!'
See M.M. DeVilliers: Let My People Go! (Paarl Publishers, South
Africa), n.d., pp. 59-63.
The Neo-Pentecostalist Cockburn is not to be outdone.
For he enjoins: "Sing aloud whatever notes come to you, together
with the accompanying syllables or words, as the Lord gives them to you. I
Cor. 14:15.... Once you have spoken in tongues (by the Lord's enabling),
you may do so whenever you wish. I Cor. 14:27,28,32. The more you
use your 'tongue' -- the more you will be edified.... Use it daily!" Thus
I. Cockburn: The Baptism in the Spirit, Logos, Plainfield N.J.,
1971, p. 32.
However, God's Word warns us: "The tongue is a
fire, a world of iniquity. It defiles the wholy body..., and is set on
fire by hell!" Jas. 4:6.
The above (Neo-)Pentecostal misinterpretation of I Cor.
14:13-14, is thoroughly unscriptural! Sadly, it is also a most dangerous
aberration. For it reduces (Neo-)Pentecostalistic 'tongues-speaking'
almost to the level of spirit-istic medium-ism at forbidden seances!
Could this not often be demonic? I Tim. 4:1-2 & I John 4:1-6. Indeed, even
Neo-Pentecostalist Oral Roberts states that one "exercising a gift of
tongues is really possessed...." Op. cit., pp 48 & 55-57. Compare:
Deut. 18:10-12; I Sam. 28:7-20; Isa. 8:19-20; 29:4.
Spiritism is a very grave danger to man, and an
abomination to the Lord. It is a very wicked sin. Certainly, all
Christians in particular should firmly avoid even the appearance of
such an evil! See I Thess. 5:22-23.
The two consecutive verses I Cor. 14:13-14 make both
the Classic-Pentecostal view as well as the Neo- Pentecostal view of
Paul's teaching quite untenable. The two verses must, of course, be read
together. For they are linked to one another (at the beginning of verse
14) by the conjunction "for" (or gar).
Now the two verses cannot mean what the Classic-Pentecostalists
suggest they. They say the verses mean: 'Let him who speaks in tongues in
public, pray that someone else there present, should try to explain those
utterances. For the tongues-speaker himself does not then understanding
what the Holy Spirit is then praying through him.'
In actual fact, however, the two verses can only
mean: "If a man speaks publically in his own foreign language, let him
first pray that he himself may be enabled to interpret it!" For the
Greek itself has -- "ho laloon gloosseei proseuchesthoo
hina diermeeneueei!
"For, if I pray in my own foreign language while in
public, my own spirit is indeed praying." Indeed, I myself
right then certainly understand what I am praying at that time. "But my
understanding is unwise" to pray thus, publically, in my own foreign
language -- unless I translate [or get someone else to translate]
my prayer. For my prayer would then need to be translated out of my own
foreign language, and into the different language of the listeners (so as
to benefit them too)!
The two consecutive verses I Cor. 14:13-14 cannot
consistently be interpreted in the Classic-Pentecostalist way. However,
still less can they consistently be interpreted in the way Neo-Pentecostalists
try to do. For the two verses cannot possibly mean what Neo-Pentecostalistic
'closet tongues-speakers' would wish them to mean.
Neo-Pentecostalists misinterpret the passage as if it
meant: 'let him who prays ecstatically in private, not even try to see to
it that the meaning of the utterance be explained there and then!
After all, the human understanding even of the language-speaker is
uncomprehending -- throughout all such ecstatic prayer.'
In actual fact, however, the two consecutive verses
themselves very clearly insist that the language-speaking must be
interpreted. Indeed, the verses even say the tongue-speaker himself
must interpret his own utterance -- or hina diermeeneueei.
Moreover, the particular language-speakings mentioned
here were all uttered publically (and not privately
in one's own closet)! Indeed, they were all uttered with the greatest
openness. For they were all uttered in the very bosom of the Church at
Corinth, during her congregation meetings. See I Cor. 14:4-6,9,11,13,16-
17,19,21,23,27-28.
The verse I Cor. 14:13, even by itself, clearly
implies these tongues were linguistic. By and large, this alone refutes
what most (Neo-)Pentecostalists claim it teaches.
For the verse does not say: 'Let him utter
non-linguistic ecstatic sounds!' Let him do so either publically,
or privately, or both! Let him utter sounds which he himself does not
understand.' No! Instead, the verse actually says: 'Let him who speaks in
a foreign language, pray that he may be enabled to interpret it [to
others]!"
Further, the verse does not say: 'Let the
ecstatic sound-utterer pray that someone else present, may interpret the
utterer's sounds.' No! Instead, the verse actually says: 'Let the one who
speaks in a language, pray that he may be enabled to interpret it
[to others]!"
Again, the verse does not say: 'Let the sound-utterer
pray that someone else present may try to explain his utterances.' No!
Instead, the verse actually says: 'Let the foreign language-speaker
[before speaking publically, first] pray that he [himself] might be
enabled to translate" what he could say, into the language of his
listeners!
Similarly, even the next verse, I Cor. 14:14, does not
at all teach what (Neo-)Pentecostalists claim it does! For, firstly, the
verse does not say: 'Whenever I pray in ecstatic utterances,
it is really the Holy Spirit Who is praying [through me].' No!
Instead, the verse actually says: "If I pray in a foreign
language -- my [own] spirit is praying."
