Chapter 8 

THE TEACHING OF EPISTLES

    When John wrote his epistle he included this phrase which was so self-evident that, to me, it seemed superfluous, "....... and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world" (I John 2:2). Of course! But it was not all that evident to the Jews. John, the apostle to the circumcision, (that is to say to the Jews), had to remind them constantly that God's forgiveness, purchased by Christ's death on the cross, was not just for them but also for all the tongues of the entire world. In his writings all the way through to Revelation, written 60 years after Pentecost, John insisted again and again on this point. Many times he spoke of a New Song in contrast with the Song of Moses. And what is the main theme of the Song of Moses? The relationship between the LORD (Jehovah) and His chosen redeemed people. He scarcely leaves this ground. It is the Old Covenant. And what are the words of the New Song of the New Covenant? "Thou wast slain and didst purchase for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and nation" (Rev 5:9). The Song of Israel did not go that far. This worldwide concept eluded Israel. To understand it, they needed an interior enlightening of the Holy Spirit and an exterior sign: speaking in tongues.
 

A Mystery

    I went back to listen to Paul, the teacher of the Church. He explained in his letter to the Ephesians that Gentiles and Jews form one body and together share the same promise (Eph 3:6). For us in the twentieth century there is nothing mysterious in this, but sharing the same promises with the Gentiles was an entirely new and unexpected truth for the Jews. They could not fully understand it without the help of this sign, speaking in tongues, for the Jews seek miraculous signs (I Cor 1:22). The Jews, like Jonah, wanted men to be saved, but not all men and especially not the Gentiles; whereas, God wants all men to be saved (I Tim 2:4). Paul repeated this truth in different words in his letter to Titus, reminding him that God's grace is the source of salvation for all men (Titus 2:11). It wasn't at all evident for the new Jonahs of the New Testament so Paul had to repeat it over and over again to convince them. Between them and the Gentiles they had built a kind of Berlin wall. Paul demolished this shameful wall full of theological watchtowers: first of all by speaking by the Holy Spirit the tongues of those who were on the other side of that wall, and then by teaching them that Christ is peace for those on both sides of the wall. He told them that Christ made of the two one and that He destroyed the wall of separation and hostility. His purpose was to create in Himself one new man out of the two, making peace and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross by which He put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to those who were far away (the Gentiles), and peace to those who are near (the Jews), for through Him both of them have access to the Father by one Spirit (Eph 2:11-17). Hallelujah! With ecstasy Paul exclaims, "To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ" (Eph 3:8).

    Alas, not everyone shared the conviction of this man Paul who had been baptized by the Spirit to form one body with all men, Jews and Greeks (I Cor 12:13). Their unrelenting opposition exposed them to the terrible baptism of fire. Paul wrote of them, "Hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved; with the result that they always fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them to the utmost." (I Thess 2:16). Yes, these foreign tongues, proclaimers of so great a Gospel, sign of a new and worldwide convenant, would become a fire for them, a fire of judgment. The wrath of God would set them aflame like the chaff that is thrown to the fire (Matt 3:12).

The Purpose

    To conclude this chapter, the purpose of speaking in tongues was very simply explained in a passage that I must have read fifty times more-the account of the day of Pentecost! It was all there. To the great question of these astonished people who wondered what in the world speaking in tongues meant, Peter answered simply with the Scriptures. He quoted the prophet Joel, "I will pour forth my Spirit upon all mankind" (verse 17), and "every one... who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved" (verse 21). Every one... all people... that is the answer! The purpose? To tell these stubborn Jews who come from all over the world that the Gospel was also for all people from all over the world. Thus Paul concluded, "So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers" (I Cor 14:22). Led by the Holy Spirit, Paul gave, with irrefutable exactitude, the identity of these unbelievers, specifically naming the Jews, "By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people..." (I Cor 14:21). In all the New Testament we find the gift of tongues used only in the presence of Jews to whom it was destined. Even when Gentiles spoke in tongues, the sign was for this people. It was for Jews and Jews alone, without exception. At this point I imagine that someone is asking, "But if the sign was for the Jews, why did Cornelius and those of his household speak in tongues?" The answer lies in the following passage. It was so that Peter could go back and tell his Jewish brethren who did not yet accept the Gentiles' right to salvation that "the Holy Spirit fell on them just as He did upon us at the beginning" (Acts 11: 15). When they heard this, they quieted down, and glorified God" (Acts 11: 18). This last sentence shows to what extent preaching grace to the nations had stirred up the unbelieving Jews. But speaking in tongues was for "this people" the irrefutable sign that their God accepted foreign peoples as well as the pure children of Israel. By this exclamation we see that they were forced to admit, first with amazement and then with wonder, "Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life" (Acts 11:18). Cornelius was the sign bearer, but the sign was for "this people".

    It seems there is a famous man in the Far West, a cowboy (a sort of western version of Robin Hood) played by Steve MacQueen. This Jos Rendal, up until then a suspect, was suddenly named sheriff in an emergency situation. But how could the county's citizens and especially the bandits, be brought to believe that his authority was not invalid, but, on the contrary, quite legal? The famous star, sign of his new calling and his good faith, was pinned on his chest.

    In the same way Cornelius, with an unquestionable sign divinely "pinned" to his language (Acts 10:46), proved to unbelieving Israel that, Gentile though he was, he too had received the call to the heavenly vocation. He became a child of God just as did the converted Jews, as it is written, "He came to His own (things, possession, dominion), and those who were His own (the Jews) did not receive Him. But as many as received Him (such as Cornelius did), to them He gave the right to become the children of God" (John 1:11,12a).

    The episode at Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7), where twelve disciples suddenly spoke in tongues, is not an exception. These were not disciples of Christ, but Jews, disciples of John the Baptist who were baptized with his baptism which was for Jewish people.

    So, believing in Christ, rebaptized in water in the name of Jesus, and baptized by the Spirit, they became one body (I Cor 12:13) with the converted Gentiles to such an extent that the tongues of these Gentiles miraculously took over their own tongues to praise the God of Israel Who became, in their eyes, the God of the nations. They needed the sign of speaking in tongues to teach them the worldwide dimension that their Jehovah was now giving to His divine salvation.

Chapter 9 

JESUS AND TONGUES

    What surprised me the most was the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ, our Divine Example, never spoke in tongues. He had the Holy Spirit without measure, and all the gifts, though apparently not this one. He didn't seem to miss it at all. He didn't speak about it, nor did He seem to pursue it. But if speaking in tongues is all that it is made out to be, and if it is as useful as I had heard, Jesus certainly would have needed it-He who prayed so much with weeping, who often fasted, and who preached salvation to the crowds, who wearied Himself healing the sick. This indisputable evidence of the total absence of speaking in tongues in the life of Jesus disappoints certain defenders of this doctrine to the point that, in order to save face, they are obliged to expose themselves to the twisting of the Scriptures to their own destruction (II Pet 3:16).

    Here is what one says in an attempted answer to non-charismatics, "If Jesus Christ has never spoken in tongues it is because He was perfect, and being perfect, He had no need to edify Himself!"

    To this skillful maneuver we answer by one simple question, "Why did the Lord, who was perfect, require that John the Baptist administer to Him the baptism of repentance since He had no need of repentance?"

    He did it for us because we needed to know what was needful.

    If, therefore, the divine Son of God never spoke in tongues it was because he knew that practically all of His Church would never have need of doing so.

