Prophecy & Tongues – Part 3: The power of the Holy Spirit

Introduction

Concerning prophecy & tongues – we’ve been studying the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, and are currently surveying the 14th chapter of 1 Corinthians, to see Paul’s arguments for the decent & orderly use of these gifts in the life of the church.
Paul is instructing a church that is eager for the manifestations of the Spirit, and he tells them to stay on that track with a greater desire for the higher gifts, gifts like prophecy, and that love must reside at the heart of it all.
As has been the case with Redemption Hill, whenever God leads us in our study of Scripture, the topics are always most relevant for our day. Even as we are studying the Spiritual Gifts, there has been a lot of talk regarding this subject recently among evangelicals in the reformed circle, because of an upcoming documentary on ‘Cessationism’.

I know that we are a mixed bunch here, with people standing at different stages of this wide spectrum of continuationism & cessationism.
Therefore, I have tried, whenever possible, to draw out these differences and address why cessationism isn’t biblical. But you must understand that my primary priority is not to convince you regarding this debate. It is to equip you to pursue and practice these gifts in the life of the church today.
Just as I preach about God, without having to keep justifying his existence, or about pursuing holiness without having to justify God’s commandments, or even about biblical centrality without having to justify its veracity, I do not see the need to keep preaching about the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and justify continuationism at every turn.

I have made enough critical statements regarding cessationism that are indicative of the fact that nothing in scripture whatsoever supports the doctrine.
Now, I know that there is a place for justifying the existence of God, the purposes of his commandments, and defending the veracity of Scripture. Likewise, there is a need for defending the continuity of the Spiritual Gifts, and I have promised a sermon dedicated to that at some point in this study.
However, I want you to recognise what the primary purpose of this series is. My primary purpose is not to convince you about the continuity of the Spiritual Gifts, but to teach you how to pursue and practice them as instructed by Scripture. This series largely assumes that you see these Gifts as normative in the life of the church.
Therefore, I encourage those of you who have confusion regarding the continuity of these gifts, that you engage us after the service, and we can have some healthy discussions.

Having said that, I will try and address the upcoming documentary and other cessationist resources through other resources we put out on The Cross Purpose. So keep checking that out when you can.

Exegesis

We’ve seen that Paul uses love as the constraint or regulation for the use of these gifts. This is why a chapter on love exists between two chapters on the pursuit and use of spiritual gifts. Love is the rule by which these gifts are meant to function.
And now, Paul gives us another fundamental regulation.
1 Corinthians 14:20 ESV
²⁰ Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.

• We must recognise that these gifts are susceptible to misuse, and if love is the safeguard to such misuse, then so is acting like adults.
• By being childish in our thinking, we become mature in evil. But by becoming mature in our thinking, we become infants in evil.
  If you try reasoning with those who live deep in sin and speak proudly about the darkness of evil, you will find that their thoughts and convictions are infantile. They appear to be mostly children disguised as adults.
• But we are not to be like those people.
  Proverbs 22:15 ESV
  ⁵ Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.Jeremiah 4:22 ESV
  ²² “For my people are foolish; they know me not; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are ‘wise’—in doing evil! But how to do good they know not.”
• Children are adorable, and many times, parents are overwhelmed by the cuteness of their sin as well. That is why godly parenting loves children well enough to discipline them, drive folly far from their hearts and teach them to do good.
  1 Corinthians 3:1–2 ESV
  ¹ But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. ² I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready,Hebrews 5:12 ESV
  ¹² For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food,
• Even after becoming a Christian we tend towards childishness than maturity. There is a constant and steady reluctance to mature in our thought and knowledge, to be infants in Christ.
• As a Christian, when you say that you are an infant in Christ, or that you know little about the Bible, that ought not to be an excuse for you to remain that way. The Bible admonishes such Christians. If you are an infant, then eat more of this bread of life. If you are a spiritual child, then mature under the leadership of the mature. Submit yourself to the local church, bind yourself to one another in Christ, and grow.
• Do not be like the vast majority of Christian adults who sit with folded hands and crossed legs, sipping milk out of a baby’s bottle. Be men, be women who know God’s word, desire God’s truth, and submit to God’s ways.
  Ephesians 4:14 ESV
  ¹⁴ so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
• Your spiritual stability should come from biblical maturity, not human stubbornness. Many of us are capable of feigning stability by being stubborn and hard in our ways, though we have a little biblical foundation. That is not the stability Paul’s talking about here.
• Build your house upon the rock. Learn the word, set your hope in the word, and then live the word.

This incredible lack of biblical maturity is cause for all the confusion in the Corinthian church. “Do not be children in your thinking”, Paul tells them. “Be mature”.
Then, Paul gives us a practical glimpse of the function of these gifts in the life of the church.

1 Corinthians 14:21–22 ESV
²¹ In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” ²² Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers.

