We see it in the Bible and we see it in Charismatic churches. Is it the same thing?
The most rapidly expanding religious movement in Christendom at present is the Charismatic Movement. The Charismatics (although it is difficult to speak in general terms because of the numerous groups linked under this title) are usually sound as to the deity of Christ. Many preach salvation by grace through faith, although often rejecting the eternal security of the believer. Most accept Bible truth regarding heaven and hell.
The doctrine which characterizes practically all the various groups of Charismatics and which is usually the main plank in their platform of preaching and practice is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This they claim is not the common experience of all believers but a sort of second blessing received only by those who fulfill certain conditions, usually tarrying and praying or possibly the laying on of hands. This, they teach, results in speaking in unknown tongues.
Why the attraction? First, it would appear to be a reaction against the impotence of a sterile liberalism. Liberal Christianity is bankrupt. In spite of high-sounding claims, a parading of scholarship, and a well-publicized program for social betterment, it has little to show for a century of effort. Its membership is decreasing, its coffers are being depleted, and it finds itself the object of attack by those it claims to befriend. The stone of liberal skepticism has proved to be a poor substitute for the bread of life.
Closely akin to this is the deadness of formal orthodoxy. Much of Christendom that has not openly denied the truth of the Bible has lapsed into a state of spiritual dearth that has little attraction for the masses. It is evident that the neo-Pentecostal movement making inroads in old-line denominations is having great success in those denominations most given to liturgical formalism. Here again there seems to be a reaction against spiritual dearth.
Without doubt sincere Christians are attracted to the movement because it seems to offer fulfillment to a genuine desire for greater holiness and effectiveness in life and testimony, There are few Christians who have not, at some time or another in their Christian life, experienced a great longing for complete victory over indwelling sin and greater fruitfulness in service for the Lord. Such desires are certainly legitimate. The Charismatics profess to provide the answer; this offer can appear most attractive.
Finally, many uninstructed believers are attracted because of its use of biblical terms. Spirit baptism, the fullness of the Spirit, the gift of tongues—these all seem to promise that which is of God, for they are all NT terms. To the immature and uninstructed they seem to be the truth. Today’s tragic condition of woeful ignorance of the Bible in America certainly contributes to the possibility that people will succumb to the claims of the Tongues movement. It could be expected that from those who claim a superior endowment of the Spirit, there would issue such a rich unfolding of the deep things of God by preaching and pen as would authenticate their claims. But there is little evidence that such is the case.
Let us consider the errors of the Tongues movement. Here are the four most common errors.
1. Placing higher priority on tongues than the Bible does. Speaking in tongues is practically the keynote of the movement. Is it so in Scripture? In all the teachings of Christ recorded in the four Gospels there is but one reference to tongues (Mk. 16:17), a reference to the future, “They shall speak with new tongues.” The word “new” signifies different languages; this was fulfilled at Pentecost.
In Acts 2, the chapter on Pentecost, there are only five references to tongues (vv. 3, 4, 6, 8, 11). This chapter contains 47 verses, only 13 of which are in any way connected with the subject. The book of the Acts covers approximately the first 30 years of Church history. In its entire scope of 28 chapters, only three occasions are recorded where there was speaking in tongues: chs. 2, 10, and 19. Out of 1,007 verses in Acts only 18 deal with tongues.
Paul wrote 13 or 14 of the 27 books in the New Testament, and in only one of these (1 Cor.) does he mention tongues. In the 14 epistles from Romans to Hebrews there are 100 chapters, and tongues are the subject of only part of two of them (1 Cor. 12 and 14).
When he does write about them, Paul places tongues and their interpretation last in both the manifestations of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:7-10) and the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:28x). In giving his inspired estimate of the relative value and importance of tongues Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 14:5, “I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather than ye prophesied: for greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues.” And again in the 19th verse of that same chapter, “In the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding…than ten thousand words in a tongue.” Odds of two thousand to one against tongues!
Eight of the New Testament epistles were written by Peter, James, John and Jude. These writers make absolutely no reference to tongues. With these facts before us it is evident that little or no emphasis was placed on tongues even in the apostolic era when the gift was operative.
2. Designating tongues as unknown. This the Scriptures never do. In 1 Corinthians 14 the word “unknown” in connection with tongues appears five times in the King James Version but there is absolutely nothing in the original Greek to signify “unknown.” The translators of our English version recognizing this fact, placed “unknown” in italics each time, indicating words that were supplied. The tongues referred to were unknown only to those not acquainted with that particular language.
There can be no question that the tongues at Pentecost were various dialects recognized readily by those familiar with that particular language. Let us prove that point.
There are two words used in the Greek New Testament for tongues and both are found in Acts 2. One word is glossa, occurring some 50 times in the New Testament. It is found in Acts 2:3, 4, and 11. “There appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire” (v. 3), “And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (v. 4); and “We do hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God” (v. 11).
Glossa is used of the tongue as the organ of speech 16 times in the New Testament, in such verses as Revelation 16:10, “They gnawed their tongues for pain.” Six times it is used in the book of the Revelation in such expressions as, “peoples, nations, and tongues,” clearly referring to different languages spoken by different nationalities.
The other Greek word is dialektos which is immediately recognized in its anglicized form as dialect and that is exactly what it means. It occurs in Acts 2:6 and 8, “every man heard them speak in his own language” (v. 6) and “how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?” (v. 8). Three times in later chapters in the Acts it is used as the Hebrew tongue, in 21:40; 22:2; 26:14.