    If speaking in tongues had the renewing and restorative power that some believe it to have, Christ would have, more than anyone, needed it. He was often physically exhausted. So, why didn't Christ ever edify Himself by, speaking in tongues, I wondered? If speaking in tongues should be exercised in private, or among friends, why didn't He ever use it? Why didn't He pray in tongues when there were so many people coming to Him to be healed? Why didn't He link speaking in tongues to the casting out of demons if that were the best way to do it? Why didn't He sing in tongues when He climbed the Mount of Olives (Mark 14:26)? Why didn't He blend His voice with those of the angels when He saw them ascending and descending upon Him (John 1:51)? Why, I wondered, didn't He possess this gift? Why didn't He try to add this sign to the others for the good of His ministry?

    Reading I Corinthians 12, I found nine gifts of the Spirit which are:

Wisdom
Faith

Healing

Miraculous powers

Prophecy

Discerning of spirits

Different kinds of tongues

Interpretation

    Our Lord had, and used, all of these gifts except that of speaking in tongues and its clarifying corollary, interpretation. Had God deprived Him of this precious gift? Had God taken it away from Him? Was this gift outside of His grasp? Was He not spiritual enough to receive it? Had He not sought after it ardently enough? All of this is unthinkable and borders upon heresy. It is clear that Jesus Christ had the Spirit without limit (John 3:34). Since He had this gift, why didn't He use it? Simply because it was not necessary to do so... but why not?
    Could it be that the people who were with Him had no need to see this sign, whereas they really needed all the others? Could Jesus really have the fullness of the gifts of the Spirit without having this one? Here, more than ever, my questions irritated those around me. I was some sort of "Jack-in-the-box" full of troublesome questions! They were just the kind that nobody wanted to answer.

    Once again, I was reduced to calling upon God and waiting upon the Holy Spirit for an answer. The answer sprang out of the entire Scriptures and was in perfect harmony with the four Gospels.

The "Why" explained

    Jesus rarely left the confines of Palestine. His Gospel did not go beyond the lost sheep of the house of Israel. "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans" (Matt 10:6). His ministry was only to the Jews, and excluded foreigners because the worldwide aspect of His teaching was still hidden. There was not yet any question of "peoples, tribes, nations, and tongues." Nothing, or almost nothing, in His words would allow us to have an inkling as to international scope of His work in the future.

    The sign of tongues, therefore, had no reason for existing yet, nor any reason to be manifested. Up to this point there was nothing to irritate the Jews and make them jealous of the grace given to the Gentiles, for they had not yet been brought into the picture. Jesus only mentioned speaking in tongues one time at the very end of His ministry, when He said in Mark 16:17, "They will speak with new tongues". It is highly significant to notice that He says it in the flow of the preceding phrases, "Go into all the world..... It is the famous "...to every creature" that evoked the gift of speaking in tongues. The narrow limits of Jewish nationalism were going to break open. But the Lord knew that "this people" would do everything possible to keep the Good News from being announced to other peoples and in other tongues. At that time He would give to "this people" by His disciples the appropriate sign that He himself in His wisdom never desired, nor had the occasion to use. Still in harmony with what has been said, the inverse situation is seen in the Gentile cities of Athens and Malta. They were outside of the presence of "this Jewish people" who fiercely opposed their salvation. There, speaking in tongues was no longer necessary, not, any more than it is today, for "the Jewish people" is no longer a force against the salvation of the world.

It is so simple

    The biblical explanation that speaking in tongues was a sign only for the Jews worried some of my best friends. They asked me, "How can you be sure that the "sign was not for unbelievers among the Gentiles?" The answer is simple. Two events in the New Testament had the same significance: Peter's vision in Acts 10 which gave him the green light to visit the Gentile Cornelius (Acts 10:9-16), and the gift of speaking in tongues.

    What was the meaning of the sheet let down from heaven full of unclean animals? What was the significance of these animals, unclean according to Moses' Law (Leviticus 11), which Peter would never have touched? Everybody knows. They represented all that was not Jewish, that is to say, peoples of other tongues. It is hard to imagine this vision being given to anyone but a Jew, for it was the Jews who needed to learn not to consider unclean those whom God had declared clean. Peter was personally edified by his vision which would in turn, edify others.

    Speaking in tongues had exactly the same meaning. Peter, because he was a Jew and because of his natural unbelief in accepting the salvation of the Gentiles, needed such a vision. In the same way, other Jews who were also opposed to the salvation of the nations, needed a sign such as speaking in tongues. This sign, like the thrice repeated vision of Peter, taught them that their Jehovah's salvation (Acts 2:17,21) was henceforth for "whosoever", or "everyone", and for "all flesh", or all tongues. Some of my friends, who once thought that speaking in tongues was also for Gentiles, were confounded when I told them, "It is as if an English speaking person were to speak French miraculously by the Spirit right here. Would that prove to you that the Gospel could at last cross the Atlantic or the English Channel? Of course not! Everyone has known that for a long time. So the sign would be completely irrelevant for you." No, the Holy Spirit does not fight as a man beating the air (I Cor 9:26). Peter's vision was not continually repeated. It was seen three times successively and then "the sheet was taken back into heaven" (Acts 10: 16). The same thing happened to the gift of tongues. As Saint Augustine clearly states, "... This happened to announce something, (that the Gospel was to be announced to the ends of the earth), then disappeared." (See St. Augustine Chap 9). Is it necessary to speak the Eskimo's tongue to establish the fact once and for all that they are clean in God's eyes? Hudson Taylor and all the missionaries with him never needed the sign of tongues to realize with apostolic amazement (Acts 11:18) that God also loved the Chinese, and that He accepted them as well as their language. Christians in the world today do not need Peter's vision, nor speaking in tongues, nor anything else of this nature to convince them of this great truth. It is no longer disputed.

Similarities

    I mentioned before that the vision of Peter and the speaking of tongues were one and the same thing. It must be understood that the contents are the same, only the presentation is different. Taking into account this difference of presentation, we discover between the two signs very remarkable points in common, which are not found in any other gifts of the Spirit.

The vision was given to a believer but was directed toward his unbelief. Similarly, speaking in tongues was exercised by believers but concerned their unbelief.
The vision was a sign for the apostles who did not believe in the salvation of those who did not speak the same language as they did. Peter's vision and Cornelius speaking in tongues led the apostles to say: "Therefore God has given them the same gift as to us: God has accorded repentance also to the Gentiles" (Acts 11: 17,18).
The vision was repeated a limited number of times, but we are reminded of its significance each time we read Acts 10 and 11. Likewise, the speaking in tongues was limited by the Holy Spirit (I Cor 13:8), but we are reminded of its significance when we read the Scriptures.
The vision was given for this people only. Similarly, the speaking in tongues was for this people only (I Cor 14:21).
The vision confirmed to a Jew that salvation extended beyond the nation of Israel, and that the Gospel reached to all mankind. Thus, also, the speaking in tongues confirmed to the Jews that salvation went beyond them and that God poured out His Spirit on all flesh.
The vision explained the universal and multi-lingual dimensions of the new preaching. So also, the speaking in tongues showed that the Gospel went beyond the supporter of Israel only and extended to whosoever.
The vision was not continued, but was withdrawn into heaven. So also, speaking in tongues did not continue but was withdrawn.
The vision was fully explained at the conversion of Cornelius. Likewise, the speaking in tongues is only fully understood in the light of the conversion of peoples speaking foreign and barbaric tongues, that is to say, pagans.
The vision would be out of place in an assembly of believers who already believe in the universality of salvation. Similarly, speaking in tongues is not a sign for believers (I Cor 14:22), and is therefore out of place among them.
Peter was personally edified by his vision. In what way? Only in the plain meaning of the vision. No other meaning can be retained. So also, those speaking in tongues were evidently edified within the meaning of the sign conveyed. Thus, the new idea was conveyed to them that the Spirit was poured out on all flesh, on all tongues, and "oh, mystery" that the pagans belonged to the same body and shared the same promises... (Eph 3:6)
If the vision was repeated three times for Peter it is inconceivable that, once the message was understood, it should be repeated during the rest of his ministry. Speaking in tongues is conveyed to us three times in Acts 2, 10 and 19 for the apostolic and Judeo-Christian Church, until this was well understood, and not beyond.
    The following argument leads to an absurd conclusion, as follows:
    If speaking in tongues is still for our time, then the same applies to Peter's vision. If the first sign should be sought then should the second? But who in our present-day church, composed as it is of all peoples, nations, tribes and languages, needs to be told repeatedly by a sign that salvation is for all peoples, nation, tribes and languages?