Secondly, the verse does not say: 'Whenever I
pray in ecstatic utterances, my own spirit is simply swept along
uncomprehendingly.' No! Instead, the verse actually says: If I
pray in a foreign language, my spirit [consciously] prays."
Thirdly, the verse does not say: 'My own
understanding is disengaged, whenever I pray in ecstatic utterances
which I myself cannot then understand.' No! Instead, the
verse actually says: "Let the one who speaks [publically] in a
foreign language, pray that he might be enabled to translate it! For
[otherwise] -- although my own spirit would then indeed itself be
praying -- my understanding would be unfruitful or unwise. For my
own untranslated foreign language message, would then bear no fruit
in the lives of my uncomprehending listeners!
What does Paul mean when he says: 'Let a man who
speaks in a foreign language, pray that he may translate it?' Comments
Calvin: "Here Paul is replying, by way of anticipation, to a question
which could easily have been put to him [namely]: 'Does that mean, then,
that if anyone knows a foreign language, his gift will be useless?'"
'Does that mean that he who speaks best in a
foreign tongue, cannot be of any benefit to the congregation of
Christ's Church in Corinth?' Answers Calvin: "Paul provides the remedy.
'Let him ask God for the gift of interpretation also! If he does
not have that -- let him refrain, in the meantime, from giving an
ostentatious performance!'" Alternatively -- let others interpret
it for him, instead!
Paul's argument here, comments Charles Hodge, "was
designed to show how useless it is to speak in a language which no one
present understands." Apparently anticipating the (Neo-)Pentecostalistic
misinterpretation of I Cor. 14:13f, Hodge here rightly rejects "the
assumption that the gift of tongues was exercised only in prayer
and praise; in other words, that it consisted in an ecstatic but
unintelligible and unintelligent pouring out of the heart to God.... This
whole assumption is not only gratuitous, but contrary to Scripture!
"The gift of tongues was, according to Acts 2:5-11,
exercised in declaring the 'wonderful works of God.' It is also
apparent from what is said in this chapter, [I Cor. 14] vs. 22-25 and v.
27, that the gift in question was not confined to acts of devotion"
in private, but was also being exercised especially in public worship!
See I Cor. 14:4-6,9,11,13,16-17,19,21,23,27-28.
What does Paul mean by: 'Let him that speaketh in an
unknown tongue, pray that he may interpret?' He means, comments Barnes,
the following. "The power of speaking foreign languages, and the
power of conveying truth in a clear and distinct manner, were not
always found in the same person. The one [gift] did not of necessity imply
the other."
These two distinctly different gifts of
tongues-speaking and tongues-interpretation, however, "were bestowed on
men in some such way as ordinary talents and mental powers are
now conferred.... They became in a similar sense the characteristic
mental endowments of the individual, and of course were subject to the
same laws [as still operate today].... And as it now happens that
one man may have a peculiar faculty for acquiring and expressing himself
in a foreign language who may not be by any means distinguished for clear
enunciation, or capable of conveying his ideas in an interesting manner to
a congregation -- so it was then.
"The apostle therefore directs such, if any there were
-- instead of priding themselves on their endowments, and instead of
always speaking in an unknown tongue which would be useless to the
church -- to pray for the more useful gift of being able to
convey their thoughts in a clear and intelligible manner in their
vernacular tongue. This would be useful."
For those who "had the power of speaking
with eminent ability in a foreign language -- they ought to
desire to be able to interpret, so that they would be
intelligible to the people whom they addressed in the church."
For "the power of speaking foreign languages and the power of
interpreting, were not always united in the same person
-- as appears from chap. 12:10."
What does Paul really mean in I Cor. 14:14? We believe
he means the following: 'If I pray in public in a language well-known to
myself but foreign to most of my listeners, my mind is unfruitful.
For then my mind has not grasped that my listeners, who do not understand
that foreign language I just prayed in, are deriving no benefit from my
recent untranslated prayer. My mind is "unfruitful" in that it did not --
while my spirit was praying -- proceed to translate my own foreign words
into the Corinthian dialect, for the benefit of my listeners.'
Note that Paul does not say: 'If I pray in a
tongue, even I do not understand it!' But, as the famous
Scottish Presbyterian Bible Translator Rev. Prof. Dr. James Moffatt
rightly renders the phrase, Paul here actually meant: "If I pray with a
tongue, my spirit prays, no doubt; but my mind
is no use to anyone" -- that is, to anyone else!
In such a situation, this kind of prayer -- unless
translated --is of no use to anyone else then present. For no one else
then present, is able to understand the language in which I just prayed.
Because those listeners had never previously learned that language -- nor
were those listeners then experiencing a miracle in their ears, enabling
them suddenly to understand the language in which I just prayed.
Comments Calvin: "The Corinthians...went wrong"
-- by publically praying each in his own foreign tongue while in the
congregation. "Just as they were in the habit of speaking in
foreign languages, so they were also using them in [public] prayers....
The meaning of 'praying in a tongue' is clear from the preceding verses of
the chapter, viz. to express a prayer in a foreign language....
"It is in-credible...that there were any
people who spoke, [even] by the influence of the Spirit, in a
language they did not know themselves! For the gift
of tongues was not bestowed merely for the purpose of making a
noise, but rather for the purpose of communication, of course! For
how laughable it would have been, had the tongue of a Roman
been directed by the Spirit of God to utter Greek words -- when he
himself [even while speaking in Greek] had no knowledge of Greek whatever!
He would have been like the parrots, magpies and crows which men train to
make human sounds!"
