1 Cor No.31 The Worshipping Church No.3

Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil, be infants, but in your thinking, be adults. In the law it is written, through men of strange tongues and through lips of foreigners I will speak to this people.

But even then, they will not listen to me, says the Lord. Tongues then are a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers. Prophecy however, is for believers, not for unbelievers.

So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues and some who do not understand or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind? But if an unbeliever or someone who does not understand comes in while everybody is prophesying, he will be convinced by all that he is a sinner and will be judged by all. And the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, God is really among you.

What then shall we say brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two or at the most three should speak, one at a time.

And someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God. Two or three prophets should speak and the others should weigh carefully what is said.

And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn, so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets.

For God is not a God of disorder, but of grace, rather of peace. As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says.

If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home. For it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached? If anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritually gifted, let him acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord's command.

If he ignores this, he himself will be ignored. Therefore, my brothers, be eager to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues. But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.

Now may God add his blessing to that reading from his word. As we come to our third and final occasion, when we're looking specifically into this powerful, and yet perplexing, chapter of Scripture. I made it very clear on the two occasions when I've been privileged to minister here, from a quotation by Dr. James Packer, that to be dogmatic on specific points where there are possible diverse invitations is to engage in a great error.

And in handling these verses of Scripture, I've tried to indicate to you what my own convictions are, and I have endeavored where there are other reasonable views, which I don't maintain, nonetheless to mention them with respect, and to leave it ultimately to the judgment of a mature group of people. Now, having said all that, let me just commence by throwing out one or two incidental pieces of information before we engage in studying the second aspect of Paul's teaching here in 1 Corinthians 14. The letter of Paul to the Corinthians was probably the first epistle that was ever written, and maybe circulated around the churches, certainly sent to the Christian community at Corinth, the first epistle in the early church.

Most scholars would agree that it predated Dr. Luke writing the Acts of the Apostles. So, if there are differences or difficulties in understanding Luke, then presumably one of the best things to do is to come back to Corinthians, because one assumes that Luke and Paul, being such close colleagues, had an idea what the other was writing. And then, having mentioned that Corinthians was possibly the first piece of the New Testament ever to be written, it's well to confess the fact that there are certain things in Corinthians scattered around the epistle which causes a degree of puzzlement.

I'll give you two examples. One, for instance, where in the 11th chapter the Apostle makes reference to ladies and their own ability to pray, particularly to prophesy, and provided their heads are covered, says the Apostle, that's okay. Move to the 14th chapter, and later on, towards the end, he says one or two things about ladies which would not have pleased a women's lib organization in the 20th century, because he suggests that they ought to be quiet in church, and those seem to be two contradictory statements.

They're not incapable of being harmonized, but they are puzzling in some degree. And then when you move into the 15th chapter, with a sigh of relief, believing that all your difficulties are through, then you come across a verse like the 29th verse, which makes reference to the resurrection from the dead, and more particularly, baptism for the dead. What does Paul mean by that? The Church of Latter-day Saints, so-called, perhaps not too exactly, has had a field day with that particular verse, baptizing for the dead.

So, you see, there are certain difficulties in looking into this early fragment of inspired Christian writing, and it would be well for all of us to take our shoes from off our feet and to recognize that we're on a holy ground, and we do need the help of the Holy Spirit in being able to define what seems to us to be a reasonable position in areas where there could be two or three different interpretations. Well, then, let me just remind you of one or two things that I was saying last week. Having set, on a previous occasion, the heart of the epistle open and suggested to you certain abiding principles that are obviously relevant for every Christian community, I went on to open up the first half of Corinthians 14.

Not that what Paul has to say there on the subject of tongues is exclusive to the first half, but at least he seems to wax quite eloquent in the opening verses and then later on in prophecy. These twin topics are the basic subject matter of these verses, tongues and prophecy. Tongues allied also to the companion gift of interpretation and prophetic utterance.

