Have Tongues Ceased? (1 Cor 13:8-13)

And I'm just going to tell you, you're so smug that you cannot listen to somebody try to talk to you about something without ridicule. It's incorrect. I know it's incorrect, but according to the way you want to absolutely interpret it...

No, no, no. He's saying that he's smug is incorrect.

No, I am smug. I own it.

Praise the Lord. I'm so glad you finally agreed to something.

I'm fine with it. It doesn't bother me.

Opening Banter and Show Introduction

Welcome to Apologetics Live. We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible. Meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro, and Pastor Justin Pierce.

Well, welcome to another Apologetics Live. There you got a clip of proof that I can be wrong, and I admit it when I am, and that Norm is smug. Pastor Josiah was backstage just cracking up, laughing, rolling his head back on that.

That was a great one with Pastor Justin. So, tonight we're going to deal with a question. The question we want to answer is, have tongues ceased? That's going to be our topic tonight. Before we do, let me bring in Pastor Josiah.

How are you, sir? I'm better than I deserve. Hey, I heard that earlier today. Oh, from you. So, what we're going to do is we're going to deal with a topic that is quite emotional for many, and I recognize that.

And so, I know that there's some who jumped to lots of conclusions in saying that if you bring these issues up, you somehow are saying people aren't saved. We're not saying that. Although there are plenty of those who hold to the fact that tongues continue for today, and they argue that you have to speak in tongues to be saved.

But I don't know many people that say if you believe that tongues continue, then you're not saved. So, one side does have that. Now, it's not all charismatics, by the way, but let me define some terms.

When I say charismatic, it's because the Greek word, it doesn't mean someone's got charisma and they're just a charismatic speaker. No, it's the idea that charismatic gifts, because the Greek word charisma is the term used for certain gifts.

So, there's two different words used in Greek to refer to gifts. And this one is referred to as what some people call apostolic or sign gifts. And so, what we end up seeing there is that these are the gifts we're going to be speaking of.

And so, a whole movement started out of this that became known as the charismatic movement. Actually, it's something that has developed. There was a difference in the way Pentecostals did theology versus charismatics.

So, a lot of people don't know that. There's a great book called Doing Theology. It's basically different ways many people do theology. And it was interesting to read that because the Pentecostal writer for that chapter was explaining how Pentecostals went in to churches teaching to speak in tongues.

And then they separated out and created their own churches where the charismatic movement would go into those churches and stay in there to try to convince everyone to speak in tongues. That is his conclusion, not mine.

But there is some of that that we end up seeing. Now, KT is saying that Andrew is here rolling his head on a MyPillow. I don't see a MyPillow here. That's you, Pastor Jaya, that usually has the MyPillow right there with you.

I can always get it. So, what we want to do is deal with a topic that I'm going to say right up front. I know this is an emotional topic. How do I know that? Well, because I posted it online that we were going to do this show.

And wow, the comments are still going days later, which usually posts like on Facebook or Twitter. They kind of die out after a while. Not this one. It is still going, still heated, still back and forth with a lot of people.

And it just shows you how much emotion is invested in this. Now, I realize a lot of people, they have a lot invested in this. A lot of people, they put this is a major thing that you end up seeing. This is who they are.

I'll put it that way. They have their identity in this. And so, this is why this is such an emotional issue. Now, I know that, let me just share this real quick. I posted this online. And I know some people reacted negatively to this.

But I'll start off with this. Here's a post that I had online. And you can see charismatic gifts up there. And the Bible, that's like God flicking his finger. And there's a person. He's flicking a finger off a cliff.

And the person, it's your feelings. In other words, what is going to be our ultimate authority? Is it going to be our feelings or experience or is it going to be the Bible? That is the question that we all are going to have to answer.

And why do I put that up? Why do I make that issue? I know so many people have been upset with me putting those memes. I got a bunch of those memes. I did the same meme with women pastors, gay Christians.

I got more coming. Don't worry. Just so many things that people let their emotions be the thing that's going to interpret Scripture.

