A Word about Tongues

Background Purpose

Crucial to understanding why tongues were used at all in the 1st century AD is the background drama of extraordinary covenant change that accompanied the gospel announcement, “Christ is King!”. This background is often missed by those who would debate about the use of tongues today.

Up until the time of Christ, as Paul writes in Ephesians, the gentiles (all non-Jews) were strangers to the household of God, aliens to the covenant. The throne of David (which Christ took) was an Israelite throne, not a throne over all creation. But Christ changed that. He became Lord of all, in effect replacing not only David, but Adam, who was the previous head over all the earth.

So, one mechanism to announce that all the families of earth were welcome in the covenant – subject to the new King – was using their own languages to tell them so. Suddenly, God was speaking to people in their own languages, making Himself known beyond the Hebrews. Tongues, then, were a sign of the expansion of the rule of God. They were, as Paul says, a sign to unbelievers, rather than to believers.

Thus, the effect and intent of the apostolic ministry became clear through the use of tongues as a major sign: the kingdom of God was opening, and was opening wider than ever before. This was in accordance with Jesus’ giving the apostles the keys to the kingdom, commissioning them to proclaim the great news that God had made Christ Lord of all.

And this opening of the kingdom was not a repeatable event. God’s kingdom does not expand from Israel to all the families of earth again and again, just as we do not crucify Christ again and again. It happened once. The keys of the kingdom were given to the apostles; they used them to open it, and so the kingdom now stands open.

It won’t do, then, to treat the arrival of tongues in an ahistorical (which means, ‘without history’) manner. The gift of tongues is not timeless – it had a particular purpose in covenant history.

Cessation

Furthermore, I suggest this purpose had an ending-point: the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in AD70. Why then?

Until that time, Israel was being invited to repent and follow the Messiah, her new King. During the 40 years between Jesus’ resurrection and the destruction of the Temple, the administrative form of the old Jewish covenant remained while God remained patient, not wishing any to perish. And thus the kingdom remained open for Israel to enter. As the writer of Hebrews says, this was the period of her desert wanderings, like her fathers of old out of Egypt. She was being called to a new exodus, and to entry of a new land.

But when God’s patience ran out, the central symbol of God’s presence with Israel (the Temple) was destroyed, and many, many Jews died in the siege of Jerusalem. At that point the new covenant (in which all the families of earth were welcome) completely replaced the old, exclusive-to-Israel administration, visibly and officially. Covenantally speaking, Israel had been cast on the rubbish heap and the gentiles welcomed. The kingdom had thus arrived, and was officially represented as belonging to Christ and the faithful, and not to the Jews. It had been opened, and the true members welcomed. And so it stands open today.

What need, then, for tongues now? Did something go wrong; did God’s king somehow lose the kingdom between AD70 and 2004? Shall we say (on whose authority?) that we are re-opening the kingdom, as newly appointed apostles? Who gave us that right? Who commissioned us; who gave us keys to a new kingdom?

Conclusion

We best honour the real apostles if we recognize that they did their job, and it’s done. Let us do ours. Let us show the world that it lives under a great and mighty King, and therefore how marvelous and loving is the work of God, to bless all the families of earth.