Calvin now actually anticipates the (Neo-)Pentecostalistic
objection to the above correct equating of 'tongues' with foreign but real
human languages. Opponents, says Calvin, object: "But if somebody
endowed with the gift of tongues, [always] spoke sensibly and
intelligently" -- so that at least he himself could
understand his own words -- then "it would have been pointless for
Paul to say that 'my spirit prays, but the understanding is un-fruitful!'"
Replies Calvin: "My answer to that is, that for the
sake of illustration, Paul is taking a purely hypothetical
situation, as follows. 'If the gift of speaking in a tongue is
kept distinct from the understanding -- so that the speaker is a foreigner
to himself as well as to others -- what good will he do by
stammering along like that?'" No good at all.
No, that could not be! "Let us therefore remember,
that things which are really bound together" in the
language-speaker --namely 'speaking' and 'understanding' -- "are kept
separate here, for the sake of teaching -- and not because
it can...fall out that way!"
Comments Calvin: "Paul thinks it a great fault if the
understanding takes no part in prayer. No wonder! For what else do
we do in praying, but pour out our thoughts and desires before
God?"
"Spiritual prayer is a means of worshipping God. What
is more out of keeping with its very nature -- than its coming only
from the lips, and not from the innermost recesses of the
soul?" For then, it is "the devil" who has "deprived the world
of its senses" -- if "men believe that they are praying properly, when
they [only] make their lips move!"
In Calvin's own day, comments the Reformer, "the
Papists are so obstinately stupid.... They make excuses for praying
without understanding....
"They also prefer the ignorant to mutter and
murmur in words that are unknown to them." It is just like
the ridiculous phenomenon, concludes Calvin, where "a Spaniard curses God
in German" -- when nobody present even understands German!
The Presbyterian Westminster Confession
faithfully reflects the Presbyterian Calvin's own understanding of the
correct meaning of the word 'tongue' in First Corinthians chapter
fourteen. For the Confession (21:3m) insists that the Biblical verse I Cor.
14:14 prohibits "pray[ing] in an unknown tongue" --whether in public, or
-- if audible -- even when in private!
Now this Biblical verse, states the Confession, means
that all prayer, "if vocal" or audible, is to be made only "in a
known tongue." This means a tongue which is the known common or
"vulgar language" of a specific "nation." (See West. Conf. 1:8u.)
It means a real language known to the language-speaker
while he so speaks in that tongue. It also means a real language
knowable by the language-listeners. The language could be know-able
by them, because already known to them. Or it could be knowable to
them, because translatable into another tongue already known to
them. It could then be translated, immediately after being uttered
by the language-speaker.
However, the tongue is always linguistic! It
never means a glossolalic utterance unknown even to the
language-speaker -- nor an untranslatable utterance, and thus unknowable
by the language-listeners!
Said Paul: 'If I pray [in public] in a foreign
language, my spirit indeed prays -- but my understanding is unfruitful.'
On this 'praying in a tongue' Hodge comments: "The speaker with tongues
should pray for the gift of interpretation. Unless he interprets -- his
prayer [in his own foreign language] can do no good" to others.
There must, then, be translation. Otherwise,
continues Hodge -- "as the same idea is expressed in vs. 16-17" (which
see!) -- "those who are unlearned, cannot join in.... 'Praying'
with a tongue is specified, by way of example, as one mode of
'speaking' with tongues.... The general meaning of this verse, is thus
plain."
Comments Hodge: "What does Paul mean by saying [that]
his 'spirit' prays? ... This verse [I Cor. 14:14] and those which
immediately follow, are the principal foundation of the theory that
the speaker with tongues was in a state of ecstatic excitement in which
his understanding was not exercised, so that he knew not
what he said or did. How inconsistent this theory is with the
facts of the case, has already been shown. This view of the passage,
therefore, cannot be admitted....
"Each man has his own 'spirit'...[and] his own
spiritual gift. Compare [I Cor. 14] verse 12.... Paul means to say, that
when a man prays in an unknown tongue, his spiritual 'gift' is
indeed exercised...but others are not profited. The speaker with
tongues...should not exercise his gift where it can do no
good to others."
Hodge also comments (on I Cor. 12:10), that the
passages in I Cor. 14:14-15, "naturally mean only that the understanding
of the speaker was unprofitable to others" -- if his uttered
message was not translated for them. "Paul in I Cor. 14:14-19 does
not place speaking with tongues and speaking in one's own language in
opposition.... 'Speaking with tongues' was not an involuntary,
incoherent, ecstatic mode of speaking!"
Declares Paul: 'If I pray in a foreign language, my
own spirit indeed prays; but my understanding is unfruitful.' Comments
Hodge: "What is meant by saying, 'my understanding is unfruitful?'" There
are those, comments Hodge (on I Cor. 14:14), who says that these words
mean: 'my understanding is not profited; gains no fruit' -- that is, I do
not understand what I say!'
Hodge himself, however, insists that this (Neo-)Pentecostalistic
misunderstanding of I Cor. 14:14 "contradicts all those passages which
teach that the speaker with tongues did understand himself [cf.
I Cor. 14:2,4,16,29]. The words, therefore, must be understood to mean 'my
understanding produces no fruit' -- i.e., it does not benefit
others.
"This is in accordance with all that precedes, and
with the uniform use of the word" ['unfruitful'] in "Eph. 5:11, Tit. 3:14,
II Pet. 1:8, Matt. 13:22." Finally, "those speaking in tongues, were not
parrots or ravens! The expression in the text -- 'my understanding is
unfruitful' consequently cannot mean: 'I do not myself understand what I
say!" So too Rev. Drs. Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer.