Yeah, you got me in trouble on Facebook. I had to write a post about it. What did I do now? You posted Deuteronomy. Let me try to remember the passage. It was Deuteronomy.

We see Kofi wants more memes.

Yeah, it was Deuteronomy. The passage on a woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 22 .5.

I had to write an article on that. An article where? I think it was on striving for eternity. The place where we're able to post these things without getting blocked off Facebook.

If you go to strivingforeturning .org, Josiah is one of our bloggers. Actually, the article that we're going to go through tonight is on there as well. If you go to strivingforeturning .org, and if you want, just search for have tongues ceased.

You're going to get an article that I wrote that is going to deal with 1 Corinthians 13 verses 8 to 13. That's what we're going to deal with first. I'm going to go through this. I realized that, like I said, I'm going to explain what I think is the biblical position.

I'm going to explain why I think it is. I'm going to give what I believe is the context of the passage and the rules of interpretation that I'm following. Now, if someone comes in and wants to argue about their experience, I'll have to bring that meme back up.

Quite frankly, your experience is not the interpretation of scripture. That's not how we interpret scripture. In fact, the one challenge for people that I would have is if we're going to look at experience as the guide, what do we do with the fact that long before 1900s, before speaking in tongues, as they would call it, was normative within biblical Christianity.

We see tongues being spoken in Hindu kundalini, in Mormonism, in the occult. If the fact that you can speak a gibberish is proof that you're hearing from God, then the occult is hearing from God. If we're going to judge based on experience, right off the bat, I'm just saying you have to answer how you're right with the same exact gift that all of the cult and occult has been doing long before the Christians were doing it.

That's just a question we honestly have to ask looking at history and things like that. So, we want to be fair, and I'm saying that because I know there's going to be a lot of people that are going to get very emotional with me.

I get that, because this is very personal for many.

Isn't tongues the thing that started the Pentecostal church in 1901, where they're pretending to speak in Chinese?

Well, yeah, 1905 is when it really became popular at the Azusa Street. But yes, there were some, and if Justin Peters were here, he'd tell you the name of the guy who first started it, I think it was in the late 1800s, and convinced people, they were convinced, now this is the thing, they were convinced that they spoke a known human language, which is what tongues were always in the Bible.

There is no place ever that you see it being anything other than a known human language. Now someone is going, oh wait, Andrew, Andrew, 1 Corinthians, you just mentioned 1 Corinthians 13, verse 1 says it.

Okay, we've dealt with this on a previous show, but let me start with that, just so that we get that out of the way. Because it's a fair argument, it does mention the tongues of men and of angels. And so, is there a language that angels speak?

That's a fair question. Well, it says, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. So what you see right off the bat, simple interpretation, he's doing a comparison between speaking in tongues and love.

What's he saying? Love is more important, tongues are not. That becomes really important because when some of you who are really going to be hating me are going to be calling me names and telling me how much you don't like me, because of my position, I'm going to say love or tongues, which is the priority here.

If you don't have love for your brother in Christ, because he doesn't agree with your view on tongues, you'd have something backwards. But is Paul actually saying that there is a language, and that's how tongues should be translated as languages, is there a language of men and of angels?

Well, Paul's saying if he speaks the language of men, and even of angels, it sounds to me like this could be exaggeration. Could be. Is there anything that would help us to understand that? Well, there happens to be, because we have the next verse, where he says, if I have the gift of prophecy, and I know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

Now, that is clearly hyperbolic language. How do we know that? Well, because he's saying if he has all mysteries, now the word mysteries there is a definitive article, so this is the mysteries, the knowledge, the faith, and it's all of it.

If you knew all mysteries, and had all knowledge, and had all faith, we would call you God. Right? And so clearly Paul is not claiming that he is God. Clearly. He's exaggerating the point, saying even if I go to the extreme, I know, I'm omniscient, and I have such faith that I can remove a mountain.

But comparing that to love, all that, I mean, think about the idea he's arguing. If you can have omniscience, and you can have the complete faith, that's nothing compared to love. So once you see the exaggeration, we go back to verse 1 and see he's not saying that there's an angelic language.

