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Transcript 374C
Tongues and Other Gifts of the Spirit [1 Cor 13]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Yes. I'm calling concerning what I heard on Conference Echoes, the gentleman from Silver Spring, Maryland. And I felt that he was kind of doing some semantical contortions with scripture. I agreed with some of what he had to say, but I think to say that I Corinthians 13:8 says that tongues, or prophesy, or knowledge are no longer applicable gifts to this present age is simply teaching something that is not there, because reading on down, verse 9 says, "For we know in part and we prophesy in part.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." And it's obvious from verses 9 & 10 that what he's talking about is when we get to Heaven, because in verse 12 he says, "For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known."
And it just seems to me so perfectly clear that what Paul is talking about is that these gifts will pass away when we get to Heaven, and there won't be any need of them there. But there's nothing whatsoever that says that the church is not going to have them here throughout the entire church age. And further, in Mark 16, at the very close of that particular Gospel, we find Jesus making a remark about the signs that follow them which believe. He says, "In My Name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents. If they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
And so it just seems to me that to say that these gifts are no longer with the church is to ignore the total thrust of scripture.
HC: Well, let me comment about this. I did not hear the speaker, but I can look at I Corinthians 13.
Now in I Corinthians 13 God is simply indicating that tongues shall cease. He doesn't say when they will cease. He gives no intimation as to when they will cease. He simply says that tongues will cease.
Now He also says that prophecy and knowledge will pass away. And then He goes on to discuss, in verse 9 through verse 12, about when knowledge and prophecy will pass away. And He does indicate that they will pass away when we see Him face to face, that is, when we get to Heaven. They will continue on this earth, but they will pass away when we come into Heaven.
But there is no suggestion in I Corinthians 13 as to when tongues would cease. It is simply a declaration that they would cease at some point in time. Now when we evaluate, however, what tongues were, and of course I Corinthians 12 and I Corinthians 14 are the two chapters that especially speak about tongues, there we find that it was a phenomenon that did exist in the church at Corinth. There were those who did receive from God Himself information in a heavenly language. And this served to edify them personally. But they were admonished to seek to interpret it so that the information would also be available to the congregation so that the congregation would be edified.
Now this was altogether possible in that day, because God had not completed His Word as yet. It was still the day when God would speak with revelations coming from other sources than the Bible. They really only had the Old Testament at that time, and so we find the apostle Peter receiving information by vision, the apostle John, the apostle Paul, and individuals in the church at Corinth receiving information in this unknown language called tongues.
But then God completed His divine Word. And in Revelation 22:18 He declared, "If anyone adds to the words of this book, I will add to him the plagues written herein." Now with that statement God effectively is saying, "Now look. I've completed the Holy Word. I've completed My revelation. And if you think you've received some divine truth by means of a dream or a vision or an angel confrontation, or by a tongue, or whatever, it's not from Me. I have given you the Word of God. And if you are going to look for divine truth from other sources than the Bible, then this is indicative of the fact that you are still subject to the plagues written herein. That is, you're unsaved and you're still subject to hell."
This I believe is what the Bible teaches about this particular gift, that is, any gift relating to additional revelation after the Bible was completed. Now it is true that the Bible speaks about signs and wonders that will still come to pass. The Bible speaks about signs and wonders in a number of places, and tongues was a sign. We read this in I Corinthians 14. The word sign there is the word miracle. And the Bible does speak about signs and wonders, particularly in relationship to then end-time church. But ominously; and unfortunately, all of the references to signs and wonders near the end of time are Satanically related.
In Matthew 24:24 God indicates, "False prophets and false christs will arise with signs and wonders' to lead astray if possible even the elect." In II Thessalonians 2 we read of the man of sin taking his seat in the temple. And this I believe is Satan ruling in the church. And he will come with signs and wonders of falsehood. And God in fact will make those who follow this believe a lie, that they will be prepared for judgment. God is not neutral in these times.
In Revelation 13 it speaks about the beast that comes out of the earth, the false prophet. And he makes an image, and he gives life to that image, and brings signs to come to pass, even making fire come down from heaven. This is gospels that Satan himself will design, so that he will enslave the nations of the world to a higher degree than ever before. And he will attest to their genuineness, as he comes as an angel of light, by coming with signs and wonders. That is, he will make them apparently like they are genuinely of Christ. But Satan is the big deceiver. And actually they will not be of Christ.
And then in Revelation 16 again it speaks about the beast and the false prophets coming with signs to deceive, coming with miracles to deceive. Every reference in relationship to signs and wonders near the end of time relates to Satanic activity. Now that's very serious. That's very heavy. That's very ominous. And it indicates how careful we have to be today, because I do believe, as do many others, that we are near the end of time.