What did I have to say about tongues? Well, by way of some reminder, let me bring to your attention certain conclusions that I have drawn, sometimes hesitatingly and sometimes with a great deal of conviction. Now, the first was this, that where you come across the reference in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 to speaking in tongues, it would seem that the weight of scriptural evidence would indicate that the reference there is to speaking a known human language. In a miraculous sense, incidentally, this is not something that one has training in at a college or university, this is something that is a specific endowment by the Lord, a specific miraculous phenomenon, which apparently, indeed, not just apparently, which most surely was attested by the early church.

I indicated my reason for believing that these were known languages by taking you back to Acts chapter 2, where the first reference to speaking in tongues is used, and there the interpretation, if I may use that word, of the word tongues, indicates that they were known languages. People around on the day of Pentecost recognized what was being said. And then, without reviewing the whole of this again, I took you down, though I didn't point out its major significance in this area, to the very illustration that Paul uses when he dips into the Old Testament later in this chapter and refers to speaking in tongues.

He takes us back to the Assyrians and their assault of Jerusalem. I indicated to you last week, and won't take time this week, as to the reason why he uses this illustration, but the point of the matter is this, that he refers to the Assyrian tongues, not that the Assyrian tongue, the language in itself, was particularly important, but at least, when Paul makes reference to tongues there, it was a human vernacular, a spoken tongue. And you discover that in the 22nd verse, he goes on to say that tongues, languages then, from the illustration that he has used, are a sign for, not for believers, but for unbelievers.

The only occasion when the Apostle makes reference to speaking in an angelic tongue is in 1 Corinthians 13.1, and we had a look at that and suggested that though the conclusion is not absolutely watertight, one should not perhaps base too much on something that could be a mere illustration. Those friends who believe that it is possible to speak in tongues, in languages, as in the Corinthian and Apostolic days, the days of the Acts of the Apostles, and not understand what is being said, perhaps they have more weighty evidence in the 2nd verse of the 14th chapter. Though if you were to follow the interpretation of John Calvin, you would discover that there are other ways in which Paul could be understood, and that the reference at the end of the 2nd verse to his spirit, carrying with it a secondary translation at the bottom of the Bible in the NIV, could refer to the Holy Spirit, and what Paul there is referring to is the gift of the Spirit that enabled one to speak in this tongue, which had not been learned and yet was known when the person was using it.

However, as I say, that's an area in which one or two interpretations are possible. As for the Apostle Paul himself, yes, he spoke with tongues, and thank God for the ability to so do. He spoke supernaturally, in languages, human or divine, depending where you place your particular convictions, and he's grateful to the Lord.

As to when he used these tongues, well, inasmuch as he has said that tongues is for a sign, verse 22, not for believers, but for unbelievers, then one would think reasonably, logically, that this gift that the Apostle had was used specifically, though not necessarily exclusively, in evangelistic enterprise. After all, that's the only time when he would be up against an unbeliever. He wouldn't be up against such a person in the church, so he uses his conclusion that tongues or languages are a sign not for the believers, but for unbelievers.

And then my summation, my summary of the whole thing, relating it to the 20th century, was simply this. I personally find it somewhat difficult to associate modern glossolalia speaking in tongues in its entirety with 1 Corinthians 12, 14 and the references in the Acts of the Apostles. I gave you certain reasons, which I won't repeat again, but let me say this, that I have always consistently argued that the gifts of the Spirit are within the sovereignty of God, and God can manifest any one of these gifts as he will.

But we have a right, 1 Corinthians 14 gives us this, we have a right to determine whether we feel that a specific gift, tongues plus interpretation or prophecy, the two being more or less synonymous in the way that God's message is claimed to come over, we have a right to make a judgment. So it's no use anyone being grieved that here is someone who sincerely is making a judgment. I'm not saying that my judgment must be absolute.