Paul declares: 'If I pray in an unknown tongue, my
spirit prayeth.' Comments Barnes: "It is probable that the word 'spirit'
refers to the will; or to the mind, as the seat of the affections
and emotions; i.e. to the heart, desires, or intentions. The word
spirit is often used in the Scriptures as the seat of the
affections and emotions and passions of various kinds. See Matt. 5:5; Luke
10:21; Luke 1:17; Acts 18:25; Rom. 12:11; Mark 3:12; John 11:33; 13:21;
Acts 17:16; Luke 9:55; Rom. 8:15.
"Here [in I Cor. 14:14] it refers...to the heart, the
will, the disposition, the feelings -- as contradistinguished from the
'understanding.' And the sense is: 'my feelings find utterance in prayer;
my heart is engaged in devotion; my prayer will be acceptable to God Who
looks upon the feelings of the heart; and I may have true enjoyment. But
my understanding will be unfruitful -- that is, will not
profit others.'"
Continues Paul: "What, then, is to be done? I will
pray with my spirit!" See too I Cor. 14:14a. "But I will also pray, using
my understanding!" See too I Cor. 14:14b. Especially foreign Christians
residing in Corinth, needed to use their 'understanding' or their 'mind.'They
in particular needed to be 're-mind-ed' to pray in the language of
those listening. Or alternatively, they needed to arrange for what they
prayed in their own home language, to be translated immediately into the
language of those 'foreigners' then listening in.
"I will sing psalms with my spirit!" See too I Cor.
14:14a. "However, I will also sing psalms while using my understanding: or
my mind! See I Cor. 14:14b. For especially Christians from
elsewhere, residing in Corinth, needed to be 're-mind-ed' to sing
the psalms in -- or to have their psalm-singing translated into -- the
language of their 'foreign' listeners then listening to them sing.
Chrysostom comments: "If a man should [while in
the Corinthian congregation] speak only in the Persian, or in any
other foreign tongue and not understand what he is saying,
then, of course, to himself also he would be a barbarian
[and] not only to another -- from not knowing the meaning of the sound."
That, however, would be quite absurd! "For there were
of old many who had also a gift of prayer, together with a tongue. And
they prayed, and the tongue spoke -- praying either in the Persian
or Latin language."
All of the various extant patristic fragments [except
some in Tertullian II alone], here agree with Chrysostom. See The
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids,
1969, XII, p 211 n 1.
Of all the Early Church Fathers, Tertullian alone
misunderstood these 'real language gifts' in Corinth -- as if they were
ecstatic utterances. Indeed, even Tertullian took this view --only in the
second or Semi-Montanist phase of his three periods of doctrinal
understanding (or misunderstanding).
According to Augustine, Tertullian later repudiated
his sympathies toward the semi-pagan ecstatic utterances of the
Semi-Montanists, and again became orthodox. See Aug.: On Heresies
6; Schaff: History of the Christian Church, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids,
1970 ed., II p 421 & n 1; Gromacki: The Modern Tongues Movement,
Presb. & Ref. Pub. Co., Philadelphia, 1967, p 14. On Montanism in general,
and especially on its (semi-)pagan roots, see my booklet
Pentecostalism: New Outpouring or Ancient Heresy?, Commonwealth,
Rowlett Texas, 1986, especially pp 27f.
To Chrysostom and to all of the other Early Church
Fathers, then -- with the solitary exception of the Semi- Montanistic
Tertullian II -- the Corinthian 'praying in the spirit' never involved
mindless ecstasies. To them, it always involved utterances in real foreign
languages!
What does Paul means by: 'I will pray with the
spirit?' Paul means, comments Calvin: "It is certainly in order to
pray with the spirit, so long as the mind -- i.e. the
understanding -- is also brought into play.
"He therefore allows and approves of the use of the
spiritual gift in prayers. But he insists that the mind should not
be inactive. And that, of course, is the main point."
Barnes comments that Paul means: "I will endeavour to
blend all the advantages which can be derived from prayer. I will unite
all the benefits which can result to myself and to others. I deem it of
vast importance to pray with the spirit in such a way that the heart and
the affections may be engaged.... 'And I will pray with the
understanding also,' so that others may understand me."
Paul says he will use his understanding when praying
in public. He says he will deliberately pray in the language of those
listening, so that they too will understand. Hodge here comments: "The
sense is, 'I will not only pray in the exercise of my spiritual gift, but
[pray] so as to be understood by others!" That is, [I will
pray] not only spirit-ually, but I will also pray intelligibly.
"If tooi noi ('with the
understanding') may mean, as the moderns say it does, 'with a view to
interpret' (Meyer) -- it certainly may mean 'with a view to be
understood.' That is, this is what is implied and intended in what the
apostle says. When a man spoke...tooi noi, 'with the
understanding' --the 'understanding' was that controlling principle....
The man could so speak -- as to be intelligible to others."
Comments Calvin: "When he [Paul] says 'I shall sing
the Psalms' or 'I shall sing' [or psaloo], he is speaking
specifically.... The Psalms had as their themes the praises of God. He
[Paul] uses 'singing psalms' [psallein] for blessing or
giving thanks to God.... From this verse, we also gather, however, that at
that time the custom of singing was already in use among believers.
That is also established by Pliny.