    In conclusion then, the vision of impure animals taught Peter the Jew exactly the same thing that the speaking in tongues conveyed to the Jews who were unwilling to believe it; that the way of salvation, the access to the God of Israel, was henceforth open to foreigners and barbarians whose language was miraculously spoken by the Holy Spirit.

    Based on the unmoving rock of the Holy Scriptures, I maintain with the Apostle Paul that speaking in tongues, as well as Peter's vision, was for this people (I Cor 14:21). These Jews not only despised other tongues and refused to believe (I Cor 14:21) in their salvation, but also reached the height of their sin by hindering anyone from preaching to the Gentiles (I Thess 2:16).

A difficult Exegesis

    In I Corinthians 14:22 the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, tells us that the sign of speaking in tongues was not for believers, but for unbelievers. Then he turns around in the very next verse and says just the opposite! On the surface it looks as though the Holy Spirit is contradicting Himself when He says, "if, therefore, the whole church should assemble together and all speak in tongues, and men unversed in spiritual gifts or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?" (I Cor 14:24). No one ever untangled this inextricable paradox for me. It is true that if the non-believers of verses 22, 23 and 24 are indiscriminately from Israel or from the Gentiles, the contradiction remains. But the problem disappears if you accept that Paul had two kinds of non-believers in view.

The non-believers of verse 22 are identified in verse 21, "I will speak to this people, and even so they will not listen to Me...... They are Jews. The sign was for them.
The others, non-believers of verse 23, the unlearned ones who do not understand, were men of the common people-and not of this people. In other words, they were Gentiles from the city of Corinth. The sign of tongues was not for them. That is what the Holy Spirit is saying here.
    This exegesis erases the contradiction and confirms that the sign of tongues-obviously not understood by the Gentiles-was not for them but was reserved for this people, the Jews, in order to bring them to believe that the Gentiles were grafted into the body of Christ which is the Church. Let me finish this paragraph by pointing out one more thing in verse 24 and 25. Here the gift of prophecy is used in contrast to speaking in tongues. Though it is destined to believers, it had the advantage of being understood by unbelievers as well because it was articulated in their own language. The result was profound conversions and troubled consciences, to the extent that some of the common people fell on their faces confessing that God was in their midst.
Blindness

    I have also noted with astonishment to what extent the Enemy blinds the spiritual intelligence of certain Christians on this point of doctrine which is so easily grasped. Recently I questioned three persons young in the faith and of a very low level of instruction. After this, I repeated the experience with three children of 8 and 9 years of age. I read to them very slowly the account of Peter's vision in Acts chapter 10. I asked them to tell me what they had understood. With several excusable hesitations all of them gave me the correct answers which can be thus summed up: by the vision Peter understood that he could go and proclaim salvation to the gentiles.

    If those without instruction, as well as children without knowledge, have understood the import of the sign given to Peter, why are older Christians who claim to be animated by the Holy Spirit, Who is to "guide us into all the truth", incapable of grasping the import of this other similar sign which is that of speaking in tongues?

    It should be noted that, in the expression, "speaking in tongues", the word "tongues", which explains it all, is found; while in Peter's vision, which means the same thing, the word "tongues" is not found. As I see it, only a spirit of blindness can take from their minds that which is self-explanatory.

    Why have so many among God's people become incapable of grasping the explanations of the Holy Spirit, Who says to us, for example, that:

1. "one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God" (I Cor 14:2).

2. This sign was not for believers (I Cor 14:22).

3. This sign was for the unbelievers among the Jews (I Cor 14:21, 22).

    These passages are easier to understand than is John 3:16 or Romans 3:23, and yet they do not understand them.

    Dare I say that they do not want to understand them lest they be "converted and healed" of their error?

Why to the Jews only?

    In the face of my insistence to believe with Saint Paul that speaking in tongues, like the vision of Peter, was for "this people" (the Jews), someone asks with irritation, "Why to the Jews only?" Because the Holy Spirit teaches us in Romans 9:4 that to the Jews belong the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God, and the promises.

    The Savior came to them and for them first of all. The apostles were Jews. In fact, the Church at the beginning was Jewish. Everything was in Jewish hands. Now, the most favorably disposed among them, Peter being the first, would have kept themselves from sharing this marvelous Good News with foreigners whom they classed as being of barbarous tongues. Speaking in these detested foreign tongues, and the vision of Peter, have been the two signs by which God wished to convince this people (the Jews) of the universal character of the Gospel. He wanted by this means to lead them to believe this great mystery that in Christ Jesus the Gentiles (the tongues) were made one with them (the believing Jews) in one and the same body (Eph 3:16). Both signs meant that and nothing but that.

Chapter 10 

EXPERIENCES

    In my personal experience it was the Apostle Paul himself, who gave me such a hard time with his implacable, Spirit-inspired logic. But there were still two points of resistance in my mind: one a big blockhouse and the other, a tiny fort. The blockhouse was a line of the Scripture which left me a glimmer of hope that Paul's absolute "does not speak to men" might have been watered down, though ever so slightly, by his quotation from the Old Testament, "I shall speak to this people..." (I Cor 14:21). I thought that since it was to unbelievers that God spoke by the gift of tongues, then the message must have been for men. My hope was short-lived, for my blockhouse was mined and it blew up all by itself. Of course God spoke to the Jews by this sign. But if the sign spoke to them, the words of this sign were for God, and God alone. One day an army general invited me to his office to speak to him about my faith. When I arrived, several people were already in the waiting room. I was the first to be called in. My interview was conducted with the general alone but my immediate entrance was a sign for the others of the honor bestowed on me. And so it is with the sign of tongues. Pagan tongues, having been granted this privilege, were henceforth admitted into the private chambers of the King of kings. It was to God only that they were addressed, but this gift was very significant for the others.

Lining it all up

    When I had only an immature understanding of the Bible, I was satisfied with vague opinions. I floated down the stream of commonly accepted ideas without taking the time to examine the Scriptures to see if what I heard was exact (Acts 17:11).

