Speaking in tongues: Difference between revisions

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= Does Speaking in Tongues Prove You're Saved? A Look at David Bernard's ''The New Birth'' =

== First, What Bernard Actually Says ==

Before getting into the rebuttal, it's worth laying out Bernard's position clearly and fairly. The core argument isn't subtle — Bernard is explicit and systematic about it. From the retrieved text of ''The New Birth'', he states plainly:<blockquote>''"Speaking in tongues is a normal part of the believer's experience with God, the personal devotion of the believer, and the public meetings of the church. Most of all, we can expect a person to speak in tongues when he first receives the Holy Spirit into his life."''</blockquote>That last sentence is load-bearing. "Most of all" is doing a lot of work there. Bernard isn't arguing that tongues is a nice bonus for the spiritually hungry. He's arguing it's the ''expected, normal, identifiable moment'' when you know the Holy Spirit has arrived.

He then builds on this with a sweeping claim about the biblical record:<blockquote>''"We analyzed all five biblical accounts of the Spirit baptism and concluded that tongues were present in each case. Many other passages describe believers as 'filled with the Spirit' without mentioning tongues, but they refer to people who had already been baptized in the Spirit. Tongues do not necessarily accompany all subsequent experiences..."''</blockquote>So the argument has a clear shape:

# The new birth requires receiving the Holy Spirit (John 3:5; Acts 2:38)

# Every time the Bible records the initial reception of the Holy Spirit, tongues are present

# Therefore, tongues is the '''initial physical evidence''' that Spirit baptism — and therefore the new birth — has occurred

# Without tongues, you have no objective confirmation that you've actually been born again

The book dedicates significant real estate to this argument — the Table of Contents confirms a full chapter section titled '''"Biblical Terminology for the Spirit Baptism"''' (p. 189) and another section specifically titled '''"The Baptism of the Spirit and Tongues"''' (p. 234). This isn't a footnote in Bernard's theology. It's central.

He also engages the cessationist counter-argument — that tongues ceased with the completion of the New Testament canon (based on 1 Corinthians 13:8-10). Bernard responds:<blockquote>''"The New Testament is God's Word, but we are not yet perfect, nor is the world perfect. Perfection will come only after Christ returns."''</blockquote>And adds:<blockquote>''"It is difficult to see how the completion of the New Testament could have put a halt to tongues, prophecy, and knowledge. Did all tongues suddenly cease when John penned 'Amen' to the Book of Revelation? Did each person cease to speak in tongues when he first read the entire New Testament?"''</blockquote>He also anticipates the argument that Paul's letters describe tongues as a gift not given to all believers, and pre-emptively distinguishes between "tongues as initial evidence" (universal, for all Spirit-baptized believers) and "tongues as a continuing gift" (given to some for public ministry). This is how he tries to reconcile his position with 1 Corinthians 12:30.

Okay. Now let's talk about why this doesn't hold up.

----

== The "Five Accounts" Problem — It's Not What You Think ==

Bernard's strongest card is the claim that all five accounts of initial Spirit reception in Acts include tongues. Let's actually look at those five cases.

'''Acts 2 — Pentecost.''' Yes, the 120 in the upper room spoke in tongues. Unambiguously. No argument there. But here's what Bernard doesn't address: Acts 2:41 records that ''three thousand people'' were saved and baptized that same day in response to Peter's sermon. Three thousand. And there is zero — I mean zero — record of any of them speaking in tongues. If tongues is the necessary initial evidence of Spirit reception, and Peter had just told them to repent and be baptized to receive the Spirit (Acts 2:38), why does Luke — who is clearly interested in tongues as a phenomenon, having just described it in vivid detail — say absolutely nothing about three thousand people speaking in tongues? Luke's silence here isn't a small problem for Bernard's argument. It's a large one.

'''Acts 8 — The Samaritans.''' This one is the weakest link in Bernard's chain, and he knows it. The text says Simon the sorcerer "saw" that the Spirit was given through the laying on of hands and wanted to buy that ability (Acts 8:18-19). Bernard argues this implies tongues because something ''visible'' was occurring. That's it. That's the argument — an inference from Simon's observation. The text doesn't say tongues. It doesn't say anything audible. Bernard is reading his conclusion into a text that simply doesn't state what he needs it to state. That's not exegesis. That's eisegesis with a confident face on.