Could there be an angelic language? Yeah, there could be. I don't deny that. How do you know you're speaking it? And here's the thing, I have heard many, many people who claim to speak in tongues. And even though I've heard people all around the world that claim they speak in tongues, and they all speak in an angelic language, they speak very differently.

Not the same sounds. Maybe there's like a million dialects of angelic. That wouldn't make sense though, because they didn't suffer the Tower of Babel. So why is it that all these people that speak in angelic language all have a variety of sounds and words?

I guess I can't even say words, but if it was an angelic language, it would be different words. That doesn't make sense. It's not fitting with the grammar, the way all language does. It doesn't, what you end up seeing today.

And so when we look at this, we have to look at the context there. The context tells us that he's using exaggeration, hyperbolic language. So let's get to the passage that we're looking at.

Something I want to say is we don't take, it's a hermeneutical principle that you don't take figurative speech and literalize it to make it mean whatever you want it to mean. You're supposed to take the idea that the image or concept is presenting and take that principle from there.

So when he's saying he can speak in the languages of men and angels, he's saying if he could speak in all languages, that's not as important as love. If he has all knowledge, then it's not as important as love.

Correct.

You know, let me do, this is a comment someone put up. It says, angel is messenger. Okay. And so he's saying here further, angel may not be some sort of heavenly being or creature. Now, this person, he or she, I actually don't know from the name.

They're correct. The word angel means messenger. And it doesn't necessarily mean the angelic class or angelic beings. Not always. So as we look at that, we have to examine what the context is. I believe the context of 1 Corinthians 13 is the angelic class of beings because of the fact that he's making a distinction between men and angels.

So when I would look at this, and I've never heard that argument before, but it's valid to address it and look at that. And so he says, I'm a dude. Thank you. So what we end up seeing is because there's a contrast between men and angels, I don't think it's a male messenger because that wouldn't make sense there.

So we got our Australian, Sydney, Australian friends saying good morning to us. So good morning, Ted. Good morning. So let's deal with the verse, the passages we have here. Let me first read 1 Corinthians 13, 8 to 13.

I know we got some people backstage. I want to kind of go through this line of argumentation in one shot because I think that if we bring people in and break it up, we're going to lose the flow. And what I want to do is give you a hermeneutical way of looking at this.

What's hermeneutics? That's the art and science of interpretation. Why are we going to do that? For a very simple reason. Often what we do is we break rules of interpretation, and we don't realize it.

And that's the thing that I'm just looking at his comments. I'll get to that in a second. That's the thing that we end up having realized. If we stick within the rules, we're going to be consistent in how we interpret.

And that's what we want to do. We want to stay within the rules, and that's what we're going to try to do. So he says, Messengers from God carry an authority. Man may not, but without love, a clanging cymbal.

So, okay. We have someone backstage that's putting in some comments. I'll try to get to those. The other co-hosts should be coming in later, and hopefully they come in so they can read all the comments.

I can't do the both as there's a bunch of comments flying. And they read the passage to get us started. And then we're going to look at the paper, Have Tongues Cease, that's strivingforeternity .org. Love never fails.

But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. Okay. I'm going to go through this paper, and I'm going to put in some things that are not in the paper as we go through as well.

Maybe I'll have to rewrite this paper and update it. But I'm going to somewhat read through it for those that aren't. Maybe you're driving, you're in the car, listening on the podcast, which by the way, this is also a podcast feed.

So if you subscribe to the podcast, Apologetics Live, it will automatically download into your phone or device whenever you want to listen. And you can go back to past episodes. So this is what I've written.

There has been much discussion on what is the word perfect in 1 Corinthians 13 .10. And that's really what everything hinges on, because what you end up seeing is this is saying that prophecy, tongues, and knowledge go away whenever this perfect comes.

So we have to know what that is. All right. So a proper interpretation of this passage will answer the question, are tongues for today? Now that would seem like a pretty serious question to answer since there's so many that are involved in the movement.

So what I say is the word teleon, and that's basically teleos is the word that we have here, translated into English as perfect. But it also can be better translated as complete or mature. How do we know?