    Taking the passage on Pentecost as a basis, I unthinkingly accepted the teaching that tongues were given to communicate a message directly to men. In this case, the foreigners had such diverse tongues that a linguistic miracle had been necessary for them to hear what God wanted to say. I had been told that one single language would not have been sufficient; therefore the miracle of tongues was necessary. But when I opened my Bible, I was shocked to discover that it was not the Gentiles who were in Jerusalem at Pentecost, but Jews (Acts 2:4, 14) who had come from other countries and who spoke Aramaic as well as their mother tongue! If it were just a question of preaching to men, why was it necessary to have so many tongues (verse 15), especially when it was evident from these verses which follow that one would have been sufficient? If we want to find a message for men, we should look for it in Peter's preaching, not in the speaking in tongues. The passage clearly shows that everyone understood what Peter said, not in tongues, but in one language. The fact that everyone understood Peter's tongue means that it was perfectly superflous to add fifteen other languages. One was sufficient. What, then, was the reason for the fifteen others?

    The answer which helped me to line up all these ideas was to be found in the inspired writings of Paul where he says, "...anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God." (I Cor 14:2). In accordance with Luke's account in Acts 2, those men spoke to God in fifteen tongues to serve as a sign for the Jews (I Cor 14:21), in particular those coming from the fifteen countries mentioned in the passage. This sign showed them that access to God was no longer their private prerogative, that the Lord no longer preferred Hebrew to barbarian tongues, and that they were no longer to consider unclean that which God declared pure (Acts 10:15).

My second Line of Defense

    At this point I tried to defend my little fort. I say "little" because it was outside the Bible. It was the fort of experience which, when you come down to it, is talked about now-a-days more than the Word of God itself. However, nothing is to be dealt with more prudence and wariness than experience. That is why I did not want to rely on experience as an argument in this book. It is too much like quicksand.

    On my desk I have two kinds of books. The first kind, through a profusion of anecdotes, relates testimonies stacking up evidence that speaking in tongues is indeed a message addressed to men. The other, through a lot of counter-testimonies demystifies the whole affair. But in this area of experiences and anti-experiences, both sides are about equal. I will therefore stick with the principle "sola scriptura" (Scripture alone). Through speaking in tongues, prophecies have concerned me personally. Of course, I am not the only one who has shared this experience. Some can positively affirm that what was said was true and actually came about. Such experiences are undeniable. I have a friend who told me, "I heard a prophecy in tongues that had to do with me, and it came true!" We have all heard this kind of "truth". Since the prophecy was fulfilled, we assume that heaven has spoken. But can we really be sure? Heaven also speaks through the Scriptures and the Scriptures contradict this experience. Experience claims that the gift of tongues is heaven speaking to men, whereas the Bible says that it is men speaking to heaven (I Cor 14:2). Who is right, God or experience? Job seems to have faced this dilemma for he says (in French versions), "I bent my will to the words of thy mouth." (Job 23:12). Experience! We find it everywhere in life, but it does not prove much of anything.

Even the Occult!

    You know, the horoscope is not always wrong! Millions of people are ready to testify to it. That is experience. In Marseille the walls of the chapel of Notre Dame de la Garde are covered with small plaques attesting to miraculous answers to prayer. That is experience. Jeanne Dixon has predicted some amazingly true happenings; for example, the assassination of John E Kennedy. Do the crutches hanging on the walls of the grotto in Lourdes accredit the doctrine of Mary's intercession for believers? Divination can locate a lost object hundreds of miles away simply by holding a pendulum over a road map. That is experience. And when a diviner diagnoses your illness without examining you, doesn't that prove the validity of the experience? Thousands of people believe and practice these things because the reality of experience hinders them from seeing the occult and divinatory side of them.

Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone)

    But, I kept reminding myself, it is in the light of biblical and spiritual experiences that our search for the truth takes place! "Thy Word is truth." (John 17:17) kept coming to mind. Once outside the Word of God, Satan can furnish all the experiences we want. He can easily disguise himself as an angel of light (II Cor 11:24) and tell us all kinds of truths. If we believe that wherever truth is found no matter how little, it is the Holy Spirit speaking, what must we think of Acts 16? There, in the city of Philippi, a young girl with an extraordinary gift of prophecy began to follow two men whom she had never met before. She cried out to anyone who would listen that these men were servants of God and were announcing salvation (Acts 16:17). That was experience too. But it was a demon speaking, and Paul had do drive him out. As long as this slave girl could utter these truths she was held by the spirit of error. It was not until she could not say anything more that she was in the Spirit of truth!

Pharaoh also

    Experiences! Pharaoh had all he could want of them. His magicians changed water to blood, multiplied frogs, and changed staffs into snakes (Exodus 7). It was true. It was genuine. True also were the experience and testimony of the women in Jeremiah 44:17,18 who claimed, "When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven, we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine..." Who can beat that? But what determines if something is true or false, our personal testimony or the Word of God? When God declares that he who speaks in tongues does not address men, must we renounce this part of God's Word or the testimony contradicting this Word? I was forced to make a choice between "experience" and the Bible. It was not easy, but I finally chose to side with the Scriptures and against these pseudo-testimonies. It is up to you who are reading these lines to make your own choice.

Not to Men but to God (I Cor 14:2)

    From there it was relatively easy to pass from doctrine to verification. With my mania to check out everything with the Scriptures, the opportunity was soon to be found. The guinea pig turned out to be one of my best friends, an enthusiastic pastor who invited me to preach several messages in his church. He told me about a woman in the church who, in a private conversation with him, had spoken in tongues. "In what she said," he explained, "I discerned a message for myself." The opportunity was ideal. I simply asked him, "How do you reconcile the idea of a message addressed to you personally with the biblical statement that 'For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God'? (I Cor 14:2) You are not God." It was like hitting him over the head. He was without a reply. He had just discovered a text that he had never seen before, or that he had never taken time to examine. I was embarrassed and felt sorry for him. I didn't tell him that these tongues addressed to men smelled of sulfur. I didn't tell him either that it was a trick or a hoax. I let him find out for himself that he was up against an obvious counterfeit. Everyone knows that, counterfeiting in other areas is liable to punishment. Is it less serious in spiritual things?

    What should we think of all these experiences of tongues which express a prophecy or an exhortation or a revelation-that is to say, a message to men, and which are, therefore, in open contradiction to the teaching of the Holy Spirit? How can we fail to recognize that they are counterfeits? Another friend, also pastor of an Assembly of God church, understood this truth and asked his church to apply it. He and his church were expelled from the denomination to which they belonged. When I mentioned this to another pastor friend, he did not seem very surprised. He was aware of the problem. He told me, "When this teaching of Paul began to circulate in our assemblies it was a veritable bomb. We could not accept it because we would have had to admit that all that happened in our Assemblies was FALSE." In other words, in order to make error seem as true as possible it should not be stopped! Tradition often takes priority over the Word of God. The history of the Church through the centuries demonstrates this in a humiliating and painful way.

The Martyrdom of a Text

    Torture is a shameful practice which continues, alas, even in our civilized societies today. It was even used on textes of the Bible. Tormentors are ready to use any means available to disfigure and cut Bible textes to pieces so that they seem to confess the opposite of their essential meaning, the opposite of what they really say.