A consideration of these facts make it irrefutably clear that what was spoken on the day of Pentecost was not some unintelligible gibberish, but a different language from that normally spoken by these Galilean apostles. There were Jews present from at least 14 nations and these testified that they heard the apostles speaking in their own dialect. The miraculous gift was that the Spirit enabled these Galileans to speak in other tongues which they had never learned and no doubt had never used before.
Recognizing this undeniable fact about the tongues spoken at Pentecost, some of the more thoughtful Pentecostal teachers have sought to evade this dilemma, but in so doing have made this mistake, their third:
3. Making a distinction between the tongues at Pentecost and at Corinth. Those who take this position admit that the tongues spoken at Pentecost were understood by those familiar with these languages, but they claim that the tongues referred to by Paul in his letter to the Corinthians were different, since they required an interpreter to be understood. While some good and godly men, in no way connected with the tongues movement, have held the view that these were ecstatic utterances, sometimes called angelic languages, this view appears untenable.
Before examining it, let us notice the inevitable results of admitting this difference. If the tongues at Corinth were not the same as at Pentecost, then there is no connection whatsoever between speaking in unknown tongues and Pentecost. The whole Pentecostal movement is undermined and the name itself becomes a misnomer. Claiming to possess a Pentecostal gift that has no connection with Pentecost is so obviously wrong that one wonders that it is ever being advanced.
In seeking to escape from one horn of this dilemma, the advocates of this theory are impaled on an even sharper one. Without entering on a detailed exposition of 1 Corinthians 14, consider here only the matter of terminology. In our English translation of 1 Corinthians 14 we find the word tongue or tongues occurring 16 times. Fifteen times it is a translation of the Greek word glossa which we have discussed already. The one remaining instance is in a quotation from the Old Testament in verse 21 where we have another form of glossa as a translation of the Hebrew word. This form of glossa is literally “other-tongues” and signifies a foreigner. As you will recall, this word glossa is the identical word employed in Acts 2 for the tongues in which they spoke at Pentecost. It is also used in Acts 10:46 of the speaking in tongues by the Gentiles at Caesarea and in Acts 19:6 of the disciples of John at Ephesus.
Thus on the ground of the word used by the Spirit to describe tongues, they were one and the same at Jerusalem, Acts 2; at Caesarea, Acts 10; at Ephesus, Acts 19; and at Corinth, 1 Cor. 14. Dean Henry Alford, a recognized authority in NT Greek, says this in commenting on Acts 2: “How is this speaking with other tongues related to the speaking in tongues afterwards spoken of by St. Paul? I answer that they are one and the same.”
4. Declaring tongues to be the result of Spirit baptism. The adherents of the tongues movement, whether inside or outside the Pentecostal denomination, practically all teach that Spirit baptism is a sort of second blessing received some time subsequent to conversion and experienced only by those who tarry, pray through, or engage in some other religious activity until the desired baptism is received. This cannot be substantiated by Scripture and is contrary to the teaching of the Word of God. What says the Scriptures? The Old Testament Scriptures say absolutely nothing—Spirit baptism is unknown from Genesis to Malachi. In the New Testament we have seven specific references; four of these are prophetic, two are historical, and one is doctrinal.
The four prophetic references are found in the Gospels (Mt. 3:11; Mk. 1:8; Lk. 3:16; Jn. 1:33). These all refer to John the Baptist’s prophetic words regarding the baptism in the Spirit by Christ in contrast to John’s baptism in water. Thus in these four passages we have the expectation of Spirit baptism, “He shall baptize you.”
The two historical references are found in the Acts of the Apostles—that which had been expected was now to be experienced. In Acts 1:4-5 we have the words of the risen Christ, “…they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of Me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” In speaking of the promise of the Father, Christ was undoubtedly referring to His earlier words as recorded in John 14:26 where He said, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name….”
Some ten days after Christ made this promise to His disciples concerning the baptism of the Spirit, Pentecost occurred as described in Acts 2. The events of that feast day undoubtedly included the baptism of the Spirit. For Peter so described it in his words to the Jerusalem leaders after the reception of the Spirit by the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius at Caesarea. Here are his words as given in Acts 11:15-17, “And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that He said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us…” Peter here finds a parallel between what occurred at Pentecost in Jerusalem with the Jewish believers and what took place at Caesarea with the Gentile converts, and he designates both as being baptized with the Holy Ghost.
There is but one other place in the New Testament where the expression, “baptized with the Holy Ghost,” is explained—1 Corinthians 12:12-13, “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is [the] Christ. For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” Here is the doctrinal statement concerning Spirit baptism. Here, and here only, is the explanation given by divine inspiration. What was expected in the Gospels during the earthly life of our Lord, and experienced by both Jews and Gentiles after the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, is explained by Paul. According to the Word of God, baptism in the Spirit is that work of God by which the body of Christ, the true Church, was brought into being, Jews being incorporated into it at Pentecost, Gentiles at Caesarea.
Every believer is now constituted a member of the body of Christ. It is not the ecstatic experience of a favored few, but a divine work on behalf of all. The final statement in 1 Corinthians 12:13 is this, “and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” What you drink is in you. If you drink enough you are filled. When you are filled you are full. In the Bible we read of being filled with the Spirit. We also read of being full. The former is an experience, the latter a condition resulting from the experience. The believers at Pentecost were filled with the Spirit according to Acts 2:4.
May the Lord help us all to be “filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). But as well, may we be “filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Col. 1:9). And may this two-fold filling result in a third: “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God” (Phil. 1:11).