I'll ask this to Pastor Josiah. You've written a couple books on hermeneutics. How do we know which way to translate this, whether perfect, complete, or mature, if the word has multiple uses?

Well, even though a word can have a semantic range, it always has one meaning in the context.

In the context. So the context is going to say that. All right.

In this case, it's going to be the immediate context. The immediate context.

And we're going to get to that, because the way we see is it says, I say here, this conveys the idea of perfect. And this is the way most people think of it. They see the word perfect and they think without flaw.

And because of that, that ends up tainting some people's interpretation. Okay. The real issue in understanding the meaning of the word is the context. Context explains the word usage when it's not clear.

Does the context support the word for teleos to be translated as complete and not perfect? Well, as we look at the context, we saw in verse nine, partial, right? We know in part, we prophesy in part. So two things that are partial, but then something, the partial is done away.

So what you end up having is a completion in verses nine and 10. Partial in verse nine, completion in verse 10. Verse 11, you have a child to manhood. That's the idea of maturity or completeness. You have looking in polished metal.

Now, part of the reason I think people have an issue with this is they look at this and say, this is a mirror versus looking face to face. Well, it's not the mirrors we would have today. It's a polished metal.

So that's looking dimly versus looking clearly. Again, it's complete or maturing or perfect in the sense of a completed thing. Knowing partially versus knowing fully. All four of those are dealing with the idea of something that comes to completion.

So I think that within the context, we could say, but that when the complete comes, the partial would be done away with. Now, all I'm doing is sticking within the immediate context here. So I say here in the paper, in verse 11, Paul, did I skip it?

Yeah, I skipped a paragraph. So I say here, the context starts with the verse, verse one in chapter 13. Paul is explaining the difference between tongues as a temporal unimportant gift versus love and eternal important gift.

We already addressed that. Reading verse nine, it says, for we know in part and we prophesy in part. And then verse 10 is saying, but, so you're seeing the contrast. That's what you end up doing when you see a word like but.

What you're going to look to do is you're going to look to contrast that. You're going to look to see what is the point on one side of the but and on the other side of the but, because that contrast is explaining the meaning.

Okay, so going on. This is to contrast the previous thought, which is to the current thought, but when the teleos has come. So knowing in part, prophesying in part is contrasted with the teleos coming.

The contrast against that, which is partial. So it's further emphasized in verses 10 and 11, right? In verse 10, where I said, it talks about putting away childish things. Verses 11 and 12, where you have putting away of childish things.

And verse 12, comparing it to looking in a mirror dimly or seeing face to face. We have to remember, you know, this is polished metal. Go take a spoon out of your drawer and, you know, kind of polish it up, clean it up and look at it.

That's what they would have as a mirror back in the first century. They didn't have the clear glass that we have today. And so let me deal with some of the arguments that people have at this point is that the word perfect means flawless.

It must be referring to Christ because it means flawless. That is how many people will interpret that. And so what we end up seeing is, you know, actually before that, let me explain this is that it must be understood that what you have in verses 11, 12 are illustrations of the point being made in 9 and 10.

It's illustrations. And so one of the rules of interpretation is you do not translate an illustration as a literal. Now I'm going to make the case why it's an illustration in a bit, but let me deal with teleos.

How is teleos used? Is teleos only used to refer to perfect meaning flawless? Okay, well, let's look at some passages. We could look at Philippians 3 .15. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude.

And if anything, you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you. Now, unless you're a sinless perfectionist, this passage, most people, sinless perfectionists aside, which they got other issues, but most people are going to recognize that we as human beings, even as believers, are not flawless.

He's saying as many as you are perfect. Is he saying that human beings can be flawless? That is not his argument there. He's saying many of you are complete or mature in Christ. Colossians 4 .12, Epaphroditus, who is one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greeting, also laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.

Does that mean that, again, are we flawless? Is this perfection? James 1 .4, and let endurance have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Now, here you have the idea of perfect, meaning completion or maturity, used with another word that means complete.