'''Acts 9 — Paul's conversion.''' Here Bernard is even more creative. Acts 9:17-18 records that Ananias laid hands on Paul, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, scales fell from his eyes, he was baptized, and he ate something. Tongues aren't mentioned. Bernard's response is to note that Paul later says he speaks in tongues more than all of them (1 Corinthians 14:18) — and therefore ''presumably'' this started at his conversion. That's possible. It's also pure speculation. You can't build a doctrinal requirement on what ''might'' have happened in an account that doesn't mention it.

'''Acts 10 — Cornelius.''' This one actually supports a form of the tongues argument, but it simultaneously destroys Bernard's broader salvation formula. The Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his household, they spoke in tongues and magnified God — ''before'' water baptism. Peter responds by saying, essentially, "Well, they got the Spirit, so we'd better baptize them." If you want to use Acts 10 to prove tongues accompanies initial Spirit reception, fine. But you've just proven that the Spirit arrives ''before'' the water baptism Bernard insists is necessary for salvation. You can't have it both ways.

'''Acts 19 — The Ephesian disciples.''' Yes, they spoke in tongues when Paul laid hands on them. But this account is exceptional precisely because these people had received only John's baptism and had never even heard of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:2). This is a corrective situation — Paul re-baptizes people who had an incomplete understanding and an incomplete initiation. It's an outlier, not a pattern for normal Christian conversion.

So out of five accounts: one is clear (Acts 2), one is an inference with no textual basis (Acts 8), one is speculation from a later letter (Acts 9), one actively undermines Bernard's baptismal theology (Acts 10), and one is an exceptional corrective situation (Acts 19). That's not a uniform biblical pattern. That's a mixed bag being presented as ironclad evidence.

----

== The 1 Corinthians 12:30 Problem ==

This is where Bernard's argument really runs into a wall. Paul writes, rhetorically:<blockquote>''"Do all speak with tongues?"'' (1 Corinthians 12:30)</blockquote>In Greek, this question is structured to expect the answer '''no'''. It's not "Do all speak in tongues, and isn't that wonderful?" It's "Not everyone speaks in tongues, right?" Paul's own grammar answers his own question.

Bernard's response — distinguishing between "initial evidence tongues" and "gift of tongues" — is clever, but it's a theological construction that has no basis in the text itself. Paul doesn't make that distinction anywhere. He doesn't say "there are two kinds of tongues — the kind everyone gets at salvation and the kind only some receive for ministry." That's not in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, or 14. Bernard has invented a category to rescue his position from a verse that directly contradicts it.

And honestly? The fact that Bernard ''needs'' to invent this two-tier tongues doctrine to escape 1 Corinthians 12:30 should tell you something. When an interpretation requires you to create distinctions the text doesn't make, you're doing theology in reverse — starting with your conclusion and working backward to the Bible.

----

== The Assurance Problem — And This Is the Pastoral One That Really Matters ==

Here's where things get genuinely damaging. If tongues is the necessary initial evidence of Spirit baptism, and Spirit baptism is necessary for salvation, then a person who has never spoken in tongues cannot have assurance of salvation. Full stop.

Think about what that does to someone. You believe in Jesus. You've repented of your sins. You've been baptized. You've prayed for the Holy Spirit. But you haven't spoken in tongues yet. Under Bernard's framework, you're still lost. And if you go to a Oneness Pentecostal church and start attending the "tarrying" services — the extended prayer meetings where people cry out for the Spirit until tongues come — you're going to go home night after night uncertain whether God has accepted you.

This is not a hypothetical scenario. It's the lived experience of thousands of people in Oneness Pentecostal communities. Exit testimonies from former Oneness believers consistently describe the anxiety of waiting for tongues, the performance pressure, the relief when it finally came (whether genuine or manufactured), and the spiritual devastation when it didn't. Making a physical, producible phenomenon the basis of salvation assurance is pastorally catastrophic — and it contradicts the entire New Testament framework for assurance, which is grounded in Christ's finished work received by faith.