Pliny was the Governor of Bythinia in what is now the
northwest of Turkey. See Acts 16:7 and I Pet. 1:1. Writing about forty
years after the death of Paul, Pliny -- observes Calvin -- "tells us that
the Christians were in the habit of singing hymns to Christ before
daylight. And indeed, I have no doubt that -- from the very beginning --
they adopted the usage of the Jewish Church in singing the Psalms!"
What does Paul mean by: 'I will sing with the
spirit?' Comments Barnes: "It is evident that the singing which
occurred in prayer...might be in a foreign language, and might [then] be
unintelligible to others" if the necessary safeguards are not
insisted upon.
"This passsage proves: (1) that the praises of
God are to be celebrated among Christians, and that it is an important
part of worship; (2) that the heart should be engaged in it...; and
(3) that it should be so done, as to be intelligible and
edifying to others. The words should be so uttered, as
to be distinct and understood....
"The design of sacred music in the worship of God is
not only to utter praise. But it is to impress the sentiments which
are sung, on the heart, by the aid of musical sounds and expression --more
deeply than could otherwise be done. If this is not done, the singing
might [just] as well be in a foreign language! Perhaps there is no part of
public worship in which there is greater imperfection, than in the mode of
its psalmody!"
In public, you should pray not just with your
understanding or mind, and not just with your [own] spirit, but
also with a view to your listeners and their spirits!
"Otherwise," declares Paul, "if you pray blessings" only with your own
understanding or mind, and only "with your spirit" [see I Cor.
14:14a] -- how could he who is present but ignorant [of your own
'foreign' home language you would then be praying in], say 'Amen!' to your
blessing? For he would not know what you would be saying! For you
would indeed be thanking God well [for yourself]. But the other
[person] would not be receiving edification!"
Even in I Cor. 14:15, there is no way a man could
'pray with the understanding' or 'pray with the mind' (tooi
noi), without at the same time being engaged to 'pray with his own
spirit.' For "the body without the spirit, is dead." Jas. 2:26. In
Corinth, the one praying and speaking in his own foreign tongue "gave
thanks well" -- or perfectly understood what he himself was saying.
But the "unlearned" listener could not comprehendingly say 'Amen!' For the
listener, being "unlearned" in the tongue being spoken in, did not and
could not understand what the praying person was saying. I Cor. 14:16-17.
The language-speaker indeed "gives thanks
well." I Cor. 14:17. He is able to do so, precisely because he
understands what he is saying! But the language-listeners, if
they are "unlearned" in the tongue just prayed in, do not understand it.
They do not then rationally comprehend it. And, not comprehending it, they
should not in that case say: "Amen!" -- as if they had
indeed comprehended it!
In actual fact, they do not comprehend that
tongue. This is so, precisely because they had never previously
learned that language of the language-speaker. Or alternatively, this
is so because they had not then heard the language-message translated
[to them as those "unlearned" in that foreign language, so that
they could then understandingly say 'Amen!'"
Chrysostom again reflects the massive consensus
in the Early Church Fathers, as to the true meaning of I Cor. 14:16-17.
Says he: "By the [word 'ignorant' or] 'unlearned,' he [Paul] means the
layman." Paul here "signifies that he [the layman] also suffers no little
loss -- where he is unable [comprehendingly] to say 'Amen!'
"What he [Paul] says, is this: 'if you shall bless
in a barbarian tongue [yet] not...be able to interpret
[that foreign language] -- the layman cannot [comprehendingly] respond
'Amen!'" In such a case, "'you are indeed giving thanks well'
-- since you are speaking, while being moved by the Spirit. But the
other, hearing nothing [comprehendingly] --nor knowing what is being
said -- stands there receiving no great advantage by it!"
In his own Commentary on First Corinthians,
Calvin follows Chrysostom and the Early Church Fathers' correct
consensus on the intepretation of these verses. Comments Calvin: "If
the man who composes and says prayers on behalf of the people, is not
understood by the congregation -- how will the ordinary people share in it
properly, and be able to indicate at the end that the prayer includes what
they themselves want? For people do not participate in prayers -- unless
they are all in complete agreement....
"Paul now says: 'If in public prayer you use a foreign
language which is not understood by the uneducated and ordinary people in
whose presence you are speaking -- nobody will share in your prayer, and
your prayer or blessing will no longer be public.' [Asks Calvin:]
Why? '[Because] nobody,' Paul says, 'can add his Amen! to a prayer
or a psalm -- unless he understands it'.... What is plainer than
this prohibition: 'Thanksgivings or prayers should not be
repeated in public -- except in the language everyone
understands...?'"
In his Institutes of the Christian Religion
(III:20:33), Calvin adds the following: "Public prayers are not to be
couched in Greek among the Latins, nor in Latin among the French or
English..., but in the vulgar tongue [alias the common language] -- so
that all present may understand them." Such public prayers "ought to be
used for edification of the whole Church -- which cannot be in the least
degree benefited by a sound not understood!
"Those who are not moved by any reason of humanity or
charity, ought at least to be somewhat moved by the authority of Paul....
I Cor. 14:16-17. Who, then, can sufficiently admire the unbridled audacity
which the Papists have had, and still have?" For those "Papists" --
contrary to the prohibition of the Apostle -- chant and bray in a foreign
and unknown tongue [Latin].... For the most part, they do not understand
one syllable, and...they have no wish that others understand!"
If someone prayed (or sang) in a foreign language
while in the congregation -- how could a listener ignorant of its meaning
voice his own approval? Comments Hodge: "Men cannot assent to what they do
not understand -- because assent implies the affirmation of the truth
of that to which we assent! It is impossible, therefore, to join in
prayers uttered in an unknown tongue.
