Biblical Glossolalia - Thesis 5

William Graham MacDonald

This article contains the fifth of seven theses proposed in defense of biblical glossolalia. Thesis 1 contended that glossolalia is inaccessible to worldly comprehension because of its holiness, its “from heaven” dimension and its inextricable connection with the glorified Jesus. Thesis 2 stated that in its inception and continuation the Pentecostal experience of the Spirit glorifies Jesus. Thus speaking in tongues by His direction results in greater awareness of Jesus, the living Lord, and enhances one’s overall relationship with Him. Thesis 3 argued that biblical glossolalia has no antecedents, no precedents, and no parallels — in the Old Testament or paganism, or pathology. Thesis 4 defended the statement that biblical glossolalia has a uniform character throughout the New Testament. While there are “kinds of tongues/languages” spoken in the Spirit and kinds of situations where glossolalia is appropriate there are not kinds of glossolalia. Theses 6 and 7 will follow in future issues.¹

Thesis Five

Whenever it was Luke’s intention to feature the initial responses of believers being immersed in the Spirit’s power, the one constant biblical indicator of that experience was glossolalia — whatever the other episodic variables. This historical norm bears full doctrinal authority because Jesus “the Way” is “the same” temporally and universally.

In G. Ernest Wright’s God Who Acts (1952), the truth is underscored that Yahweh is known as much by His acts as by what He has spoken. God’s mighty acts in nature (“the earth is satisfied by the fruit of His work” — Psalm 104:13), and in releasing Israel from Egypt (Exodus 6:6-8), and from Babylonian captivity (Jeremiah 23:7) reveal His power and glory. In Jesus, God continued to act as the Craftsman of what is good, revealing that His “hand” and His “Father’s hand” are not diverse but identical (John 10:28–30). A contemporary who had felt the effects of the Creator’s molding clay into eyes that could see testified of the significance of Jesus as holding a historical world record: “Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind” (John 9:32). When God acts, historical norms are generated (John 10:37) unless God says otherwise (Genesis 8:21).

Biblical History As A Doctrinal Instrument

The West’s orientation to philosophy and its allegiance to “the scientific mind” make it impossible for many moderns to recognize the biblical importance of historical theology. That modern mind wants to teach and learn all there is to know by definitions and axioms, by conclusions based on empirical evidence, and by technical manuals telling one how to take charge. Yet a significant portion of God’s Word is not like this at all, but exists as sacred, way-showing, precedent-prevalent history. Its teaching authority (2 Timothy 3:l6,17) coincides with its nature as Scripture. The precedent for history as revelation is well established in the historical books of the Old Testament. Indeed, the great Christological truth that Jesus came and passes through His time from “yesterday” to “forever,” while remaining unchanged in disposition, authenticates history as the site of God’s self-revelation and as the basis for real-life, that is, non-philosophical doctrine (Hebrews 13:7,8).

For people of the ancient world as for many people-groups today, their continuing identity and way of life is determined to no small degree by their remembered history and by their ability to personally relive in some way that history. For the Hebrews, God’s call of Abraham out of Mesopotamia [Iraq], and His deliverance of his posterity out of Egypt under Moses had a profound effect in shaping their identity, life-style, and values. One’s education consisted of learning the family trade, and especially the history of the nation as passed on in story form from generation to generation. Beyond this, there were the laws to be learned, laws that were given by the same God who had shaped the nation’s identity throughout its history. There were also proverbs to be assimilated. These conserved “the Way” that one who counted God present in their history would live out his life.

The New Testament also records God’s mighty acts, with this difference: the works of God move from the miracles of the Gospels, seen with the eyes, to the interior works of Christ, such as the circumcision of the believer’s heart, the impartation of Christ’s mind, and the enablement to speak by the Spirit “the wonders of God” in languages they did not understand (Acts 2:4–11). Ascended beyond all heavens, Jesus “poured out” Pentecost (Acts 2:33) and set a lingual precedent that is programmatic for thirsty believers (John 7:37; Hebrews 13:8).

Validity Of Historical Precedent

When the apostle Peter reported to the Hebrew-Christian church what the exalted Jesus had done to create a congregation of Gentile believers at Caesarea, he based his report and appeal for acceptance on historical precedent: “the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning” (Acts 11:15). The variables in this historic second Pentecost were:

(1) a different locale;

(2) a different people without Jewish ancestry;

(3) absence of the external signs of the great powers of God in wind and fire; compare 1 Kings 19:11,12, where a whisper prevails over wind and fire; words are more indicative of divine power than the powers of nature;

(4) the presence of one preaching Christ among them.