I am quite happy, as I've indicated before, to believe, not just out of convenience, but conviction, that there is nothing that God cannot restore if he wants to. But having said that does not bind me into believing that all that claims to be a restoration of the supernatural phenomena of 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 today actually is. As for glossolalia, speaking in tongues as is practiced today, I gave certain reasons why I can still acknowledge it to be within the sovereignty of God.

I made a reference to the pluriformity or the plurality of Christian experience down the centuries. I think that one would be a very unwise, if not a very uncharitable person, to dismiss the claims of millions of people, many of whom have been rejuvenated today, as being absolutely spurious, and the experience that they speak of as being absolutely false and purely psychologically or, even worse still, demonically stimulated. This, to me, is a nonsense.

You cannot do this. What I have been trying to do, humbly and patiently, even working against my own background and my own, perhaps, particular bias, is to theologize on what is happening today and to try to bring it into conformity with what I believe is the exact teaching of the Apostle Paul. Now, in no sense am I arguing against glossolalia as such.

It's not outside the context of my own experience. But my knowledge of Scripture and my desire to be faithful in teaching the Word of God demands me to say, when even if my own background sometimes comes into question, that this is how I see it, humbly and lovingly. But this is how I see it.

Some people will say, are you not open to speaking in tongues at the tabernacle? That's a difficult question to answer for you to understand the point of view that we are taking. Of course, one is not against any manifestation of any spiritual gift. How can one be, if God is sovereign and these things are locked up within His sovereignty? But in no way will we throw overboard our God-given right to judge whatever is offered to us in the name of the Lord Jesus, be it a claim to a miraculous healing, an exorcism, or what have you.

We have every right to judge, and this is the problem. For the point of view of someone like myself, who believes in the sovereignty of God, in the whole panoply of the miraculous, that every individual claim, in some senses, has to be judged on its own merit. So what concerns me at the tabernacle is what happens amongst us.

I cannot pass anything more than an opinion, rather than a conviction, about what is supposed to be happening in other parts of the country or other parts of the world. All I can say is, in the name of God, we are open here to anything that God wants to do in terms of the phenomena of apostolic times. That was the burden on the heart of our brother Dr. Kendall, you remember, when he preached so eloquently and powerfully the other Thursday evening on Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, and today, and forever.

Well, that little digression's just about bought up ten minutes of the time that I endeavoured to place at the back of my mind for speaking about prophecy. But maybe it was a comment well worth re-emphasising. Let's move on to this subject of prophecy.

The word prophecy itself means to speak before, and it has the idea of projecting a message. There are two parties I'm giving you a human illustration involved. One party comes to the other, and he speaks not on behalf of himself, but on behalf of a third party.

So the prophetic gift is from God and to humankind. That's the basic distinction as I see it, between speaking in tongues, however you understand that phenomenon. That is Godward, it's the offering of praise.

Here is prophecy, it is the bringing of a message from God to ordinary people through human media, through those with a prophetic gift. That prophecy itself could be in terms of revelation, in the apostolic times presumably, revelation of doctrine. It can be exhortation, stimulating people to a more close walk with the Lord Jesus.

It can be admonition, the correction of people. Here in 1 Corinthians 14 you get a little cameo, a little study of the early church and the use of the prophetic gift from, where are we, about the 28th verse, the 27th verse of this chapter. Here are prophets who come along, I'm sorry, more exactly, it's the 29th verse.

Here are prophets, recognized people who often have manifested this gift to the extent that the very gift has given title to their office. It would seem incidentally that the prophetic gift could spill over to the whole of the church, for Paul says in the 31st verse, for you can all prophesy in turn, so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. But back to the little study of the use of the prophetic gift.

Here were these believers in Corinth, and there were men, and debatably, here we're in the area of controversy, debatably women too, who were so endued with this particular gift at a certain point in worship, and they got up and they used their gift. Now the apostle is concerned about order. We've already realized this is a prevailing principle, whenever Christian people come together there must be order, there must be harmony, so the prophets aren't all to have a field day, all together trying to vie with one another, as was the Corinthian temperament, as to who could say the most startling thing, rather one brother had to give preference to another brother, and there must be a state of submission, of loving accord, as the message is repeated.

