Pentecost vs.4 continuing

[HKHaugan]

Second, spiritual tongues

 

As a sign of this infilling they were enabled to speak known and unknown languages by the same indwelling Spirit.  Paul tells us that in 1Cor.13 when he cites ‘tongues of men and of angels.’  Just what were these tongues and what do they signify?  We have discussed the gift of tongues in the section on gifts. 

 

But, for a moment, we need to expand our understanding.  We need to look at how we communicate.  Language is more than just words.  We know that by the fact that we send messages with our eyes, gestures and other non-verbal means.  Some call it ‘body language.’  We can communicate with music, drama and literature by the ‘message’ we send through them.  It is said that people who sing pray twice.  Then there can be the impression of quiet, when ‘his silence says it all.’  The Bible talks about Creation and all its different parts reflecting the power and presence of God.  He speaks not only through earthquakes, storms, winds and waves but even in the still small voice in a cave and even the voice of the turtle can be heard. We talk about the language of love, fear, hate and even the hand languages of the deaf.

 

Again Paul says there are two verbal languages, those of men and of angels.  Men’s include the different sounds we use to communicate what is in our minds and hearts.  If we go back to the Tower of Babel in Genesis we see the same two.  There was God’s language, which was a spiritual language and men’s attempt to use that language to take God’s place.  But God took that away from them and they began to speak what seemed gibberish to one another and wandered into the far regions of the world unable to linguistically make sense.  With Pentecost not only were the Apostles able to speak in many known languages but they also were able to speak spiritual languages that could be heard. 

 

If we take this gift seriously it gives us an insight into why they were given. 

 

First, now motivated by an indwelling Spirit they would be talking to each other about Jesus, their experience of Him, their shared experience of Him and the heart change He made in them.  The spiritual languages were signs of the Spirit’s work coming from above and sharing amongst them. 

 

Second, speaking about Jesus in other human dialects and languages was necessary.  It was a further sign that as they spoke they would be able to communicate a common spiritual reality to the hearts of unbelievers. 

 

Third, their witness would not only be spoken, it would be God’s love reflected through actions and behavior.  God’s love is a spiritual non-verbal language He speaks through the believer.  There is more to language than just words.  The gift of tongues is a welcome sign of the Holy Spirit initiating this new level of communication for the building of the Body.  Not all believers are to receive this gift but those that do are to share it and those with the gift of interpretation bring the flavor of what God is saying.  It is not a translation but a spiritual understanding to be communicated for the growth of the Body.

 

 

 

Third, spiritual ability.

                                               

In the final analysis for our time and place it is how we understand the Holy Spirit.  It is He who gets us to think spiritually.  He nudges us to see everything in a spiritual context.  He transforms the believer with a truly new sense of spiritual being.  He brings the person of Jesus into the heart.  He gives us the ability to believe, trust and have faith in an entirely new way.  The Spirit filled the apostles and their following generations with the presence of Jesus and what had been God outside was now God inside.  This was and is the beginning of a new age and the beginning of the end times for the world.  The One who made it all possible will return to bring us all home when He knows the time is right.

 

We are between the already and the not yet.  In this time in between we are given the Spirit to learn how to think spiritually, to trust spiritually and to act spiritually.  We are given a new way to see God, to let Him act through us and to let the Scriptures comes alive in and through us.  Spiritual gifts enable us to minister to one another.  They build the Body and motivate us to share the Lord Jesus with everyone around us.  The Spirit enables others to sense Jesus through us and to receive Him as we received Him. 

 

If we read John 13-17 we find that Jesus is preparing the disciples not only for His departure but also for the coming of the Holy Spirit and the work He will do recovering people from sin and reshaping them from within.  As He does this He is also building them into a Body that will bring the world to the feet of Jesus. 

 

What we see in Scripture is the Holy Spirit defined immediately in Genesis 1 as a hoverer waiting for the Lord’s command to act.  He is always hovering ready to do the work of the Lord.  He is the Spirit of truth hovering over every mind, the Spirit of love hovering over the heart and the Spirit of power hovering over the body. Just as He hovered over the Hebrew people He hovers over us all the time.

 

The Holy Spirit is the inspirer of vision for mission, the enabler of ministry in the Body and the healer of brokenness inflicted by the devil and evil.  The Holy Spirit is power of faith, the teacher of Scripture and the One who exposes the devil and his work.  The Holy Spirit is the exorcist of evil spirits and demons that lure us and encourage us to think and act apart from God.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of humility.  He seeks only the mind and heart of Jesus to be lifted up.  The Holy Spirit brings insights, principles and ideas that God plants in us to handle every next moment.  The Holy Spirit is the healer of the spirit, heart and mind.  He is the fullness that fills. 

 

"But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's! (Romans 8:9-11 The Message Bible)"