The one constant at Caesarea and Jerusalem was “speaking in tongues and praising God” (Acts 10:46). Glossolalia was accounted as certification of God’s acts strictly on the basis of historical precedent (“as … at the beginning”).

The new epoch of the Spirit began with the glorification of Jesus (John 7:39), whose glory, like the streams flowing from the desert rock, spilled over with spiritual benefits for all believers. It inaugurated a new history and instantiated precedents for all subsequent time. Glossolalia was one of those glorious benefits derived from His ascension, just as the giving on earth of His holy regenerating breath had shared the glory of His resurrection. As long as Jesus remains in glory, we have every right to expect “the same gift”(s) from Him. When He makes waves in the world, His “acts” can be verified by historical precedent in Scripture.

Acts is heavy on “precedential” cues: “This same Jesus … will come back in the same way” (Acts 1:11). The Ascension in reverse is a precedent for His return. His outpouring of the Spirit is a repeatable precedent “for all [the nations] whom the Lord our God will call” (Acts 2:38,39). Luke, the biblical historian of God’s choice, would exercise great care (Luke 1:l–4) in setting forth both his volumes containing the formative history.² There precedents were set “at the beginning,” based squarely upon glorious divine deeds. In gathering and recording this sacred history, Luke preserved the doctrine implicit in it, as what Jesus began and continued to do. Luke does so in a form with which the people are familiar in their cultural heritage — the recounting of the history of their Hero. “Exalted to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (Acts 2:33).

The structure of the New Testament as a body of holy literature is so configured as to support the determinative role of divine historical precedent. This truth is the working presupposition of Thomas D. Bernard in his famous Bampton Lectures of 1864 at the University of Oxford. The divine course of instruction in the New Testament, as codified in the way the church eventually placed the books together in their present order, displays the unity of a divine historical plan.³ The point of application here is simply this: when one reads the Epistles, one must presuppose the precedents in the Gospels and Acts and recognize that each epistle builds on Christ’s own history. The apostolic tradition treats what Jesus “began to do” and continued to do from heaven as historic, programmatic, didactic, and indisputable in authority for all the Church for all time.

Validation Of Historical Precedent By Jews’ Precedential Title

Because Jesus remains “the same” (Hebrews 13:8) throughout time, His recorded acts, whether in His lifetime on earth or from heaven, are foundational for His people. Those preserved acts and words of His were meant to be the criterion for judging all that subsequently professes to be “in His name.” In short, the Epistles assume the reader’s acquaintance with Christ’s history, at the least, an acquaintance with the narratives as they circulated in the oral tradition, and in the earliest written accounts. Therefore, one would not expect the Epistles to address a preliminary question like this: what affords evidence of a believer’s being baptized in the Spirit’s power? The historical tradition would answer that question, for Jesus is “the same.” What afforded evidence then of His Spirit-baptizing can be expected to be unchanged today because He has not changed.

Those who would disallow the Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit-baptism certified by glossolalia because it is not developed like so in the Epistles are implicitly denying that Jesus is “the same,” and explicitly denying that the historical norms He established have value as precedents for all time in His Church. The Epistles were not written for theorists, legalists, or philosophers. They were prepared for those who were “in Christ” and acknowledged His word, example, and leadership by His Spirit to be absolute (Colossians 2:9,10; Ephesians 1:22). He and His acts were the integrating point for His followers past, present, and future, and for those of all future generations. Historicity was acclaimed in the earliest confessions (1 Corinthians 15:3–8). The Epistles complement the apostolic history but do not substitute for it.

Authentication Of Historical Precedent By Jesus’ Title, “The Way”

Many westerners do not consciously cherish the truth that Jesus is “the Way” (John 14:6). Not so for the Early Church. From Jerusalem to Damascus, to Ephesus, the Church was so completely identified with His Semitic title, the Way, that this designation came to stand also as the composite identifier for the Christocentric faith of all believers in Him (Acts 9:2; l8:26; 19:9,23; 22:4; 24:14,22).

The great significance of Jesus’ title “the Way” can be seen in the following comparative chart:

God speaks. — Jesus is the Word.

God acts. — Jesus is the Way.

To confess “the Way” as person and as doctrine is to understand Jesus in terms of history, wisdom, and precedent. Translating freely, if somewhat obliquely to accommodate the deficiency of the proposition-oriented, but history-demeaning (existentialist) intellect, one could render he hodos (lit., “the Way”) as “the Precedent,” or “the Example.” Biblically, Christocentric precedent is in every respect as substantial as proposition in being a repository for apostolic doctrine. It matters for doctrine that Jesus is “the Way” (John 14:6) because He is the faith’s initiator and consummator (Hebrews 12:2).