And then bear in mind that when this had happened, the subject matter of the prophecy was to be weighed carefully. The rest of the prophets, perhaps even the total congregation, I don't know, certainly the rest of the prophets, those who'd used this gift, were able to judge the accuracy and the reasonableness with which the man who exercised the manifestation had spoken. And incidentally, again, you see the point about Scripture giving us the right to judge.

Oh, so often here, in a different context, I have said to you time and time again, judge what you hear, even from me, judge what you hear. We have no infallibility in Protestantism. The only claim for infallibility is in the Catholic Church, and that's got our Catholic friends into great difficulty in days gone by.

The infallibility is within the Word of God itself, and therefore you are to judge over against the teachings of Scripture, the very ministry up against which you come. So then, we have to ask ourselves, what happened in Corinth? Can it in the same way, and should it in the same way happen today? And here I think that you have to take in mind a very important aspect of history. And it is this, that when the Corinthian Christians came together in all those early communities in apostolic times, they had only fragmentary the New Testament.

I've spelt this out before, particularly in regard to the Corinthians. You cannot possibly catapult yourself back to apostolic times and imagine what life must have been like with an incomplete Bible. The Old Testament may be a smattering of teaching that you remembered from Paul, maybe one of his epistles, or two of his epistles, and early on possibly even the Gospel of Mark.

But it took a long time before the total canon of Scripture, the whole New Testament, is locked together with the Old and made available to all believers. Now listen to me. This is not an argument of convenience.

It is an argument of conviction. It is an argument that is suggested by one's intelligent use of Scripture and one's thinking back to those early days. Obviously, revelatory gifts must have had a significance prior to the completion of the canon of the New Testament than what they would have done afterwards.

Now did you get that latter point? Than what they would have done afterwards. In no way am I arguing that the prophetic gift in and of itself must have ceased. But logic and reason and feeling for the early Christian communities demands that one makes that observation.

Here at Corinth they had a hotline, so to speak, from the Lord. But even the hotline was to be judged because, well, His Word was coming through imperfect vessels who didn't have the cleansing of their minds that the apostles had as they penned Holy Scripture. And so I argue that in those days the revelatory gifts, tongues, interpretation equivalent to prophecy, and prophecy itself must have had a significance that it can't possibly have in the same fashion today.

Let me approach my argument from a different point of view. If you were to read in the ninth chapter of Daniel's prophecy, don't bother turning to it now, read it at home, you will find in metaphorical language, in symbolism, the projection of the day when Jesus will come and the righteousness that He offers on the cross as being a means whereby sins are atoned for. And Daniel the prophet says in those days prophecy shall be sealed up.

What does he mean? That within the time of the life, death, resurrection and early years of the Christian church, the revelation of God will be sealed forever. There will be nothing else to say. And that's precisely what the New Testament writers take upon themselves and is embedded within the thesis of the various books that are written.

The writer of the Hebrews, God hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. The last book of Revelation indicates the sealing of the total revelation of salvation. Beyond Jesus and His work on the cross and His mighty resurrection, God has no further thing to say to man or woman in terms of anything that is additional.

But, in terms of applying what has already been said, that is a different matter. Now you're intelligent people, surely you have got the point for which I am arguing at the moment. After the completion of the canon, revelatory gifts as far as additional teaching is concerned are impossible.

Confirmatory indications of God's will for a local assembly of people, well, yes, who can again say that? The churches built on the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the foundation stone, Ephesians 2 and verse 20, that in itself indicates the transitional period, the remarkable decades of the early church when the apostles and the prophets in a remarkable fashion have an authority and an infallibility which there will never be again. Ah, you say, don't you believe in the apostolic office today? Well, not in the sense that the twelve apostles were called by the Lord, not in the sense of the early prophets and the ministries that they had, but I do believe that that apostolic spirit lives on and that God in His inscrutable wisdom, in His graciousness is sometimes brought to the forefront of the Christian church, men with remarkable ability. One thinks of Hudson Taylor, I think of my own beloved colleague who taught me so much in the ministry, Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones.

