Sermon Tone Analysis

THE GIFT OF TONGUES

I Corinthians 13:8-13

 

    We are going to focus on the statement in verse that says, “whether there be tongues, they shall cease.”

You may remember that I said to you that it is possible to organize the spiritual gifts mentioned in the New Testament into three general categories.

There are the speaking gifts, the serving gifts and the sign gifts.

When you look at all the lists of the spiritual gifts in the New Testament in their chronological order you will discover that each of the lists minimizes or gets smaller as you move along.

Finally, when you come to I Peter 4:10 & 11, you will find that the Word of God gathers the gifts together in the speaking gifts and in the serving gifts but no mention is made of the sign gifts.

In that connection it is interesting to me that Paul in I Corinthians 13, right in the middle of the section on spiritual gifts, makes the statement “whether there be tongues they shall cease.”

The purpose for these particular verses which I have read is to show us a contrast between the permanency of love and the temporary nature of certain of the spiritual gifts.

You will notice in verse 8 he says “loves never fails.”

The word, fails, was used to describe the dropping of petals off of a flower.

He is saying here that love never fades.

Love will never die.

Love will continue on and on and on.

In contrast to the permanency of love he says whether there be prophecies, whether there be tongues, whether there be knowledge - that they are temporary in nature.

I’m interested first of all in the statement concerning the matters of prophecy and knowledge.

He says 2 specifically that prophecies shall fail and that knowledge shall vanish away.

It is obvious to us that he is not talking about the ordinary kind of knowledge.

You and I understand, that in the future, we are not going to lose our knowledge.

When we get to heaven there will not be an absence of knowledge but the Bible teaches there will be fullness of knowledge.

So there is a special kind of knowledge intended.

Also, I believe we understand that when you look at the statement about prophecies he is not talking about the preaching of the Word of God.

In the larger sense of the use of the word prophecy, every time a man of God stands with the Bible and with the anointing of God’s Holy Spirit upon him, he teaches the Word of God.

He is prophesying.

He is giving forth the Word of God.

He is announcing the Good News of the gael to those who hear.

So he must be talking about a specific kind of prophecy and a specific kind of knowledge.

It is also helpful for us to understand the tense of the verb that is used in this particular instance.

He is using what is known as a future passive.

He is saying that whether there be prophecies they shall be cause to fail.

That is they shall be caused to render inoperative.

They shall be caused to no longer be of value.

Whether there be knowledge it shall be caused to vanish away.

It’s the same word.

What is he talking about here?

What does he mean that this specific area of prophecy and specific area of knowledge is going to be done away.

The key is found in verses 9 and 10.

He says repeating these two spiritual matters “we know in part.”

That is we have partial knowledge.

We prophecy “in part.”

That is partial ability to prophecy in that New Testament day.

What is the meaning of this and why does he say that these things are temporary in nature and that one day they will be put out of business.

I think the 3 key is found in verse 10 - “but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall done away.”

He is saying there is going to come something that will be perfect and when the perfect comes there will be no longer necessity for that which is partial in nature.

I believe he is talking about the completing of the New Testament canon.

In the New Testament day there were men who were gifted of God to bw abhe to prophecy.

They couldn’t stand as I do in this pulpit and say open your Bible to I Corinthians.

There was no I Corinthians.

There was no book of Romans.

There was no book of Revelation.

All of these New Testament books were in the process of being written.

They were in the process of being put down.

So, there were men who were gifted with the ability to prophesy - to speak the very Word of God directly from heaven.

But the day would come, God said, when that would no longer be necessary.

There were also those who were given the ability, in the New Testament time, the knowledge from God to write down the Word of God.

Specifically apostles or those related to apostles.

It was a special kind of knowledge.

When God inspired men to write down the Bible He gave them knowledge to write down the Bible so that what they wrote is absolutely true, without error.

When you and I open up our Bible and we read what these men have written we know it is not merely human knowledge conveyed here but it is knowledge anointed by the spirit of God — a knowledge given to them to write down the literal Word of God.

But there came a time when the New Testament canon was complete.

There came a time when God’s written revelation was done.

I think that’s what he means when he says in verse 10 - “that which is perfect is come.”

I think he is talking about the perfect record — the Word of God, the perfect revelation of 4 God.

I believe that’s true because of the illustration we find in verse 12. “Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as also I am known.”

He is using a common illustration to the Corinthians to explain the completion of the Word of God, the New Testament canon.

He is comparing the Bible to a glass.

In Corinth they were well-known for the manufacturing of polished brass mirrors.

That’s the way the women saw themselves to comb their hair.

They looked in those polished brass mirrors.

They didn’t have mirrors like you have tonight.

The reflection they got was a partial reflection - a partial revelation to them.

But the Bible predicted that the the Bible was going to come and it would be a perfect glass - a perfect mirror.

Turn to the book of James 1:23 - “For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.

For he beholdeth himself, goes away, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was.”

What kind of glass is he talking about?

Verse 25 - “But who looketh into the perfect law of liberty.”

He is saying that the Bible - the law of God, the law of liberty, is that perfect mirror of God.

When you open up your Bible it’s like a mirror.

You see yourself in the Bible.

You see yourself as a sinner.

When you open up the Bible you have a perfect revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, the Bible is compared to that perfect mirror.

II Corinthians 3:18 - the figure of speech is even clearer in this statement.

He is talking about what you and I ought to do with our Bibles on a daily basis.

“But we all with open face beholding as in a glass (talking about the Bible) the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image form glory to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord.” 5 The Bible is compared to a perfect mirror - the perfect Word of God.

So, Paul says there will come a time when that which is perfect would come.

When that which is perfect - the perfect Word of Go is come then prophesying in that sense would fall away.

Knowledge in that sense would fall away.

They were temporary in nature.

But now in the middle of that in verse 8 he mentions the gift of tongues.

He says, “whether there be tongues they shall cease.”

The tense of the verb is a little bit different.

It is a future middle.

It means that tongues will cease in and of themselves.

That’s the crux of our subject.

We are going to deal with one of these sign gifts the gift of tongues and the auxiliary gift the interpretation of tongues.

In Chapter 12 he has mentioned on two different occasions these gifts.

In verse 10 he mentions kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues.

In verse 28 he mentions again, diversity - that is kinds of tongues.