"The Romish church persists in the use of the
Latin language in her public services -- not only in opposition to
the very idea and intent of worship, but also to the express
prohibition of the Scriptures. For the very thing here prohibited, is
praying in public in a language which the people do not understand.
"It is indeed said that words may touch the feelings
which [words] do not convey any distinct notions to the mind. But we
cannot say 'Amen!' to such words [and mean it] -- any more than we
can [truthfully say 'Amen!'] to a flute. Such blind, emotional 'worship'
-- if such it can be called -- stands at a great remove from the
intelligent service demanded by the Apostle!"
Even if none of the listeners understood a worshipper
praying or singing publically in his own untranslated foreign tongue --
that worshipper himself, said Paul, would nevertheless be praising God
satisfactorily on his own behalf (and in his own foreign tongue which he
himself understands). For he himself would indeed be "giving thanks well"
-- or, himself, "understanding perfectly." I Cor. 14:17. However, he
should not have prayed or sung in that foreign tongue publically,
without a translator!
Comments Hodge: "This proves that the speaker
must have understood what he [himself] said.... If it was necessary that
they [the listeners] should understand, in order [for them] to be
edified -- it was no less necessary that he [the speaker] should
understand what he said, in order [for him] to be benefited [or
'edified']!
"This verse is therefore decisive against all theories
of the gift of tongues which assume that those who used them, did not
understand their own words. The Scriptures recognize no unintelligent
worship of God!"
What does Paul mean by the 'unlearned' language-listener?
In Acts 4:13, 'unlearned' (and 'ignorant') apparently means 'unschooled'
or 'untutored.' On the same word 'unlearned' in I Cor. 14:16f, Barnes
comments: "Here it means one who was unacquainted with the foreign
language spoken by him who gave thanks. It ['unlearned'] properly
denotes...a man who is ignorant and unlettered, as such men generally
were....
Barnes further asks how the 'unlearned' can then
pronounce the Amen! -- and "express his assent"
comprehendingly? For then, as Paul explained, 'you [the language-speaker]
truly give thanks well -- but the other [or the "unlearned" language-listener]
is not edified!'
This means, comments Barnes, that you 'give
thanks well' when you verbally express an audible thanksgiving -- even if
you use a foreign language [which you yourself understand]. You do
it with the heart! And it is accepted by God as your offer-ing. But
the other, who cannot understand it, cannot be benefited by it!"
Continues Paul: "I praise God that I [Paul] speak in
languages [such as Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Cilician, Greek, Latin,
etc.] more than all of you do!" Many of you are foreigners,
although you are now living (and trading) in the international commercial
city of Corinth. And many of you who are foreigners do, of course --
especially in you own homes or houses in Corinth -- still speak the tongue
of the particular foreign country in which you were born. Compare Acts
2:6-11. Also, most of you naturally speak your own foreign tongue even
better than you speak the Corinthian dialect [which you have also learned
to speak, at least after a fashion].
I, Paul, am in a somewhat similar position. But while
in the congregation [at Corinth], I would rather use my mind and speak
five words [in the Corinthian dialect] -- thus thoroughly instructing
others too -- than [I would want to speak] ten thousand words in a foreign
language [while in the Corinthian congregation]!" Indeed, as the
Westminster Larger Catechism (159p) itself observes -- this texts
means that preachers should speak "plainly."
Continues Paul: "Brethren, don't become
childish in your thinking!" However, "do become like
babies as regards evil things! But, in your
understanding -- be men!" In your thinking, grow up!
Intellectually, be mature!
Calvin comments: "Paul did not want to give the
impression that he is decrying the gift of tongues through ill-will or
jealousy.... So he anticipated a suspicious attitude of that sort -- by
saying that he himself stands out above them all!
"He says: 'You should realise that what I am saying,
ought not to give you grounds for suspicion -- as if I would depreciate
something that I personally lack. For if we had a contest about languages,
not one of you would be able to hold a candle to me! But while I could
make a good showing in that sort of thing, I am more concerned about
upbuilding!'"
Said Paul: I thank my God that I speak with tongues
more than all of you do!' Barnes comments: "Paul here shows that he
did not undervalue or despise the power of speaking foreign languages.
It was with him a subject of thanksgiving that he could speak so
many.... 'I am able to speak more foreign languages than all of you'
[said Paul].
"How many languages Paul could speak, he has
nowhere told us.... He had been commissioned to preach to the Gentiles,
and it is probable that he was able to speak the languages of all the
nations among whom he ever travelled. There is no account of his being
under a necessity of employing an interpreter wherever he
preached!" Compare, however, I Cor. 14:5,18-19,27-28 with Acts 14:11-14 &
I Pet. 5:13!
What does Paul mean, where he says: 'I speak with
tongues more than all of you do?' Hodge here rightly comments: "The common
doctrine as to the nature of the gift [of 'tongues'], is the only one
consistent with this passage.
"Paul says that...he could speak in foreign languages
more than the Corinthians. [Yet] he would rather speak five words...so as
to be intelligible [in the Corinthian Church] -- than ten thousand words
in an unknown tongue!"
Comments Barnes: "It is probable that in the Christian
assembly, usually, there were [only] a few who understood foreign
languages. Paul, therefore, would not speak in a foreign language -- when
its only use would be mere display.
