gift of tongues

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

I have from time to time been asked about the nature of the gift of tongues, whether they are natural languages to men, or if they should be legitimately taken as the “supernatural” tongues of angels. One of the main texts that I will point to when this comes up is 1 Corinthians 13:1, where Paul makes the statement about speaking in the “tongues of angels”. What I want to provide here a short run down of my typical argument, a short run through what I understand to be the cessationists argument, and then give some further thoughts I’ve had on this text and others related to it. I must admit at the forefront that I rely heavily on D.A. Carson’s work, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12-14. My honest opinion about the whole subject of the “charismatic gifts” is that if someone has anything of value to contribute to the discussion and has not read this book, the value of what they contribute is greatly diminished.

My typical reading of 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 would be as follows in relation to the spiritual gifts: While the central point of Paul’s passage here is to point out the necessity of love in the Christian live, nonetheless, Paul here uses examples in every other case he discusses the need for love in that we can do. Because each other case mentioned (prophetic powers, understanding all mysteries, all faith, giving away all one has) it would seem rather strange to section out the more “extreme” of them, like tongues of angels, and say that this was the only one that he was simply being hyperbolic about. Thus, since the gift of the tongues of angels is set amidst other gifts or actions that we can do, we must deduce that this is something that we can do (through gifting, or “grace-gift” – the literal of “charismatic”).

I must admit at the front here that I am slightly weak on a consistent cessationist argument about this text. What I gather about it from various conversations with people is that the substance of their argument lies in the thrust that this whole section (1 Cor. 13:1-3) is hyperbolic in some important sense. That is, what Paul seeks to distinguish here is not that people actually can speak in the tongues of angels, or that they can “understand all mysteries” or that they can “have all faith so as to remove mountains”. Rather, he is exaggerating gifts to an unreal nature to make his point about love, not remark about the abilities one can have through gifting. These gifts, then, are thus not real attainments, but merely Paul pressing the point, pushing the dust out of the way by a broad push of the hand, so to speak, so as to see the underlying point clearly.

Now for my further reflections on the text. I find, in the end, that what Paul is doing here with these three verses is not a hyperbolic string of statements, but rather a rhetorical exaggeration to draw out the centrality of heart motivation in the gifts. It is interesting that in this section Paul takes on the personal pronoun (“If I speak in tongues…I am a noisy gong). Thus, what is on focus here is himself as he is at the core, not the gifts. So it would be unnatural to the text to require this whole section to be a literal reading of the gifts one can perform since the focus is himself, not the gifts. This is strengthened by the fact that should he lack love in his gifts, the gifts aren’t nullified, he is: “[If I] have not love, I am a noisy gong.” He doesn’t say, “My gift is nullified”, he says, “I am nullified” without love. This is interesting to me because it cuts both ways down the charismatic/cessationist discussion on this passage. As a rebuke to me, Paul’s not even really commenting on the gifts, but on the nature of our heart for holiness!

One’s desire for holiness and love for Jesus Christ and his people is the essence that fills any gift they possess. We should take this passage, v. 1-3 as implicating all gifts because Paul draws in as his last three examples (faith, philanthropy, and martyrdom) things that are “natural” gifts. He gives a partial list in 12:7-11, but other lists are given else where in Scripture that we should keep in mind here. The essence of all spiritual gifts is love – not experience, not growth in knowledge, not growth in service, but love. Heaven, as Jonathan Edwards reminds us, is a world of love, and thus anything we do here is an anticipatory echo of that world in which we will some day reside.

The passage itself, v. 1-3, as I said, should be read as a rhetorical exaggeration to the point of emphasizing love, not necessarily, one way or the other, a commend on which gifts one can do. As Carson says here, “Paul’s point is relatively simple. No matter how exalted my gift of tongues, without love I am nothing more than a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (Carson, Showing The Spirit, 59). Thus, I think the passage should start out here by being read as follows: “If I speak in the tongues of men, and even of angels, but have not love…If I have prophetic powers, and even understand all mysteries…if I have all faith, even so as to remove mountains…If I give away all I have, and even if I deliver…” I think you can see what I’m talking about here. Thus, because the emphasis is an exaggerated rhetorical move to expose the need for love, the point, as I said before, is to emphasize the importance of personal holiness to have love as the root to our gifting rather than a discussion on the gifts themselves (though they are certainly implicit in each other).

A few final thoughts here are in order. On the issue of the tongues of angels, Carson does say that there is evidence to say that they could have been understood to actually be angelic languages in view here from some Jewish literature at the time. His footnote on this issue reads as follows, “Some cite Rev. 14:2-3; H.L. Strack and P. Billerback, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Midrasch, 5 vols. (Munichen: Beck, 1922-28) 3:449-50; Ascension of Isaiah 7:15-37. But the most impressive parallel is Testament of Job 48-50 (in the link, it’s 11:21-29), where Job’s daughters speak in the dialects of various classes of angels” (Carson, 58). I thought it was interesting to note, and potentially giving some weight to my former point on this text. I’m going to try and do some of that source reading he’s suggesting here. I’ll post what I find, which may or may not be of interest to some. I also find it interesting to read Calvin and Hodge on this matter. Calvin says that the “tongues of angels” is the whole host of languages of mankind – so as to say that such a thing would be angelic in mental ability (sort of). Hodge comments that this is actually the angelic languages, with a leaning towards saying it’s a rhetorical exaggeration. I find it interesting that neither outright deny the ability of angels to have their own languages, or that we could know them.

As a final note, here are Carson’s final reflections on this text (and one of the reasons I appreciate his work so much):

If Paul were addressing the modern church, perhaps he would extrapolate further: You Christians who prove your spirituality by the amount of theological information you can cram into your heads, I tell you that such knowledge by itself proves nothing. An you who affirm the Spirit’s presence in your meetings because there is a certain style of worship (whether formal and stately or exuberant and spontaneous), if your worship patterns are not expressions of love, you are spiritually bankrupt. You who insist that speaking in tongues attests to a second work of the Spirit, a baptism of the Spirit, I tell you that if love does not characterize your life, there is not evidence of even a first work of the Spirit. ~ Carson, 61

Anyhow, it may be a bit, but I do plan on getting on here some thoughts on the end of 1 Corinthians 13 in relation to the spiritual gifts.

Yours,
~Jacob