These men, and there are many more, they had an authority in their ministries which was quite superior to the likes of ordinary people like myself. So in this sense, yes, I believe that the ministry lives on and the prophetic ministry lives on and that it is possible and indeed it is necessary that God's message is communicated to His people today. How does He generally do it? Well, He generally does it through the exposition of Scripture, but I'm not so professional a preacher as to realize that that is too easy and facile an argument.

I never have believed in the distinction between the clergy and the laity, although in some senses I'm more of an Anglican than I'm a nonconformist. You say, why? Well, I do believe in participation and find that very difficult to engineer in nonconformist circles, though the Anglicans at least give us a prayer book and give the opportunity for the congregation to say something, even if though often it's guided. What then do we make of such a verse of Scripture as the 26th in 1 Corinthians 14? What then shall we say, brothers? Here we are, the Christians at Corinth have come together.

They're living, as I say, before the completion of the canon, but there must be certain principles, presumably, that live over to the rest of Christendom. When you come together, everyone has a hymn, a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. All of these things must be done for the strengthening of the Church.

Well, there are those, I remember reading an American preacher or hearing him a little while ago, who thinks that Paul is here being caustic, cynical. But I don't detect any cynicism here. It seems to me that what Paul is saying, that's all right, provided you do it in an orderly fashion.

And as I say, this is, to me, one of the great challenges of nonconformity, where the laity have been in retreat, so to speak, and pushed a man with one particular gift so much to the forefront that participation is not always easy. You say, well, how could that possibly be reconciled? Well, I think by perhaps drawing a distinction between the gathering together of Christian people, the Church community, and the holding of public services where exposition is necessary for the Christian and from the outsider. That's why I've always had a warm heart towards participation in our communion services, when we spread the Lord's table early on a Sunday or late on a Sunday, or our prayer meeting on a Monday, when there is a greater possibility of a cut and thrust, so to speak, of contribution, as people reveal what the Lord has placed upon their hearts, and as we merge together in an orchestration of praise and worship to this holy God.

Well, again, that was another digression. Here we are with regard to the prophetic ministry. I'm quite happy with the definition of Michael Green.

Prophecy is not the equivalent of Scripture. Prophecy is a particular word for a particular congregation at a particular time through a particular person. But that also makes me very happy with Dr. Jim Parker, who, speaking of prophecy, says that, in essence, in the modern sense, in essence, this is not new revelation, though in biblical times it was part of it, but rather power to apply to the people, truth already revealed.

And, says Parker, with a degree of conviction and logic, this is not specially related to the charismatic movement, but has been in the Church all along. Now let me try to bring these matters to a head once more. There are those who, as I say, in this whole field of the content of 1 Corinthians 14 would take differing conclusions from mine.

But the wisdom of Parker's comment that we don't insinuate to ourselves utter infallibility is borne out by an illustration I'll give you now which I guarantee you'll never forget. I have got here about one dozen books. If I could balance them all on this lectern, which I shall now try, you will perhaps see the point in what I'm going to say.

Some believe that the doctrine of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit have caused dissension, wrong word, have caused differences of interpretation over against two movements, the conservative evangelicals and the charismatics. That is blatantly an oversimplification of the problem. The first book I have here was written by Michael Harper, a brother who was responsible for the founding of the Fountain Trust in London some twenty-odd years ago.

Before it got going, I had half an afternoon with Michael Harper on his understanding of the doctrine of the Spirit. He wrote a book entitled Power for the Body of Christ, which has just been republished, in which he reckons that the baptism of the Spirit is a second work of grace, not to be equaled with conversion. Here you have, so we'll put him down on the charismatic side, here you have a book called Reflective Glory, written by Thomas A. Smale, who happened to follow Mr. Harper as the new leader of the Fountain Trust when there was a successor.

