The Gift of Tongues

[tdidymas]

Adelphos, continued:

Originally Posted by Adelphos

Quote:
At best, one single scripture (which is taken out of context) and made to fit this experience (and called a "prayer language" which is not a Biblical term), is used to support that practice.

Neither is Trinity a Biblical term, so this argument is moot. The fact of the matter is this - tongues are clearly prayer (1 Cor. 14).

I will grant you that Paul refers to it as "praying." However, he never uses that fact as a reason to do it. Any time it has been objected to P/Cs that modern tongues speaking is not like the NT, they always go the to "prayer language" idea to justify or "prove" it - this is not the original Biblical intent of the idea, thus the justification of calling it a "prayer language" to authenticate their experience is not Biblical.

Originally Posted by Adelphos

Quote:
So then, this naturally leads to the question, "is speaking in tongues proof of having received the Holy Spirit?" The Biblical answer is an emphatic NO!!

It is definitively the initial evidence of receiving the Gift of the Holy Spirit.

Your application here is Biblically wrong, because your idea of tongues being "the initial evidence" is based on the false doctrine you have been taught (which is based on subjective experience), not on the Biblical text. One could call "initial evidence" of what happened in Acts only, in which tongues was a sign gift to unbelievers, and to the church only insomuch as they needed proof that the Gentiles and other religious groups had actually received the Holy Spirit as the apostles did on the day of Pentecost. Nowhere in scripture does this indicate that tongues is a regular gift given to believers who receive the Spirit. Again, Heb. 2 along with the context of what happened and what the apostles argued over in Acts proves my point here. I am extracting the proof from the Biblical text only, and eliminating the bias of personal subjective experience. What P/Cs have done here is to take the "initial evidence" of it as a sign gift in Acts, and they have "extrapolated" it as a general application of receiving the Holy Spirit, and called it "the initial evidence" of receiving the Holy Spirit by every believer. This is why the application of it is simply wrong, because the application does not fit the original intent of scripture.

Originally Posted by Adelphos

Quote:
The only proof that the Bible gives that someone has received the gift of the Holy Spirit is the fruit of the Spirit.

That doesn't make sense. How does one explain the fruit of the Spirit in the lives of Old Testament saints then who obviously lived before the impartation of the Gift of the Holy Spirit?

Here again, it is only those with the bias of tongues as "the initial evidence" doctrine who interpret the statement "the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified" as a justification for saying that OT saints did not have the Holy Spirit. This again is an eisegetical idea inserted into the text. If we take the whole of scripture together, we have OT saints who are said to have the Holy Spirit in many ways. God said "not by might... but by My Spirit," indeed the saints of old have always been referred as living their righteousness before God by the power of the Spirit, since "the righteous one will live by faith." There are those still in the Old Covenant times in the NT gospels who are said to be righteous, and who spoke by the Holy Spirit. The sense in which they had the Holy Spirit was mysterious until the day of Pentecost. Paul alludes to the fact that the gospel was preached to everyone in a subtle way before Christ came, and both Peter and the writer of Hebrews also testify to it. He said that the gospel in OT times was a mystery, before it was revealed to him and the apostles from Christ. This shows that the gospel existed in OT times, though a mystery, and was preached as a mystery to them. Those who believed in the coming Messiah before He came, and who lived a righteous life by faith in God are shown to have the Holy Spirit. Anyone who believes in 1 Cor 2 and Gal 5:22 cannot doubt that OT saints had the Holy Spirit to make them a righteous "tree" (see my teaching earlier on this). Paul's teaching on salvation, faith, and spiritual birth is generic for all mankind, and does not follow a chronological construct. Spiritual birth through faith in Christ is retroactive for all time prior to His death and resurrection, as much as after. So then, what can we conclude about the statement "the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified"? Only that the Spirit is given in such a way as never before. This is alluded to by Peter in Act 2 wherein he quoted Joel "I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh." The "Spirit not yet" means that the Spirit was not yet poured out in an unmeasurable way to all mankind (i.e. to all the gentiles), just as prior to Jesus' death holiness was limited to the space of the "most holy place," but after the veil was rent, holiness became available to all the gentiles. And this is within the context of John, since he was also mostly apostle to gentiles as Paul was. So then, the Holy Spirit was indeed given to saints prior to Jesus' glorification, but was extremely limited to those who believed the gospel mystery. After Jesus was glorified, and then we get the day of Pentecost, now we have the Spirit poured out freely "on all flesh" because the death and resurrection of Christ makes all the gentiles (and Jews who previously did not believe) holy before God. This all fits together as the sense in which the NT teaches it.

In conclusion:
Do you accept that these are valid objections and proofs that what we observe today is fundamentally different than what was observed in the early church?

If you cannot get past this point, then I think answering any further objections from you would be a futile effort.
TD