It is a day when we want to make absolutely certain that we get divine truth only from the Bible. It alone and in its entirety is the divine Word. Satan didn't speak through the Bible. Satan can speak in a lot of other ways. He comes with all kinds of occult activities. He comes outside the church, in witchcraft and ouija boards and tarot cards, and so on, and in the church he comes with occult activity. The Bible says so. The Bible says, in II Corinthians 11, that he comes as an angel of light.
Therefore we really want to be on guard, and make sure that the only place where we're going to look for divine truth is the Bible itself. Then we cannot be deceived.
CALLER: I think certainly Satan does go around as an angel of light, granted. But I do not accept the premise, and I cannot accept it, that all of the signs or wonders in the latter times of the church are from Satan. I cannot accept that. For one reason, Joel 2:28 & following says, "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, and also upon the servant and upon the handmaiden, in those days I will pour out My Spirit. And I [and this is God talking to Joel here] will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be delivered."
HC: Yes, but you see, God is not talking there about Judgment Day at the end of time, the great and terrible day of the Lord, because right after that He says, "And whosoever calls upon the Name of the Lord will be saved," or "will be delivered." And salvation does not come after Judgment Day. Salvation comes all through the New Testament period.
But you see, when Christ went to the cross, that was the "great and terrible day of the Lord." That is when Christ paid for my sins. He was subject to Judgment Day at that time. That is when the sun was darkened, and the moon did not give its light. And that literally did happen, you know. The sun was darkened. There was darkness over the face of the whole earth for a period of three hours, we read. And the language of the signs that were shown is the language of Psalm 18, where God is speaking in dramatic terms about the deliverance that would be provided by the cross.
The fact is, there was a great earthquake. The earth itself reacted to the fact that Christ was on the cross. Now more than that, in Acts 2:16, back there in AD 33, on Pentecost Day, Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, quotes from this very passage, and declares that this, in relationship to the phenomena you are seeing today, as there was the sound of the rushing wind and what appeared to be tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples, and the fact that they were speaking in foreign languages, was evidence that this is the time that Joel prophesied about. In other words, now God is going to begin His program to evangelize the world. The great and terrible day of the Lord has come, and now whosoever calls upon the Name of the Lord will be saved.
Now, if we did not have Revelation 22:18, from the language of Joel 2, as it is explained in Acts 2:17 & 18, where he says, "Your young men will dream dreams and your old men will see visions," we would conclude that throughout the New Testament period (because it's throughout the New Testament period that we have the last days, it is throughout the New Testament period that whosoever calls upon the Name of the Lord will be saved) we could still dream dreams and see visions. But that aspect of the prophecy was limited by the language of Revelation 22:18. Several decades later God declared that we're not to add to the words of this book.
Now the other implications of that prophecy remain. "Whosoever calls upon the Name of the Lord will be saved." Every believer is going to be a prophet. Now in the Old Testament the prophets were only few and far between. They received their information from God from two sources: from the written Word that was complete to their day, and also by means of dreams or visions, in a more exciting way.
In the New Testament, before the Bible was completed, the prophets had the same experience. They had the Old Testament, which was the written word complete to their day, and occasionally they could receive additional information through a dream or a vision. But once the Bible was completed, now as New Testament prophets throughout the New Testament period, we continue to prophesy, that is, to declare God's Word, which is really what prophesying is all about, but our source of divine truth is only the Bible, because it is now the complete Word of God. It is every part of God's revelation that He wants us to know. And so we don't have to be looking for divine truth from any other source.
Now this of course is a fantastic guarantee for the New Testament believer, that he won't be tripped up by Satan. He won't be snared by Satan, because he's looking around for an additional revelation of some kind. He knows that when he goes to the Bible he's got all the revelation, all that God would speak to mankind about. And he can spend his time very patiently studying the Word, searching the scriptures, and knowing all the time that this is the voice of God, this is the revelation of God. What a wonderful guarantee God has given us.
CALLER: A couple more problems. Number one, I see nothing in the context of Revelation 22:18 which says that that verse is applicable to anything other than prophecy of the Book of Revelation itself.
HC: Now let me answer that very quickly, because we've run out of time. He won't be able to cover any other questions on this program. But you see, the Book of Revelation is an integral part of the whole Bible. If you add a chapter to the Book of Revelation, you've added it to the Bible. If you take away a chapter; you've taken it away from the Bible. So whether you want to understand this book to be the Book of Revelation or the whole Bible is really immaterial, ultimately, because the Bible is one cohesive whole. It has one author. It is one book. Therefore this book does ultimately refer to the Bible.