"Says Paul: 'Brethren, be not children in
understanding!' Here, continues Barnes, it is as if Paul had said: "Your
admiration of a foreign language, and of the ability to speak it, is of as
little solid value as the common sports and plays [or games] of boys!"
Indeed, explains Barnes: "The meaning may be thus
expressed. 'Your admiration of foreign languages is like the sports and
plays of childhood. In this respect, be not children (paidia).
Be men! Lay aside such childish things! Act worthy of the understanding
which God has given you!'"
Continues Paul: "In the Law, it has been written that
'I will speak to this people [of Israel] with other languages, and with
other lips [or 'with the lips of other peoples' such as the Assyrians]!
Yet, even then, they [the Israelites] will not listen to Me!' -- says the
Lord."
This was written by Isaiah (28:11-12), about the
unbelieving Israelites of his own day and age. Yet the same applied to the
unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem on Pentecost Sunday. Acts 2:12-15. Indeed,
the same also applied to the unbelievers in Corinth --just a few years
later. I Cor. 14:23f.
"So then," continued Paul, "foreign languages [like
Assyrian] are a sign not to those who believe, but to the unbelievers!"
See Acts 2:4-15. "But prophecy is not for unbelievers, but for
those who believe." Compare I Cor. 14:22a.
Paul was here no doubt thinking of the unbelieving
Jews at the time of the Assyrian captivity. Yet he was doubtless also
referring here to the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem on Pentecost Sunday
(Acts. 2:13-15) -- as well as to the unbelieving Jews in Corinth. Acts
18:1,5,6,12f.
Paul declared God had predicted He would speak to
unbelievers through "other languages." Here, the Apostle used the Greek
word hetero-gloossois. The prediction Paul was referring to, is
found in Isa. 28:11-12. That stated (in the third-century B.C. Greek
Septuagint translation) that the Assyrians -- while speaking their own
language! -- would speak to God's covenant people through another tongue
than that of the Israelites themselves. For: 'dia gloossees heteras
hoti laleesousion tooi laooi.' Isa. 28:11 LXX.
There is a similarity in Ezk. 3:5-6, where the
threefold reference to a "strange tongue" is indisputably to a then-
spoken human language. There too, the Septuagint again translates this
with the Greek word gloossa.
Moreover, this same word gloossa is again used
to described the Pentecost Sunday tongues' phenonomen. There, the inspired
Luke himself tells us, it refers to the then-spoken languages of the
Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judaeans, Cappadocians,
Pontians, Asians, Phrygians, Pamphylians, Egyptians, Libyans, Cyrenians,
Romans, Cretians, and Arabians. Acts 2:8-11. The conclusion, then, is
overwhelmingly convincing. Even in I Cor. 14:21, the word gloossa
again means a spoken foreign language -- and not a meaningless
ecstatic utterance!
Calvin comments: "Tongues were useful in many ways.
They met the needs of the actual situation, so that the difference in
languages did not prevent the Apostles from spreading the Gospel
throughout the whole world. There was therefore no nation to which they
could not communicate it."
Nevertheless, the Corinthian Christian people were
"afflicted with...blindness and folly.... When God spoke to them, they
understood Him no better than they would [understand] any barbarian or
foreigner making unintelligible sounds in an unknown language. And that
was a dreadful curse!"
Hodge comments: "The Jews had refused to hear the
prophets speaking their own language, and God threatened to bring upon
them a people whose language they could not understand. This was a
judgment -- a mark of displeasure designed as a punishment, and not for
their conversion....
"Sending foreigners among the Hebrews was a mark of
God's displeasure!" Yet this is precisely what God did to the Jews, also
during the first century A.D. Indeed, He then did so in the scattered 'diaspora'
such as at Corinth - - as well as in Palestine, at the destruction of
Jerusalem in A.D. 70! Jas. 1:1; I Pet. 1:1; Mt. 24:15-28f.
Said Paul: "In the Law it is written, 'With men of
other tongues and other lips, will I speak to this people. And yet, for
all that, they will not hear Me!' -- says the Lord."
Comments Barnes: "This passage is found written in Isa.
28:11-12.... This passage...means that God would teach the rebellious and
refractory Jews submission to Himself by punishing them amidst a people of
another language." God would do so, "by removing them to a land -- the
land of Chaldea -- where they would hear only a language that to them
would be unintelligible and barbarous....
"This passage in Isaiah had no reference to the
[later] miraculous gift of tongues... It seems to have been used by
Paul, because the words which occurred in Isaiah would
appropriately express the idea which he wished to convey" --the idea
"that God would make use of foreign languages for some valuable
purpose."
This is Paul's meaning: "God accomplished an important
purpose by the use of a foreign language in regard to His ancient people,
as recorded in Isaiah. So will He [also] make use of foreign languages
to accomplish important purposes still....
"What the design of making use of foreign languages
was in the Christian Church, the Apostle immediately states -- ver.
22,23." However, "the power of speaking foreign languages did not of
necessity secure obedience. It might [indeed] be that this power might
[well] be possessed -- and yet they be a sinful people!"
Rev. Prof. Dr. Douglas Judisch, the modern Lutheran
scholar, wrote an important book with the title An Evaluation of Claims
to the Charismatic Gifts (Baker, Grand Rapids, 1978). There, he makes
the following valuable remarks about I Cor. 14:21. "If Israel were to
prove disobedient to her divine King, she was to be cursed in the city and
in the field; cursed when she came in and when she went out. Deut.
28:16,19.... He would punish her by means of those whose language she
could not understand. Deut. 28:49....