So are we saying that we have arrived? Notice each of these passages are used of human beings, even of believers. And unless you believe you could be sinlessly perfect, with many scripture passages say, no, we still sin, we are not flawless, 1 Corinthians 2 and 6.

But if we speak wisdom among those who are mature, now this one's translated mature, it's the same word teleos, a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of the age who are passing away. So in 1 Corinthians 2 .6, again, we speak wisdom, are we perfect?

This is translated in New American Standard as mature. Why? Because that's what it's referring to, the maturity. We also see it translated that way in Hebrews 5 .14. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice, have their senses trained to discern good from evil.

Again, do Christians, are they flawless? The argument that because it says the word perfect, it must refer to Christ does not fit with any of these verses that we said. Has Jesus spoken in such a way to use this word?

Well, he has, Matthew 19 .21, Jesus said to him, if you wish to be complete, that's the same word teleos, if you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me.

If we sell all our possessions, will that make us flawless? No, it won't. It won't make us flawless. And so what we end up seeing here is just because of the fact that the word is used does not mean that this is something that is of a state of flawlessness.

All right? Just want to put that out there to start. Okay. So, now let me build on this. As we look at this passage in 1 Corinthians 13, 8 -13, we have seven different possibilities of what the teleos could refer to.

Okay? And so the rest of this article that I have is going to go through those seven points and explain why some of them can or can't be and what is the teleos referring to. So, let's look through them.

Number one, the completion of the canon of scripture. Number two, the maturity of the church at the close of the apostolic age. Number three, the death of believers and their immediate presence with the Lord.

And what's meant by that is that once someone dies and they're in the presence of the Lord, these gifts would cease because they're not using them on earth anymore. So, that would make sense. Number four, the rapture of the church.

I will admit that I've had a hard time understanding how this one kind of fits, but it is one of the arguments that have been made. The eternal state. And this they come to with a conclusion of when we know as we're fully known that that refers to that.

And so what they'll get to is, you know, is seeing that the return of Christ is used when we see Him face to face. And so they say that's when we see when Christ returns. Number six, the eternal state is being known as we're fully known is the argument for that.

Which is also used for the number seven, the escalon. In other words, the end times. As a unified whole, that end time system where all of a sudden everything is over. Okay, so as we look at these, from this list, three through seven can be excluded because most of those who hold to any of these views interpret the word perfect as being flawless, a flawless object, such as Christ, or do not understand that verses 11 and 12 are the illustrations of something partial to complete.

And what they're doing is taking that illustration and making it a literal. So both points that we dealt with above. So when we look at this and go through this, we're only left with, well, number three is an exception that it would be, and number three is that the death of the believer, meaning that the gifts will cease when a person dies, because, well, all of our gifts in a sense might cease.

I mean, if you have the gift of teaching, we're not going to be teaching in heaven. We don't need to be teaching in heaven. We're going to be taught in heaven by Christ himself. So those gifts won't need to be used.

The gift of prophecy and revelation, we're not going to need that. We're not going to need, I don't believe, a gift of languages because we're all going to speak the same language, I believe. It will be like the time before Babel.

Remember, Babel was a curse. So if God is going to restore the things, I think he's going to restore the languages prior to the curse of Babel. Okay, so what does the complete refer to? It leaves us with two options here.

The completion of the canon of scripture or the maturity of the church at the apostolic age, which both are basically the same time. What is the closing of the apostolic age? Well, it's when the canon was closed.

It was when the last apostle died, which was John. And John wrote the last book, the book of Revelation, shortly before he died. And therefore, the timeline between the canon of scripture or the end of the apostolic age, both of them are close in period, but both of them also are about 2 ,000 years ago.

So looking at this, we would end up saying that this is not speaking of something that would exist today. Now some will take, like I said, they take the passage. Many will take the passage that looking face-to-face always means looking at a person face-to-face.

Now, if that argument and that argument has been made, there's a debate that we did, Matt Slick and I. Matt would take a different position than me. And Matt and I debated this. And in the debate, he said, face-to-face always refers to a personal face-to-face encounter.