    Let me insert a short parenthesis here that will be very helpful to us. No teaching of Paul's is clearer or more irrefutable than when he says, "There is one God and one mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ..." (I Tim 2:5). He is saying that since there is only one God there can only be one mediator, Jesus, and no one else. The Roman Catholic Church modifies this truth completely by holding it in light of the wedding of Cana in particular (John 2:1-10). Because Mary pointed out to her Son that the guests had no more wine, the following miracle is credited to Mary's glory, making her the Mediatrix of all graces. In doing this, the apostles' teaching is short-circuited and thus nullified.

    Under such duress, biblical texts will confess to anything, and mediators, great and small, will soon become legion. I am sorry to find the same procedure used by people from whom I have expected a more rigorous consideration of the Holy Scriptures. I must say, however, and this to the credit of my Pentecostal brothers, not one of them denied that speaking in tongues in Acts 2 was addressed to God and not to men. But Paul's clear affirmation that "anyone who speaks in a tongue speaks to God and not to men" (I Cor 14:2) is drowned out by voices trying to establish the contrary. Just as the passage relating the wedding at Cana has been used by Rome to color, annul and weaken the unique mediation of Jesus Christ, the passage in Acts 2 is being used to explain Paul's doctrine. Just the opposite ought to be done.

Slow-motion Movie Camera

    I would like to look at the "triple manipulation of Acts" in slow motion.

    First trial: "If the phenomenon of speaking in tongues was only addressed to God, it certainly would have been confined to the dimensions of the Upper Chamber."

    First answer: In all big meetings, whether it be on the day of Pentecost or in our own times, prayers to God are not, imprisoned in some secret place. Prayers, praise and thanksgiving are addressed to God as publicly and as, visibly as our preaching is addressed to the crowds.

    Second trial: "Since what they said was understood, the apostles must have been speaking to men."

    Second answer: In mass meetings both then and now, everyone understands what is said in prayer, and yet prayers are obviously addressed to God!

    Third trial: "They proclaimed, speaking out loud and did not whisper."

    Third answer: This is the case with all our public prayers, whether they be offered in churches, on the radio, on television or out-of-doors. They are just as audible as our preaching. The fact that our prayers are addressed to God does not keep us from adding the necessary decibels with amplifiers so that they can be heard and understood by those to whom we are not actually addressing the prayer!

A Necessary Precision

    Contrary to what is often hastily assumed, the tongues on the day of Pentecost did not convert anyone. Similar in essence to the prayers of praise and thanksgiving today, it was simply a declaring of the wonders of God (Acts 2: 11) and uttering the mysteries of God (I Cor 14:2). Of course, that captured the crowd's attention for what would follow. But the thing that brought them to repentance and faith was Peter's message which was not in tongues. If speaking in tongues had been a message for men, then why did Peter preach afterward? Hadn't the crowd asked, "What does this mean?" (Acts 2:12), showing that speaking in tongues was meaningless to them. It was the message that followed that gave them the key to this sign, "I will pour out my Spirit on all people..." (Acts 2:17), on all flesh, or in other words, on all tongues, all tribes and all people. So we see that the gift of tongues raised a question without giving an answer, whereas Peter's message gave the answer and brought the crowd back to its senses. "They were pierced in their heart..." (Acts 2:37) and were converted as we see in the rest of the passage.

    These thousands of Jews who, saved through Peter's message, were able to return to their own countries witnessing to salvation in Jesus Christ. At the same time they could affirm before the Jews in their homelands that people of other tongues were also to be saved, that they now had equal access to their Jehovah, and that because of this they would become brothers. Certainly they had not yet understood the extent of this great mystery, but the sign of tongues prepared them to accept the penetration of the Gospel into the Gentile world and not to oppose it as would certain other Jews. These first converts who were naturally opposed to the salvation of the Gentiles, would never forget the memorable hour when God the Holy Spirit spoke barbarous tongues for the first time. The sign was luminous. God accepted them to the point of even speaking in their tongues. From now on the Jews are going to have to put up with this fact. Whether it pleased them or not, God had decided in His sovereignty to unite in one body, by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Jews and people of foreign tongues (I Cor 12:13). Speaking in tongues was the only adequate sign.

A Choice

    In the back of my mind I have stored a painful memory of the day when my neighbor, an experienced Assembly of God pastor, asked me to participate in a debate on speaking in tongues. His opponent was a full-time minister within the Darbyist (Brethren) assemblies. Each one had his open Bible on the table. I thought that my pastor friend was very well versed in his own doctrine, but he really lacked weight. His arguments were swept away as if by a tornado. His opponent knew the Scriptures so well that I wondered if he had swallowed a Bible. I had the impression of being with Stephen whose opponents were unable to cope with the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking." (Acts 6:10). I do not remember the arguments which disarmed my friend - and drove him into a corner, for I was too inexperienced to assimilate them at the time. But then he did and said something which really struck me. I shall never forget it. He closed his Bible, and putting it aside, said, "Biblically you are right, but I cannot deny experience!" This scene stayed with me for a long time. It was all there in his gesture and his words. The Bible was put aside and Experience was given first place. My friend had been beaten on his own ground, forced to recognize the truth. But to keep up a good front he had to choose between Experience and the Bible, to deny the one and keep the other. It was the Bible which was sacrificed for Experience. This far reaching subjectivity has invaded all levels of Christianity-subjectivity which gets rid of whatever bothers it, even if it is the Word of God, while putting a nice biblical label on its experiences. It is pulled off very smoothly. New converts and those with no biblical foundation are easily fooled.

    On the way home I was sad for my friend and would have liked to have been able to console him. But he didn't seem bothered in the least. He was happy and relaxed. After all, he had his Experience and he was satisfied. He reminded me of the Catholic priest who once told me, "If the Bible does not speak of purgatory, that does not bother me. Our church believes in it and that is enough for me." Just as the Church holds the place of divine authority in teaching for the priest, so does Experience hold for this pastor a place higher than that of the Scripture itself. The one has his "Church" as Authoratative Teacher, while the other has his "Experience" as Authoratative Teacher.

More Experiences

    In this area of experiences, I enjoyed the story of how several people were converted by listening to an interpretation of speaking in tongues that had been addressed to them personally. I thought, "Error cannot convert men to Truth. Since their experience led them to God, it must have come from God." This was apparently very logical, but it was not satisfactory. I discovered that the people of Philippi in Greece could have been saved by what the young slave, indubitably possessed with a demon, said about Paul and Silas, "These men are servants of the most high God who are telling you the way to be saved." (Acts 16:17). This woman while victim and servant of Satan, was also bearer of the pure truth. It took all the spiritual discernment of Paul to unveil the confusion. But can this truth, coming from the very depths of Hell, give credit to occultism? I have met Christians who have been brought to the Bible by Jehovah's Witnesses. But their salvation, initiated by the Jehovah's Witnesses, can in no way justify the false doctrines of this erroneous sect.

    The Apostle Paul tells us that certain people preached the Gospel by envy and rivalry, trying to stir up trouble for him. This preaching must have brought forth fruit because Paul says, "Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice.."(Phil 1:15-18). Can the results recommend those evil motivations? Can we justify that kind of shameful preaching in the name of the results it produced?

Behold the Opera!

    I knew a servant of God who was saved in a theater. He had heard a quotation from the Bible and was gripped in his heart by the Spirit of God. There, where he was, he gave his life over to God. Not only did he never go back to the theater, but he never sent anyone there to be saved. Does the end justify the means? I am afraid that there is this worldly spirit that prevails with certain Christians.

