Bob Prichard

Topic(s): Denominationalism, Miracles

The miraculous power of the Holy Spirit allowed the early Christians to perform many great works, including speaking with the gift of tongues.  Many claim to have this gift today.

The only place that the gift of speaking in tongues is explicitly described is in Acts 2.  Acts 2:4 tells us that the apostles “were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”  Verse 6 describes the response of the hearers:  “Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.”  Each of the apostles spoke a “tongue,” which is just another word for “language.”  The apostles were not speaking in some kind of “prayer language,” or “ecstatic utterance.”  Each apostle miraculously spoke a different human language, which allowed each of the people there to hear the gospel message in his own native language.  Modern day “tongue speaking” is not really a language at all.  Some confusion about the issue is due, in part, to the unfortunate decision by King James translators to insert the word “unknown” into the text in several places, making the phrase “unknown tongue.”   “Unknown tongues” does not appear in the original text or in valid modern translations.

Do men still exercise the gift of tongues today?  No, because the purpose of the miraculous gifts has been fulfilled.  The purpose of the miraculous gifts was to confirm the word of God.  The apostles “went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following” (Mark 16:20).  Salvation from the Lord “was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will” (Hebrews 2:3-4).  God has confirmed the word.

The gift of tongues is no longer available in the church for several reasons.  First, there is no Holy Spirit baptism available today. The Bible speaks of several baptisms [water, fire, Holy Spirit], but by the time Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians, he said that there is “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5).  Since Jesus commissioned his disciples to administer water baptism unto the end of the world, or the end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20), then Holy Spirit baptism is no longer available.  [Water baptism is the “one baptism.”]  Second, there can be no gift of tongues today because there are no apostles to lay on hands to impart the gift.  Although the evangelist Philip possessed miraculous gifts, he had to wait for Peter and John, who were apostles, to come to Samaria to impart the gifts (see Acts 8).  Paul wrote that the gift of tongues would one day cease when “that which is perfect is come,” the completed New Testament.   “Whether there be tongues, they shall cease . . . For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.  But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away” (1 Corinthians 13:8-10).  The perfect is come, and the gift of tongues has ceased.