Now, if it's always that way, then it's got to be always that way. But it's not always that way. Because in Proverbs 27, 19, it says this, as in water, face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man.

And in Hebrew, it's face, face, man, man. It's face-to-face. What is it speaking of there? It's speaking of the idea of reflection. How is it used in 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 12? Well, it's comparing a mirror to face-to-face.

What is it? What do we do when we look at a mirror? We reflect in a mirror. We see our reflection. And if you have a dim mirror, you don't have a complete picture. But if I see somebody in person, I see them face-to-face.

The way we look, you guys are looking at me, if you're watching this, you're seeing my face. It's ugly. I know. Sorry about that. But what you see, is he cold putting his hands up like this in the background?

So what you see is clearly, you can see clearly. When you look in a mirror in the morning, you're seeing a clear reflection. That was not the way a mirror was in the first time. So when we look at the hermeneutics, one of the things you do, is you go back to what the meaning was at that time.

What did a mirror mean at that time? What is a mirror? Well, mirror was not the mirror we have today. So it's something they would see dimly. And he even emphasizes that. You see in a mirror dimly, but then face-to-face.

So when we look at this, looking at the context, is there something else in the context that would tell us that maybe, just maybe, there's something else here that is saying that these gifts will stop with something within the context of teleos.

Well, if the idea of teleos is referring to the canon of scripture. So the canon of scripture, at the time Paul is writing 1 Corinthians, the canon of scripture was not complete. It was partial. What is the gift of prophecy?

Well, the gift of prophecy, there's two folds to it. One is foretelling the future and then forth telling the past. So one of the things that we have with the scriptures, the canon of scripture is the forth telling, the giving of revelation.

What is wisdom or knowledge? Well, that too is considered to be a revelatory gift. So I think what you have here is three revelatory gifts. Why? Because what was the gift of languages? It was speaking the gospel, speaking God's word in another language.

And so what you end up seeing is you have these three revelatory gifts. That would fit with the canon of scripture being written. That canon of scripture would fit within the context of a partial to completion.

As we look through all this, it sure seems like one of those seven is rising and bubbling to the top. And that is the canon of scripture. It's the only one that consistently interprets the context and not only looking at the context, but also looking at the rules of interpretation.

Like I said, most of the arguments people make, the issue they have is because of the fact that they take verses 10 to 12 that are illustrations and they make those literal. Now, if this is the canon of scripture, an interesting thing, because what we see in the Greek here, in verse 8 it says, but if there is gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with.

Interesting. The word done away, it's the same as where it says if there is knowledge, it will be done away. In the Greek, this verb form is a future indicative third person. Okay? I'm sorry, future passive indicative third person.

And so the thing is, it's passive. In other words, a passive verb means it happens to me. Right? I'm not the actor in this action. It's an action that occurs to me. So prophecy, knowledge, whatever the teleos is, it causes the prophecy and knowledge to stop.

Okay? It immediately stops. It's future, which for the canon would be future because it isn't closed. Actually, all of the things, all seven of them are future to Paul's writing of this. So they're all future.

But whatever it is, this completion causes prophecy and knowledge to stop. Well, what are prophecy and knowledge? They're revelatory gifts. So they're going to immediately stop. Why? Because God is not giving further revelation.

If he's not giving further revelation, he is not continuing with that gift. It stops. That gift is not like most gifts where we get them at salvation and we get the gift at salvation and we have that gift.

This is a gift where God gives it for the purposes that he has, such as writing scripture. Now, why do I bring all that up? Because this middle verse is quite interesting. Or middle part of the verse.

If there are tongues, they will cease. Now, the word cease in Greek, this verb form is future, just like the other, but it's a future middle indicative. What does that mean, Andrew? Well, what this means is that this verb form, the person does it to themselves.

In other words, this ceases on its own. Why would that be important? Well, the prophecy and the knowledge are going to cease when the scripture is complete. They are going to cease because God is not giving further revelation.

The tongues will cease because if God stops giving that gift, then that gift dies out with the person. And therefore, they no longer have that gift. Now, I've said all that. Let me deal with one passage that Matt Slick will bring up.