• Paul quotes Isaiah 28:11, which was God’s judgment upon Israel through the Assyrians.
  It is in this regard, that Paul calls it a sign for unbelievers. Not as a positive sign of belief, but as a negative sign of judgment. As for unbelievers, the gift of tongues is judgment because they will not understand it or heed it by any measure, just like Israel did not.
  Therefore, tongues are a sign of judgment upon the unbelieving and we should refrain from using them before them intentionally. Instead, we must preach the Gospel in intelligible language, remembering:Isaiah 52:7 ESV
  ⁷ How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”A believer, on the other hand, knows what this gift is and what it serves. We have the doctrinal framework by which we can surrender to the workings of the Holy Spirit, to justify the truth and judge the false.
• Whereas prophecy, although primarily reserved for the believer (as we have seen so far in Paul’s exhortation of its benefit in the church), can also benefit the unbeliever.

1 Corinthians 14:23 ESV
²³ If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds?

I’d like to make several observations here.

• Although the church primarily serves the covenant community of believers, we are not to deny entry or due consideration to outsiders or unbelievers who may enter.
• If we add to that, the infancy of many believers (who are more fleshly than spiritual according to 1 Corinthians 3:1-2, which is to say that they are more similar to unbelievers than believers although they have been saved), there is more reason that care is given to them.
• The problem, here again, is when the ‘whole’ church comes together and ‘all’ speak in tongues. Paul does not paint here a picture of one or two people saying a few words in tongues, but of an entire gathering with many speaking tongues at the same time. He paints a picture of charismatic chaos, and when unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds?
  Paul does not forbid tongues here either. He forbids its misuse.
• Now, I do not believe that Paul’s teaching us to shy away from tongues based on people’s ridicule of it. He’s asking us to refrain from using it as a judgment upon those who do not understand it. Those are two very different perspectives.
• The reason why I say this is because when the Holy Spirit descended as tongues of fire upon the people gathered in the upper room and they began speaking in tongues, this is what the people who heard them said.
  Acts 2:12–13 ESV
  ¹² And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³ But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”We are not to refrain from God’s gifts to avoid such mockery, but love must navigate our use of it at all times.

1 Corinthians 14:24–25 ESV
²⁴ But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, ²⁵ the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

• In contrast, if ‘all’ prophesied, it would still be acceptable, although in a few verses Paul encourages that only two or three prophecy. That is because, unlike tongues, prophecy convicts all.
• Even the unbeliever is called to account, just like a believing member is. Why?
• “the secrets of his heart are disclosed”
  Oh, how I wish that the vast majority of cessationists would print this verse and raise it as a reminder on the walls of their inner rooms, that prophecy in the NT (in the life of the church) is not meant to add to the Canon of Scripture.
  R.C Sproul in a wonderful explanation of the continuationist perspective (although he was not one) said that our argument is not that prophecy adds to the canon of scripture, but that it adds to the canon of life.
  So much of what NT prophecy is, and is not, has been the central confusion for both the hyper-charismatic wing of the church and the cessationist wing of the church. We will dive deep into this in the coming weeks as look at prophecy more closely.
  But for now, realise that Scripture does not indicate prophecy as a tool to add to scripture, but as a tool to expose the truth, whether that be a direct pointing to scripture, exposing the secrets of a person’s heart, or it is instructions for life and decisions for the church or an individual.
• And what happens when prophecy has its proper effect – and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
  It brings repentance, godliness, holiness & a deeper faithfulness to the word of God.

Conclusion

What do you know about the power of God?

• In Genesis, we are told that he created the world by the word of his mouth.
  1 Chronicles 29:11 ESV
  ¹¹ Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.
• He sustains the world according to his divine decree
  Psalm 135:5–7 ESV
  ⁵ For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. ⁶ Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. ⁷ He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
  His grandeur is so beyond everything we have known or can comprehend, that even the angels in heaven cry ‘Holy’!
  The word ‘holy’ means to be set apart, to be other, of another category altogether, alien to every comparison. And again as R.C Sproul used to say, the angels don’t just sing ‘Holy’, they sing ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.
  A repetitive exclamation, a trinitarian accolade that none have given him but is his for all eternity. He is altogether another, set apart, holy, magnificent.
  Therefore, when we talk about his beauty, magnificence, holiness, lovingkindness, mercy, anger, judgement, and whatever else, we are to cry out “Holy”. That’s his category, it is another. Entirely another. Beyond our capacity to grasp.
  If that be, then what of his power? What do you know about God’s power? – HOLY!
  Beyond our grasp.
• Beloved, what are these spiritual gifts, but that Holy power that is at work in us?
  O to be endowed with the gift of tongues, where the Holy Spirit forms words in our mouth.
  O to be endowed with the gift of prophecy, where our finite and obscure minds are disclosed with the mysteries of people’s hearts, and of the times that we live in, and with the discernment of God.
  O how precious to be given these gifts of divine intervention where we are partakers of holiness, set apart in Him.
  How did we come to inherit this?

Hebrews 1:3 ESV
³ He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

• Christ our King upholds the universe by the word of his power.
• The exact imprint of God’s nature, the radiance of his glory, and he came and we killed him. Our flesh rebels against the glory of God.
• Yet he died making purification for our sins, and rose and sat down at the right hand of Majesty
• Offered to us in these verses, beloved, are promises coming into effect in the Holy Spirit of God who now indwells in us.

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are not a divine option, but a divine promise. As we partake of these, we are bound in love, mature in faith, and secure in our unity in Christ.
Ephesians 1:18–23 ESV
¹⁸ having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might ²⁰ that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, ²¹ far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. ²² And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.