    John Bost, the founder of the "Asiles de la Force" at Bergerac in France, was a pastor's son. He went to the opera to see a play. There he was touched by the Spirit of God. He rushed out quickly, going to his room, fell on his knees and gave himself to God. If the Opera can produce such lovely fruit why doesn't the path of consecration go through a theater box? Sacrilege! But now, wasn't this precisely the principle which I tried to defend when I wanted to justify speaking in tongues because of some rare good results? One day a friend of mine, a Colonel of the Salvation Army, came back from Africa and paid a visit to our worship service and there he praised the Lord in Lingala, a West African dialect. Then came an interpretation which had nothing to do, in any way, with what had just been said in his prayer. Now this imposture was biblical in that the pseudo (would-be) interpretation was as evangelical as the words of the slave girl in Acts 16. Someone in the audience could have very likely taken this interpretation for himself, but it would take a spirit other than the Holy Spirit to go so far as to justify such a counterfeit!

The Unusual

    While I was not yet enlightened on this subject, I had already noticed that for certain people, speaking in tongues easily became uncontrollable. They were sliding into practices that would have been severely reprimanded by the Apostle Paul. In the same manner, a brother who believed he had a gift of healing, or who wanted it at any price, told me that he accompanied his laying on of hands with speaking in tongues. Strange. I wondered in what part of the Bible he had found an example to justify this practice. Another gave special importance to speaking in tongues when he prayed for people possessed by evil spirits. According to him, a seance of exorcism with speaking in tongues became that much more effective. Stranger than strange. Others, of whom their conversion was not beyond doubt (this being said without a judgmental spirit) were only sure of having their sins forgiven and of being saved because they spoke in tongues.

    I saw that the ways used were different and certainly innovative, but all lacked the counsel of the Word of God. Is it not possible that the Apostle Paul, who condemned speaking in tongues outside of a prescribed pattern (unbelieving Jews and with interpretation), would have protested loudly at such deformations? (I Cor 14:19) Would he have not repeated what he said to the Corinthians? "Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe." (I Cor 14:20,22).
 
 

Chapter 11 

THE BIG QUESTION: WHEN?

    Let me go back to a point I have already made. According to Paul, speaking in tongues is a sign for the unbelieving Jews and not for Gentiles, for the Holy Spirit said, "I will speak to this people ..." (I Cor 14:2). Having established this point, I did not want to go back and lay the foundation again, but, on the contrary, to start building on it. One thing very naturally led to another and I ended up with a troubling conclusion. The more I tried to clarify my convictions, the more entangled they seemed to become. I thought to myself, "Now that the Church is mainly composed of Gentiles, its universality is no longer an issue. So what is the use of this Sign today and for whom is it given? Centuries have gone by since anyone needed this sign to convince him that salvation is open to People of different tongues-French, Swiss, English, Chinese, Zulu, etc. No one has contested this truth for centuries. So...!?"

    This rigorous logic drove me to the very conclusion I wanted to avoid. Like a trapped rabbit I strangled myself in my furious struggle. Everyone with whom the Holy Spirit has dealt knows that He will not let go until there is surrender. Jeremiah had the same experience. He fought against God until he finally said, "You Persuaded me and I was persuaded; You overpowered me and prevailed" (Jer 20:7).

    The Apostle Paul, master of biblical logistics, who spoke in tongues more than anyone else, who expounded its doctrine and its limits, also had to announce its end. All good things come to an end, at least in this world here below. It is as logical as eliminating secondary railroads when there are no longer any passengers. So Paul was moved by the Holy Spirit to write, "if there are tongues, they will cease..." (I Cor 13:8).

    To retain a sign that no longer meant anything to anyone would have been like keeping detour signs on a highway where the road work has long since ceased.

    I found that the New Testament traces a gradual decrease which is both significant and troublesome:

1. In Acts 2-They shall speak in tongues
2. In I Corinthians 12-All do not speak in tongues
3. In I Corinthians 13-Tongues will cease.

That is the Question!

    Yes, tongues will cease, but when? That is the question! Up to this point I had lost a battle or two in fact three. I had ultimately admitted, according to Bible teaching:

That speaking in tongues could by no means be addressed to men, and that when it was, it was counterfeit.
That speaking in tongues was the sign for unbelieving Jews indicating salvation was open to all peoples and that it was given exclusively for them.
That there was only one kind of speaking in tongues, and not two as I had been taught on the basis of superficial exegesis.
    I must say that although these three battles were lost, I now considered them victories, and not as a kind of Trojan horse. Truth does not enslave, it liberates. My discoveries, nevertheless, began to alienate some of my friends, although I still had so many things in common with my brothers that if there had been a Trojan horse I would have sent it back. I was determined to fight to the end with all the ammunition I had.
Saint Augustine

    Meanwhile, I did some research to see what history might contribute, though approaching it warily because of the way it is sometimes written. What I hoped to find in the writings of the early Church Fathers was not to be found. John Chrysostom and Saint Augustine (354-430) both wrote in their commentaries on the Scriptures that the gift of tongues had already disappeared in their day. Here is what Augustine said in his Homilies on the First Epistle of John:

    "They were appropriate signs for that time, destined to announce the coming of the Holy Spirit to humans of all tongues, showing that the Gospel of God should be announced to all the tongues of the earth. This sign appeared to announce something and then disappeared."

    So what had taken me so much time and effort to discover had been written by Saint Augustine some 1700 years ago! His teaching, which I discovered by myself in my own turn, is self-evident. The Early Church and even the Apostolic Church before that, were made up less and less of Jews and more and more of people of different tongues, and consequently were more and more convinced of the universal offer of salvation. Once this had been fully accepted, there was no one left to be convinced of the fact that God so loved "the world", that Jehovah was not just the God of Israel, but also the God of the nations. Therefore the "charisma" (gift) which was a sign of this truth, as well as the practice of this gift, had no more reason to exist. So God withdrew it. He did the same thing with the divinely inspired writers of His Word. More than nineteen centuries have passed since John wrote the Revelation, and no one else has had the "charisma" (gift) of adding to the Scriptures. God withdrew this gift. There are, of course, some stubborn people like Joseph Smith, the supposedly inspired author of the book of the Mormons! Receiving and writing the New Testament was made possible by a gift of the Spirit, and yet it did not continue. Everyone, except for a few illuminated people, is of the same opinion. Everyone, including my Pentecostal brothers.

Baptism of the Holy Spirit

    The teaching that speaking in tongues was an unquestionable sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit was shaken to its foundation. The only thing that the sign of speaking in tongues confirmed was that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was truly the entrance of Jews and non-Jews into the Body of Christ. This is what Paul says, "For by one Spirit we were all, both Jews and Greeks, baptized into one body" (I Cor l2:12). Why? This was the question that formulated in my mind. The answer was there, right in front of me. "....Baptized into one body" (I Cor 12:13). To those who did not believe or were opposed to the entrance of the Greeks into the body of Christ, the sign of speaking in tongues confirmed it. I was turned completely around when I saw that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was entirely different from what I had thought. I had been taught, told and retold that access to the gifts of the Spirit was acquired by this baptism.

    Now the only verse in the Bible that speaks of this baptism tells me that it was to place Jews and Greeks together into one body.

Had I Read it Correctly?

    I had to read this verse several times to be sure that I had read it correctly. So it was to this end that the baptism was given, "...baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks" (I Cor 12:13), that is, to form one body of Jews and Greeks. I, at last, understood that by this "baptizing" the Holy Spirit took away the hostility between these people, tore down the separation that divided them and kept them apart. He melted them into a new people, a new body: the Church itself.

