A Theology of Tongues

Men of all nations under heaven gathered in the City to keep the Feast. Streaming in from far-off lands where unknown languages were spoken, they came to the Temple to glorify God’s Name. But these were strange times, and many rumors and riddles were in the air and on the tongue. Strange signs had been seen in the land. The blind rulers of Jerusalem slept uneasily while the lowly whispered of the lately murdered god.

Then, in the morning hours of the Day, on Pentecost, a mighty Wind blew through those streets to a house where a company had gathered for pious purposes. Tongues of dividing fire burned over their heads, and their tongues were aflame with strange words. The pilgrims to the City heard these words and marveled, for they heard tales of dreadful deeds and might and power which God had done. Their minds were troubled, though, because they heard these things in a multitude of tongues, in their own languages. Men of Rome heard Latin cadences. Men from Babylon heard the Chaldean tongue. Egyptians heard the Coptic language of their homeland. Many wondered at the reports they heard, though some mocked.

Thus the Spirit came upon the disciples. Luke records this in the second chapter of Acts as the first great work of the ascended Christ. Peter notes that it is a fulfillment of prophecy. It is a significant event, worthy of much meditation, and though the full meaning of Pentecost won’t be understood until we all sit down to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, we can reflect on various aspects of it. The aspect I want to take up here is the miracle of tongues. What does the sign of tongues mean? And in answering this question, we will cast light on another particularly pertinent question on the mind of many modern Christians: is the sign of tongues still operative today?

As with every other teaching of the New Testament, the sign of tongues has deep roots in the Old Covenant. To fill out our theology of tongues, we’ll need to tap into those roots or else we will completely misunderstand the sign. There are two New Testament passages in particular that call on Old Testament material on tongues. The first, Acts 2, does so implicitly; the second, 1 Corinthians 14, particularly verses 20-25, does so explicitly. We will begin with Acts, move to the Corinthian letter, then draw the two together, and finally consider how the teaching helps us today.

Pentecost and Ancient History

I’ve already summarized a portion of Acts 2 at the outset of this post, but consider it again. Men from every nation under heaven have come together in the city of Jerusalem for a festival. Oddly, Luke lists all the nations represented, and it’s a comprehensive list of the nations of the known world from the far west of the Roman Empire to the far eastern lands of Persia and Babylon. They hear a sound like a might rushing wind, which is the Spirit coming down on the disciples. The sound brings these men running to see what is. Gathered, they hear the disciples speaking the various tongues of the nations represented, and it confuses them. They are bewildered, confounded, to hear the mighty works of God told in their own tongues. Peter preaches to them about Christ, the Holy Spirit, repentance, and baptism, and ends with this: “the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” In tabular form:

1. Men from every nation gather in a city for religious purposes
2. A table (list) of nations represented
3. God descends to the city
4. The men of the nations are confused by a language miracle
5. A covenantal promise of blessing is made “for you and for your children and for all who are far off”

Where else have these pieces come together? On the plain of Shinar, in the East, at Babel.

“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated eastwards, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.”

Before examining this account from Genesis 11 like we did for Acts 2, we need to place it in its broader context. First, Babel is Babylon. It’s the same name, but for some reason I have yet to discern, modern translations insist on rendering it Babel. This is important to note in light of the history that Israel has with Babylon. Second, the story of the tower of Babylon follows on the heels of the Flood story. Noah’s household comes out of the Ark and cuts a covenant with God. The lines of Noah’s sons are listed in Genesis 10 in what is called “the Table of Nations.” This list is exhaustive of all the fathers and peoples of the known world. In all, seventy nations are named, representing the whole world. Third, the Babel story is followed immediately by the story of Abram’s call and covenanted dealings with God. Abram is called out of Chaldea, which is a land closely associated with the Babylonians, even synonymous with Babylonia.

With those things in mind, what were the men of Babylon trying to do, and why did God frustrate their attempt? Recall that Noah and his household were given a charge to multiply and cover the face of the earth. This was the same charge given to Adam, and in a way, Noah is a new Adam, an heir of Adam. In a similar way, Noah was an heir of Seth, in whose days men began calling on the Name of the Lord. So, Noah’s descendants have two missions, so to speak: to cover the face of the earth and to glorify God’s Name. This is not what they did, though. Rather, Nimrod the Hamite led yet another rebellion against the Lord’s decree. Instead of spreading over the face of the earth, mankind congregated in the land of Shinar and founded a city, Babylon. Instead of glorifying Jehovah’s Name, they glorified their own. Instead of waiting on the Lord to re-establish fellowship with them, they built a Tower to gain access to Heaven on their own terms, a Temple of Man. (The “tower” of Babel is a religious building. It is more properly a temple, a sacred place. The temples of the Babylonians, which you can see even now, were pyramid-shaped. The men of Babel were trying to “reach Heaven” by their own technologies.)

Gods response to this monument of Babylonian arrogance was to come down among them, confuse their language, and send them out from there to settle the earth. God recognized that mankind united was powerful and would soon descend back into the depths of evil they had achieved prior to the Flood. His curse of confusion at Babel was one way He made good on the promise shown to us in the rainbow. By removing their common tongue, God made it impossible for the people at Babel to work together. Where before they had a common purpose, now they had different, competing ones. Their only option was to leave off the building of the city and retreat to their own lands. They were hobbled, as it were. Unable to sin further in that direction.

Abram is called out from that environment to be God’s vehicle for blessing these same nations. God covenants with Abram to be God to him and his children and any foreigner who dwells in his household. These promises are very much outwardly focused. Abram will bring good to the darkened nations and families of the world. All that said, let’s list the elements we find here:

1. A table (list) of nations
2. Men from every nation (or who will become the nations) gather in a city for false religious purposes
3. God descends to the city
4. The men in the city are confused by a language miracle
5. God makes a promise of blessing that extends to him, his children, and the nations (Cf. Genesis 12:1-3; 15; 17:1-14)

These are strikingly parallel to what we see in Acts 2. Indeed, the Author of history and Sacred Scripture purposefully wrote them to be parallel. The Day of Pentecost is a kind of redemptive replay of the story of the founding of Babel. At Pentecost, in one light, what is wrong with the world is coming untrue. A true City and Temple of God is established in the Church of Christ. But it’s not only blessing that is being communicated. Remember that the confusion of language was a sign of a curse to the men of Babel. Not everyone in Jerusalem that day was a follower of Christ; most were not. Most were living to make their own name great. The confusion they felt at the sound of strange and foreign tongues would be a frightful thing to them. As we turn to our next text, we will strengthen this interpretation of the sign of tongues at Pentecost as a sign of divine judgment and curse.

(To be continued…)