"When Isaiah rebuked Israel's drunken leaders for
disobeying the words of God's prophet -- refusing tribute to Assyria and
making league with Egypt, Isa. 28:7-8...., the covenant curse...was
destined to fall with full force upon the rebellious vassal: 'Nay, but by
men of strange lips and with an alien tongue the Lord will speak to the
people.'" Isa. 28:11.
"At a later time, moreover, Jeremiah thundered forth
the message that God was about to impose His covenant curse on Israel even
more forcefully.... 'Behold, I am bringing upon you a nation from afar, O
house of Israel, says the Lord. It is an enduring nation; it is an ancient
nation; a nation whose language you do not know. Nor can you understand
what they say.' Jer. 5:15....
"When the time came for God's final rejection of
Israel as a nation -- due to her rejection of His last Word, in the person
of His own Son -- we should be very surprised if Israel had not
been forced to listen to God addressing her in alien tongues once again!
The speaking in unlearned tongues during the apostolic age was, then, a
signal of God's alienation from the Jewish nation and its replacement by
the Gentiles.
"Indeed, this is exactly the point Paul made in I
Corinthians 14:21-22.... At Pentecost in Acts 2, each of the Jews did --
to be sure -- hear the Apostles speaking in his own language. This fact
necessarily implies, however, that each of these Jews heard a number of
other languages alien to him. This God-inspired utterance in Gentile
tongues was a signal of the end of the special relationship between God
and Israel... Clearer signs of judgment on unbelieving Israel occurred
when the Holy Spirit evoked strange languages from Gentiles themselves
(Acts 10:45), and from people in places as remote from the holy city as
Ephesus and Corinth. Acts 19:6; I Cor. 12:28.
"God's rejection of the Jewish nation qua [or
'as a'] nation came to completion, however, in the terrible razing of
Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70.... Speaking in unlearned tongues,
then, fulfilled a valuable role in the apostolic period. But, like that of
the apostolate itself, it was only a temporary role.... Since the specific
purpose of speaking in unlearned tongues was to signal God's alienation
from Israel, we should rightly expect these tongues to pass away quietly
with the smoke that arose from the temple afire" in 70 A.D. Thus Judisch's
op. cit. pp 39-43.
Said Paul: 'Tongues are a sign not to them that
believe, but to them that believe not.' By 'tongues' is meant -- comments
Barnes -- "the power of speaking foreign languages." And 'tongues' are a
'sign' primarily "designed to convince them [the unbelievers] of the truth
of the Christian religion."
Yet tongues-speaking, where understood, also had a
secondary purpose -- a purpose benefitting such believers as understood
those tongues, or into whose language(s) those tongues-messages were
translated. For "at the same time, the truths conveyed by a message" given
in a foreign language and "the consolations administered by it, might be
as clear evidence to the church of the attending power and
presence and goodness of God -- as the power of speaking foreign languages
might be to infidels!"
Continued Paul: "Therefore, when the whole
congregation meets together in the same place, if all were to speak in
foreign languages, and if unbelievers or un-learn-ed persons were to come
in -- would they not say that all of you were mad? However, if all
[of you] were to prophesy, and if a certain unbeliever or an
un-learn-ed person were [then] to come in -- he would be convinced by all
[of you]; the hidden things of his heart would be brought to light; and
thus, having fallen down on his face, he would worship God and announce
that God was truly in your midst!"
If the 'un-learn-ed' visitor would not [and
could not] understand the various forein languages spoken by the foreign
members of the congregation, it is obvious that the 'learned' [could and]
would! This implies that the various languages spoken, had themselves been
'learned' -- whether very rapidly and miraculously, or more slowly
and non-miraculously -- by the language-speakers themselves.
Those languages could, in time and with sustained
study, also be 'learned' even by many of the [at that stage]
still-uncomprehending language-listeners. This again evidences that
the 'tongues' were real and 'learn- able' languages of
communication. They were not at all non-linguistic ecstatic
utterances!
Said Paul: 'If therefore the whole church be come
together into one place, and all speak with tongues....' Here, comments
Barnes, Paul meant -- if "all speak with a variety of unknown tongues;
[if] all speak foreign languages."
Continues Barnes: The various members of "the church
would usually speak the same language, [when speaking] with the
people among whom they dwelt.... If they made use [or were to make use] of
foreign languages...unintelligible to their visitors -- it would leave the
impression that the church was a bedlam!"
What kind of an impression, asks Paul, would that then
make on 'un-learn-ed' persons visiting the church? By 'un- learn-ed'
--comments Barnes -- Paul here meant "those that are un-acquaint-ed with
foreign languages, and to whom, therefore, what was said would be
unintelligible." Indeed, "the honour of Christianity should have led them
[namely such Christians who could speak foreign languages] to abstain from
the use of such languages in their worship when it was needless."
Chrysostom, the first extant commentator on First
Corinthians (14:24f), rightly concludes that public "prophecy...is
both free from reproach among the unbelievers -- and hath very great
credit and usefulness." Public tongues-speaking, however, is quite
different! For "it is not the same thing for any one to come in -- and see
one speaking in Persian, and another in Syrian!"
So then, all tongues-speaking, all praying in
the Spirit, and all singing in the Spirit -- at Corinth or wherever -- was
never a matter of ecstatic utterances. Whenever it occurred, it
always did so -- only in clearly recognizable spoken languages!
-- (Rev. Prof. Dr.) Francis Nigel Lee,
Queensland Presbyterian Theological Hall,
Brisbane, Australia, May 1990.
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