    Just as different grapes from different plants can be united in one cup of blessing for the Communion service, so the winepress of the Holy Spirit unites men of different tongues to receive one unique hope (Eph 4:4-6). What a blessing to be a part of these great meetings where people of different races, different colors and different cultures sing together the praises of the Lord. That is what Paul calls the baptism of the Holy Spirit, "... by one Spirit... into one body, whether Jews or Greeks", and I would like to add, whether French or English or Spanish or African... Hallelujah! We were ourselves the sign, the evidence of the entrance of the tongues into God's International Church.

A Jeopardized Duel

    As you can see, I have the nature of a fencer. I like to make points. But in my duel with the Apostle Paul, he was scoring more points than I was. To keep my honor, I could see that I needed to tighten up my defense and make a point or two of my own. As it was, Paul and the "antis" had advanced too far into my territory. It was time to counter attack with my surprise tactics that I reserved for such occasions. I had one more trick up my sleeve and more than one string on my bow. All right, so the Bible does say that tongues will cease, but when? In the same passage Paul says that knowledge and prophecies will also cease (I Cor 13:8). Touche! If the first two have not ceased, why should the third one have disappeared? Touche! Doesn't it seem rather arbitrary to eliminate one and keep the others? Touche! I crossed swords with an "anti" about this and was sure that I would lay him out on the ground. But I was out of luck. He was a real Musketeer. The blow with which I intended to floor him failed and in a minute I found myself skewered like a roasting chicken. He had me over the fire.

Knowledge and Prophecy

    I very quickly came to understand that before the New Testament had been written, when neither knowledge nor Bible prophecy had been sealed in holy writing, a spontaneous word of knowledge (understanding) and an equally spontaneous prophetic exhortation (I Cor 12:8) were often given by the Holy Spirit in the meetings of the Primitive Church. Paul refers to this when he says, "you have heard about...the mystery made known to me.. You will be able to understand my insight (knowledge) into the mystery of Christ..." (Eph 3:3,4). But when knowledge and prophecy were confined to the New Testament writings, these two gifts (charismas) also came to an end. From then on "Knowledge" and "Prophecy" took on another character. They became commentaries, an explanation or an interpretation which cannot add anything to what has already been written. Their "inspiration" is not the same as that of the New Testament writings. Otherwise they would have to be added to the Bible. That is what the Mormons have done with the tablets of Joseph Smith. They are made of gold, if you please! They are authoritative for the Mormons, but only for them. Other religions have their inspired prophets or infallible leaders. That is one of the characteristics of a sect. These writings are placed on the same level as the Bible and even manage to eclipse the Bible's authority and teachings. There are prophets such as Agabus who predicted a famine (Acts 11:22), but they have nothing in common with those that Paul mentioned when he said, you are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone (Eph 2:20). Knowledge and prophecy are part of the foundation to which no one can add anything more. Every Christian can say with Paul that Knowledge and Prophecy will cease. And they did cease when the last line was written by the author of Revelation. Dr. Scofield puts it this way, "The New Testament prophet was not merely a preacher, but an inspired preacher through whom, until the New Testament was written, new revelations suited to the new dispensation were given." This is what is meant by the expression "...when that which is perfect is come..." (I Cor 13: 10). The finished and completed writing of the Word of God is the ultimate of perfection. It is written, "I have seen a limit to all perfection; Thy commandment (Word) is exceedingly broad" (Ps 119:96).

The Blind Leading the Blind

    Along with many others, I was convinced that the end of tongues was linked with I Corinthians 13:10, "But when the perfect is come...". I had heard it repeated so many times that I believed it without checking it out. After all, if it was written, it must be true. It was so evident. But a shadow of doubt came over me and I decided to read for myself what the Holy Spirit had to say on this subject. What a shock! It wasn't my Musketeer who dealt the final blow, but Paul himself. I realized with indignation that I had been duped once again . As a matter of fact, nowhere in the Bible does the Holy Spirit say that the gift of tongues will cease when that which is perfect is come. By simply, unhurriedly reading God's Word, I discovered the error. Everything was clearly written in these verses that are often misquoted and used for dishonest ends. When I reread I Corinthians 13:8-10, I found... well, let's took at it together. First of all, let's take a look at verse 8. "...but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away." That is very clear. The following two verses will now tell us what will pass away when that which is perfect is come. Let's carefully read verse 9. "For we know (knowledge) in part, and we prophesy in part," But where are tongues? They are not in the verse. I am afraid that we are the ones who put them into this verse in order to believe that they would remain at least until that which is perfect is come. In other words, the disappearance of tongues is not tied as the other gifts with the coming of that which is perfect. Paul never said that. On the contrary, he says, and we have seen it again and again, that the end of the tongues gift has to do with something completely different-the purpose for which God gave it. This purpose was fully achieved when it was fully admitted that the nations, as well as "this people" (the Jews), benefited from Jehovah's salvation. When this fact was universally believed, accepted and no longer contested by anyone, this gift was no longer needed. Here, at the very time that this gift was justified, the one who used it more and better then anyone else was led by the Spirit to say, "tongues ... will cease" or, according to another version "will not continue". These "tongues of fire" went out, not because that which is perfect came but because of a lack of fuel, lack of the presence of "this people" (the Jews), and especially their unbelief which made them oppose the salvation of other peoples. Stars, as everyone knows, are visible and useful only at night. When the sun rises they disappear. So it is with the gift of tongues. it was only useful during the darkness of an unbelieving Israel who opposed the nations' salvation. The gift faded out very simply when the Gentiles' calling came to light. This is what finished off the last of my resistance.

    I tried, as so many others have done, to translate verse 10, "when that which is perfect is come..." by the possibility, "when perfect is come". And perfect for me was the Lord. Supposing this were true, then in the eighth verse that would mean prophecy, knowledge and tongues would not cease until the Lord's return. If this is true, why does the thirteenth verse say, "these three remain: faith, hope and love", contrasting them with the three others which pass away? These three remain, but after what? It is clear that faith and hope will also disappear at the Lord's return (Love is excluded because it is eternal). If prophecy, knowledge and tongues disappear only when Christ comes back, that would mean that faith and hope would disappear with them at the same time. In fact, here is what I made the text to say, "six things abide until that which is perfect is come: prophecy, knowledge, speaking in tongues, hope, faith and love"!

    But the Holy Spirit makes it clear and precise that, on the contrary, of these six, faith, hope and love alone abide and survive the first three. These three will cease before faith and hope, which cease at the Lord's return. So, when? Here is the order.

