The Issue of "Tongues"- Part 2

TONGUES AS HUMAN LANGUAGE

There are definite Biblical reasons to positively assert that tongues were real human languages.

The first is the use of terms describing the gift in both I Corinthians 14 (the definitive chapter with respect to the gift of tongues and its use in the church) and Acts 2 (the first New Testament record of the use of the gift of tongues). Throughout I Corinthians 14 the word glossa is used to describe the gift of tongues. This is exactly the same word used to describe the gift of tongues in Acts 2. In Acts 2, it is manifest that the hearers heard ordinary human language. Not only did they hear ordinary human language, but on two occasions (Acts 2:6, 8) the Bible records that the Jews gathered there from every nation heard the message in their own dialektos. The Greek word dialektos is the word from which we get our English word “dialect”, and carries precisely the same meaning. The fact that the hearers not only heard the message in their own language but even in their own dialect is incredible Biblical proof that the gift of tongues involved real human languages! Each of the Jewish hearers heard the message in his own dialect. This was not simply ecstatic utterances! The other two recorded incidents of the gift of tongues also bear this out.[1]

There is further Biblical evidence to prove that the gift involved human language rather than words unintelligible to anyone. In I Corinthians 14 Paul uses an illustration to point out the necessity of the gift of tongues edifying the whole church, rather than the loveless use of the gift to only edify the speaker. This loveless use occurred when the speaker in tongues spoke in the church without there being an interpretation of what was being said. Under the Holy Spirit’s inspiration he wrote, “So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into the air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification. Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.” Paul has real human languages in mind in this passage. The illustration involves an individual hearing someone speaking a language they do not understand. If there was no understanding of the language spoken, the speaker and hearer would be as “barbarians” to one another. Yet even “barbarians” speak to one another in ordinary human language! In fact, the Greek word for barbarian used here is barbaros. It came to popular use to describe an individual whose language was not understood by the one hearing it. To the hearer, the language sounded like “bar bar bar…”. This is how the people described language they could not understand. This is not unlike what people still do in our politically correct age when they imitate the sound of the language spoken by someone of a different origin! Once again, the point to be emphasized is that though the language sounds like gibberish, it is true human language. To the uncomprehending listener as the gift of tongues was used, the language sounded like gibberish, though it was a true human language.

Paul uses yet another reinforcing illustration in I Corinthians 14 that emphasizes the fact that tongues involved human languages. In I Corinthians 14:21 he quotes, “In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord.” This quotation is from Isaiah 28:11. Once again, the King James rendering has included words that have obscured rather than illuminated the meaning of the text. The words “men of” are italicized indicating that they are not part of the original text. When we study Isaiah 27-28, we see that it is the language of the Assyrians that is in view. The Lord tells His people (Jews), in effect, “Since you did not listen to me when I sent prophets to speak of me in your own language, I will judge you and draw your attention to Myself through the speech of the Assyrians as you are in captivity to them.” The point of comparison is once again the uncomprehending listener to the gift of tongues. Even as the language of the Assyrians may have seemed like gibberish to the people of God, so the use of the gift of tongues sounds like gibberish to the uncomprehending listener! Even as the Assyrian language was a real human language, so the words uttered by the tongues speaker were real human language! Let us not fall into confusion in this area. The biblical gift of tongues involved real human languages.

[1] The only other two recorded incidents of tongues speaking are in Acts 10:44-47 (the conversion of Cornelius) and Acts 19:1-7 (Paul’s ministry to twelve Jewish men who had evidently been saved before Pentecost [evidenced by the fact that they had received the baptism of John]). Far from being normative, even in the book of Acts, the gift of tongues was rare. In every case, there were Jews present.