He writes a book which really was a bit of a cracker as far as the theological response to it was concerned, on one area of Christology, but that, by the way, he argues most dogmatically that baptism in the Spirit is exactly the same as conversion. So here you have problems within the charismatic ranks in the understanding of secondary issues of doctrine. Which side do you put him on? I'm not really too sure.

Here you've got Charles Hodge, a very great Puritan writer, and he says of the tongues in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 that they were most definitely ordinary spoken languages, miraculously given. Where do we put him? Well, presumably on the non-charismatic side. Here is John Calvin, and according to Dr. Packer, in other commentaries that he writes, he says that the tongues were glossolalia, angelic tongues.

Well, where do we put John Calvin? You see, we're getting awfully confused if we're beginning to believe that these great men of God all are saying the same thing on these secondary issues. Dare I tell you that I was reading Cardinal Soenens of Belgium, Catholic theologian and great preacher, I understand, the other day. I was also reading Michael Ramsey, the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, on the doctrine of the Spirit, and I can't find a great deal of accord between what these men are saying.

Here is David Watson, a great evangelist and leader, who argues in his book that the baptism in the Spirit and conversion are exactly the same thing, and therefore he takes sides over against Michael Harper. And so we could go on. Here is the great Dr. Lloyd-Jones himself, in his book Life in the Spirit, in which he works out that the baptism of the Spirit and conversion are not the same things at all.

Where do we put Dr. Lloyd-Jones? On the side of the charismatics, and yet he denied that the glossolalia of the 20th century was the same thing as 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. And when you've put Lloyd-Jones into a category, what do you do about Campbell Morgan, who was his predecessor at Westminster Chapel, who says exactly the opposite to Dr. Lloyd-Jones regarding the baptism of the Spirit, and says that it equals conversion. And as for charismatic gifts, if they occurred in the chapel in his day, he would know what to do about it, because he's got 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 as his guide.

Now, why have I given you this? Just to show you, the wisdom of Packer's comment, where there are areas of difficulty, anyone who arrogates to himself on a secondary area of doctrine, infallibility, is a fool. When I started to prepare these talks on 1 Corinthians 14, I said to the Lord in utter confusion two Sunday mornings ago, how on earth can I bring this teaching to these people? And about 10 o'clock, which is pretty close on when you're going to preach just after 11, it formed in my mind, I believe from God, that the three basic tests of 1 Corinthians 14 need to be applied by everyone here in the tab in respect to our ministry, any ministry that you might get anywhere else. What were those overriding principles? Is there the edification of the community? Are people being built up in the Word of God? Is there the manifestation of deity? Do you sometimes, maybe not always, because we're all differing people, we're differing chemistries and differing emotions, but is there at some point registered within your heart the manifestation of God, the knowledge that He's there? And is there an attempt to preserve harmony amongst Christian people? Don't believe, and I say this with love, that the Charismatics nor the Pentecostals have got all the harmony in the world.

Some have cracked and divided as much as God forgive us, as conservative evangelical communities have also cracked and divided. So I lift these three principles, and I put them to you, and this is how I cope today as I endeavor to test the reality of Christian worship and put in parenthesis my own question marks in areas of spiritual phenomena, claimed phenomena, about which I'm not convinced, but would not arrogate to myself the wisdom of God to pass judgment. Well, as Luther said in a far more critical address, here I stand.

I can do no more. But there's not one person in the tab or who receives these tapes who can ever say that we did not try to handle lovingly and humbly this perplexing yet powerful passage of 1 Corinthians and chapter 14. Amen.

And Father, that sums it all up. What we want is you, nothing more, for there isn't anything more, and nothing less, for there is a way of bankruptcy. Give us yourself and a desire for the realities of the Spirit, and may our lives be lived in harmony with the Christ and with each other, that we as a community of your people still learning at the feet of Jesus may achieve what are your purposes for our fellowship, downtown Worthing.

Amen.