Knowledge and prophecy cease when that which is perfect is come, which is to say, when the Word of God is fully revealed. The gift of tongues ceases when its purpose is fulfilled, that is, when the Gentiles' place in salvation is assumed and when the judgment, carried by the sign, falls on unbelieving Israel.
Hope and faith do not cease, but remain until the Lord's return.
Love, which is the greatest gift, continues beyond Christ's return through eternity.
The Sinking of the Ship
    This time I understood the dishonesty on my part, quibbling over details as if I were the official defender of that doctrine. For my doctrine was like a ship full of holes ready to sink. Until now my ship was on the sea, but now the sea was in my ship and I was trying to patch up a few small pinholes while the whole other side of my ship was caved in. I knew I had to abandon the ship as soon as possible, but I liked my old craft. Such is the human heart. It resists God and all evidence. I would rather break than yield. But what difference did my defeat make if the Truth of God triumphed? I still would have liked to believe that the end of I Corinthians 13 left some hope that tongues would continue, but I no longer had the heart to do so. I was tired of quibbling and splitting hairs over the Holy Spirit's clear declarations! I knew that the other expressions-"the partial" (verse 10), "when I became a man" (verse 11) and "but then face to face" (verse 12) -were not going to put me afloat again either. Meanwhile, I had become familiar with the Scriptures and their analogies. I had no difficulty understanding that when Paul said, "For we see dimly, but then face to face", he jumped from a present, partial situation to its glorious and remote conclusion, "then I shall fully know just as I have been fully known." We should not be surprised that Paul does so in one sentence. Any assiduous Bible reader is familiar with this practice. When the Lord Jesus went to the synagogue of Nazareth, He read the famous text of Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me because He anointed me... He has sent me to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord..." (Luke 4:18,19). He interrupted His reading there in the middle of the sentence. And He did so intentionally, for between the last word He read and the following one in the same sentence, there are at least 1950 years. The part which He quoted concerned His first coming, while the rest spoke of His glorious return. Would we place Christ's first coming in the twentieth century on the pretext that both events are mentioned in the same sentence? And yet, that is exactly what is done with the gift of tongues by those who pretend that it will continue until we see the Lord face to face-all of that because it is written in the same chapter as the sentence which says "then I shall know fully as I am known". I do not want anything to do with this type of leaping exegesis which is worthy of a Jehovah's Witness. Let the acrobat lovers have it.

Somersaults

    Here is a typical example. A dear friend of mine who became charismatic insisted on defending speaking in tongues. He confided to me, "If the gift of speaking in tongues does not exist today except as a hoax, then it did not exist in the first century either and it was just as false then as now. For," he added, "God is the same yesterday, today and forever." Here we have a perfect example of what is called a sophism. It was just like saying, "If there are no more apostles capable of writing the Bible today, then there never were any!"

    With this kind of reasoning, how can we explain that this God who does not repent of His gifts and who is the same yesterday, today and forever took away certain signs and manifestations even in apostolic times? Remember that at Pentecost three signs accompanied the outpouring of the Holy Spirit:

1. A sound like a mighty rushing wind.
2. Visible tongues of fire which came upon each of them.
3. The ability to speak in tongues (Acts 2:2-4).

    It is obvious that the first two signs did not continue though God never made a formal declaration that they would not continue. Would it be honest to affirm in the name of an immutable God that since the first two signs do not exist today, they never did exist? But it would seem that, according to this astounding feat of exegesis, we should refuse the disappearance of the third sign-the only one God did say would disappear!

A Bit more Bible Knowledge, if you please

    For many the greatest difficulty is to admit that certain gifts of the Spirit, useful to the Church as they may have been, might no longer exist even though the Church continues to exist. They say that if the primitive Church had need of them, how much more does she have need of them in the last days! This apparent logic will not stand up to a minimum of reflection and knowledge of the Scriptures.

    While debating the question with a very dear friend, he cited for me these two verses so often heard, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever" (Heb 13:8), and "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Rom 11:29).

    In his eyes that which the Word of God affirmed was actually for today.

    I asked him why he did not practice circumcision on his baby son, nor the sacrifices prescribed by the Old Testament, nor the offerings of animals, nor the feasts of Jehovah.

    Taken aback just a bit, he recognized that he had spoken hastily, for even if the Word of God remains eternally, certain of its teachings are not applicable to us today.

    So he said to me, "Certainly in the Old Testament certain practices no longer concern us, but it is not the same in the New Testament which is for us. We must receive it in its entirety and, above all, the words of Jesus Christ."

    I then opened my Bible to the New Testament and asked him to explain to me the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:5 where He sends the twelve apostles with these precise orders, "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles." That means that the Gospel should not be preached to any but Israel. "Do you accept these words of Jesus today?"

    After a moment of silence he said, "I never thought of that.

    Since both of us admitted the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures and that it was not by the will of man that any prophecy was given, but men spoke for God as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God (II Pet 2:21), I asked him if the gifts of writing pages of knowledge and of inspired prophecy, so useful to the upbuilding of the Church, existed still. Without hesitation he replied, "No."

    "Thus," I said, "you believe that God has taken this gift away?"

    "Yes," was his response.

    "In your opinion, does the Bible say this gift has ceased?"

    "No."

    "And yet you believe it has ceased."

    "Yes.

    "Thus you believe that this gift ceased even though the Bible nowhere says that it would cease. Then tell me, why do you not believe in the ceasing of speaking in tongues when the Bible says, 'if there are tongues, they will cease" (I Cor 13:8).

    NOTE: In error, certain people have used Revelation 22:18 seeking to prove the end to inspiration of the Bible with the completion of the book of Revelation to John. This verse treats only of "the prophecy of THIS book." The same ban is pronounced for the Pentateuch and yet numerous books have been added to that. The reason for the end of revelation must be found elsewhere, but this is outside our present consideration.

Manna, heavenly Bread

    For a long time I was in arms against the idea that God might have withdrawn from the Church one, or several, gifts of the Spirit. But I was forced to surrender to the evidence that it is God alone Who remains unchanged, not His gifts. God gave Jonah the gift of a vine, a living parasol, but later He withdrew it though Jonah felt he still needed it (Jonah 4:7,8). But when Jonah lost his vine, he did not lose His God. Though the Lord may take away His gift, He does not withdraw His presence. Just for the sake of comparison and not as an absolute proof, the history of Israel, wandering in the desert provided a lesson for me. Six days out of seven they received the heavenly gift of manna, bread sent down from above. They did not have this gift in Egypt, in spite of God's presence with them there. In the desert this gift was the sign, the guarantee of the rich harvest that awaited them in Canaan. It lasted forty years. But as soon as they arrived in the Promised Land, the manna ceased to fall (Joshua 5:12). God no longer sent down bread from heaven. Why? Because they had the fruit of the land. The gift which was a sign and a shadow of God's promises stopped when those promises became reality. Let me sum up this comparison in three points:

The manna was not given while the Israelites were in Egypt any more than the gift of tongues was given to the Lord Jesus during His earthly ministry.
The manna that fell during the forty years in the desert announced the harvests of Canaan just as the gift of tongues announced to the Jews the harvest of Gentiles (Acts 2:17,21).
The manna did not continue once the Israelites entered into the land of Canaan. In the same way, according to Paul, the gift of tongues does not continue once the harvest of the Gentiles is no longer denied or disputed.
The End
    Leaving the realm of comparison which can be contended, I was irresistibly impregnated with a truth having both a doctrinal and absolute aspect:

The judgment which the gift of tongues (Isaiah 28:11-13) pronounced on unbelieving Israel, dramatically began to fall on the country in the year 70 A.D. when Jerusalem fell and the Jewish people were dispersed throughout the world.
Speaking in tongues also announced the massive entrance of Gentiles into the Church, and parallels with the setting aside and judgment of Israel. The sign was completely fulfilled, as fully as our salvation was accomplished on the Cross. When Jesus cried, "It is finished", He excluded any repetition of this sacrifice. So the Holy Spirit prophecy, "if there be tongues, they will cease" (I Cor 13:8), forbids the perpetuation of this gift.