Biblical History As The Conservatory Of Experiential Knowledge

In philosophy, knowledge is often equated with abstraction, but in the Bible, knowledge means experience — experience open to all believers, not just to the abstract thinkers. The Christian faith recapitulates biblical revelation as “knowledge” by reenacting it in one’s own experience in a manner conforming to the biblical precedent. Knowing God’s Way means having experience of revelation — personal experience with Jesus Christ, the inveterate submerser of souls in the Holy Spirit, the heavenly clothier of the committed with celestial power, the articulate provider of the words spoken at Pentecost, and thereafter in every little Pentecost.

The difficulty with such “knowledge” for academics is that it is accessible only through worship of “this same Jesus,” and it cannot be obtained independently like a philosophy merely by consideration of concepts. Since the knowledge depends on revelation, on holy interaction, it is conserved from generation to generation by holy experience corroborated by historical, that is, biblical precedent.

Pauline Utilization Of Historical Precedent

The apostle Paul when writing to both Romans and Greeks underscored the propriety of learning from historical precedents. In Romans 15:1–4 he held high the example of Christ during His life on earth as a model of how to relate to others for their spiritual benefit, and he quoted from Psalm 69:9 to explain how Christ took abuse from those out of sorts with God. Then came his justification for the use Christologically of a single historical statement (“The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me”): “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”

The principle of historical precedent also operates negatively (for “rebuking, correcting”—2 Timothy 3:16) as illustrated in 1 Corinthians 10:1–5,6,7–10, and is summed up in verse eleven: “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.”

Restorationism’s Dependence On Historical Precedent

Whether officially or implicitly the Pentecostal movement has been a part of the Restoration movement. The Restorationist goal is to peel away the encrustations of church history and the overlays of philosophical concepts and to get back to the pure gospel and practices of the Early Church in its pristine form. Does a committed Biblicist have any other choice than to be a Restorationist? To the degree the Pentecostal Movement is Restorationist, and that has been the stance from the beginning, to that degree does it endorse and certify the biblical sanctity of historical precedent, and rightly so.

Was it Luke’s intention, or more accurately, the Spirit’s intention, to teach by precedential history that the invariable indicator of immersion in Christ’s power was glossolalia? One’s answer depends in large part on one’s understanding of the biblically certified role of history in God’s revelation of himself in Christ. Christ’s biblical acts demonstrate what God will do and validate what one can expect from Him under the new covenant. The immutability of God and the constancy of Christ guarantee continuity in the gifts of the Lord.

Examination Of The Lukan Texts For Glossolalia Precedents

Acts 2:1–18,33

This is the locus classicus featuring glossolalia as the indicator of the Spirit’s power filling those servants of Christ who had been with Him during His ministry on earth.

Acts 4:23–31

For the most part those who were “filled with the Holy Spirit” already had been “filled” on the first Christian Pentecost. What is featured here is: (1) the physical power of God that shook the building where they were praying [thus the group had to be small enough to fit in an ancient building]; (2) the holy assertiveness (“boldness”) that accrued to the prayer group as a result of their refilling.

Acts 8:9–25, especially verses 12–17

When the Spirit literally “fell upon” the already baptized Samaritans, something observably extraordinary was manifested from them as a sign of the power of God controlling them. Glossolalia, since it was featured in the inaugural Pentecost, has a high probability of being that palpable indicator of the Spirit. But what Luke actually featured here was Simon the Samaritan’s unsuccessful attempt to buy the authority to empower believers.

Acts 9:17–19

Ananias prayed for repentant Saul, the persecutor, that he might be filled with the Spirit. What the few Lukan statements did mention was the healing of Saul’s eyes from his blinding encounter with the glorified Jesus, his water baptism as a convert to “the Way” he once persecuted, and his breaking of his three-day fast. It is a moot question whether he spoke in tongues on that day or later, for he wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians: “I would like every one of you to speak in tongues … I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you” (1 Corinthians 14:5,18).

Acts 10:30–48; 11:2–18

When the Spirit literally “fell upon” (a metaphor of power) the Gentiles at Caesarea they spoke in tongues and praised God. “The same gift” given to them as to the Jews at Pentecost was identified by their glossolalia. It was featured here and construed to conform to the Pentecostal precedent. Luke narrated — and then for emphasis — repeated the account (Acts 10:30–48 and 11:2–18), making this event the clincher that binds subsequent Pentecostal-type experiences to the historical norm.

Acts 19:1–7

About a dozen disciples of John the baptizer were rebaptized in Jesus’ name, moving them along from Old Testament justification to New Testament regeneration in Christ. After that, as Paul placed his hands on them the Spirit came upon them and was expressed by glossolalia and prophecy. Though the updated transition of the Ephesian “disciples” was featured in the narrative, the mere mention of glossolalia occurs almost as a matter of course, as an expected regularity that conformed to the historical continuum flowing from the Pentecostal precedent.

Concluding Observations:

1. Of the three signs of God’s power present in the inaugural Pentecostal event (wind, fire, glossolalia — in that order), the persistent one is glossolalia, as waves of Christ’s heavenly glory move out to the nations. Comparable in significance to God’s gentle whisper to Elijah at Mt. Horeb that displaced the raging wind, fire, and earthquake preceding it, speaking in tongues — and not the roar of wind and blaze of fire — would endure as the sign identifying full immersion (inclusive of the head and tongue) in Christ’s Spirit.

2. In each instance when Luke tells of glossolalia in the widely scattered places, his account either states or implies that all spoke in tongues (Acts 2:1,4; 10:44–46; 19:6,7). Compare Paul’s expressed desire that “every one” of the Corinthians speak in tongues (1 Corinthians 14:5), although all, including himself, would not speak out in tongues in the hearing of the congregation (1 Corinthians 12:30 in context).

3. The fact that Luke makes no mention whatever of glossolalia in his account of the founding of the church at Corinth (Acts l8:1–21) is super significant for understanding the carry-over effect of the principle of historical precedent in Acts. Yet we learn elsewhere the Corinthian church was thoroughly Pentecostal. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, glossolalia is mentioned twenty-eight times, of which twenty-three of these are in chapter 14.⁴ Since Acts does not chronicle any Pentecostal data at Corinth, we have every reason to conclude:

(1) Luke’s also not mentioning glossolalia in Syrian Antioch or in Pisidian Antioch, or in Thessalonica, or in Berea has no bearing on the question whether glossolalia was present in those churches.

(2) It is far more unreasonable to conclude that glossolalia was completely absent in some churches Paul founded (because there is no chronicle recording it), than to infer that what he wished for the Corinthians, he desired also for all the churches he planted. The historical probability lies with glossolalia’s being universally present in all the churches under the care of the same apostle to the nations.

Conclusion

When believers were empowered (Acts 1:8; 2:4) to represent Christ in the world, glossolalia was the norm of that experience, indicating the believer had been filled with His Spirit. The historical record carries doctrinal certitude of this because the glorified Jesus, who does the immersing and initiates the glossolalia is “the same … today” throughout this age. Jesus himself is gloriously “the Way,” and His acts (Acts 1:1) recorded in the inspired sacred accounts constitute precedential authority for His continuing holy operations in His Church worldwide.

—William Graham MacDonald, Th.D., Front Royal, Virginia, taught a combined 22 years at Southeastern College, Central Bible College, and Gordon College, before engaging in a full-time writing ministry.

Endnotes

1. This article comprises the fifth of seven theses marshaled in defense of biblical glossolalia. The remaining two theses will be published in future Paraclete issues:

a. Glossolalia is only, ever, and always one-directional, from the believer to God. In form, glossolalia is spoken or sung. In content, glossolalia consists of worship or prayer: praise, thanksgiving, or intercession. Because glossolalia is unidirectional, it cannot be an oracular utterance. In value, glossolalia, even when properly interpreted, rests at the bottom of the apostolic scale of gifts benefiting the congregation.

b. While spiritual gifts are corporate in nature, intended by the Lord to build up the church as a whole, glossolalia is the one gift given primarily for the benefit of the individual: “He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself” (1 Corinthians 14:4).

2. Roger Stronstad, “The Hermeneutics of Lucan Historiography,” Paraclete 22 (Fall 1988): 7,8.

3. Thomas D. Bernard, The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament, Considered in Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford 1864. At least five publishers have reprinted this enduring work over the years. For Bernard, the New Testament’s Christocentric structure itself as developed in the Gospels, History, Letters, and Revelation becomes the integrating framework of his biblical theology in lieu of a philosophical system.

4. Roy A. Harrisville, “Speaking in Tongues: A Lexicographical Study,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 38, no. 1 (January 1976): 35.