Romans 8:1 says: ''"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."'' Not "no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus and have spoken in tongues." The basis of assurance is union with Christ through faith, not a verifiable physical experience.

----

== What About Bernard's Cessationist Rebuttal? ==

Bernard's counter-argument against cessationism is actually pretty solid, and it's worth being honest about that. His point — that it's hard to pinpoint the moment tongues ceased if they did, and that Paul who wrote about tongues "ceasing" also spoke in tongues himself more than all the Corinthians — is a fair observation. Cessationism has its own exegetical problems.

But here's the thing: ''you don't have to be a cessationist to reject Bernard's position.'' You can fully believe that tongues is a real, valid, ongoing spiritual gift and still reject the claim that it's the necessary initial evidence of salvation. Those are two completely separate questions. Many charismatic and Pentecostal Christians — including millions within the Assemblies of God — affirm tongues as a genuine gift while explicitly rejecting the "initial evidence" doctrine.

Bernard's argument only works if you grant his initial premise — that Spirit baptism always produces tongues as verifiable evidence. But the biblical record, as we've seen, doesn't consistently support that premise. And 1 Corinthians 12:30 actively contradicts it.

----

== The Bigger Picture ==

Here's what's really going on beneath all the exegesis. Bernard's theology requires an external, verifiable criterion for salvation because the Oneness Pentecostal system is built around the idea that you can identify the saved by their obedience to a specific formula: repentance + Jesus-name baptism + Spirit baptism with tongues. Remove tongues as a verifiable marker, and the system loses its ability to identify who's in and who's out. The doctrinal stakes aren't just theological — they're sociological. The community's sense of being the restored true church depends on having a clear, observable distinction between those who have "the experience" and those who don't.

That's not exegesis driving the doctrine. That's the doctrine driving the exegesis.

And that's the part that should concern anyone who takes Scripture seriously. When a theological system ''needs'' a doctrine to be true for the system to function, and then works backward through the Bible to prove it, you're not doing biblical theology anymore. You're doing apologetics for a predetermined conclusion.

The New Testament's answer to "how do I know I'm saved?" is not "did you speak in tongues?" It's "do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?" (Acts 16:31). That's not a placeholder. It's the answer.

----''Sources: Bernard, David K. The New Birth. Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1984. Boyd, Gregory A. Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992. Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.''

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
+= Does Speaking in Tongues Prove You're Saved? A Look at David Bernard's ''The New Birth'' =
+== First, What Bernard Actually Says ==
+Before getting into the rebuttal, it's worth laying out Bernard's position clearly and fairly. The core argument isn't subtle — Bernard is explicit and systematic about it. From the retrieved text of ''The New Birth'', he states plainly:<blockquote>''"Speaking in tongues is a normal part of the believer's experience with God, the personal devotion of the believer, and the public meetings of the church. Most of all, we can expect a person to speak in tongues when he first receives the Holy Spirit into his life."''</blockquote>That last sentence is load-bearing. "Most of all" is doing a lot of work there. Bernard isn't arguing that tongues is a nice bonus for the spiritually hungry. He's arguing it's the ''expected, normal, identifiable moment'' when you know the Holy Spirit has arrived.
+He then builds on this with a sweeping claim about the biblical record:<blockquote>''"We analyzed all five biblical accounts of the Spirit baptism and concluded that tongues were present in each case. Many other passages describe believers as 'filled with the Spirit' without mentioning tongues, but they refer to people who had already been baptized in the Spirit. Tongues do not necessarily accompany all subsequent experiences..."''</blockquote>So the argument has a clear shape:
+# The new birth requires receiving the Holy Spirit (John 3:5; Acts 2:38)
+# Every time the Bible records the initial reception of the Holy Spirit, tongues are present
+# Therefore, tongues is the '''initial physical evidence''' that Spirit baptism — and therefore the new birth — has occurred
+# Without tongues, you have no objective confirmation that you've actually been born again
+The book dedicates significant real estate to this argument — the Table of Contents confirms a full chapter section titled '''"Biblical Terminology for the Spirit Baptism"''' (p. 189) and another section specifically titled '''"The Baptism of the Spirit and Tongues"''' (p. 234). This isn't a footnote in Bernard's theology. It's central.
+He also engages the cessationist counter-argument — that tongues ceased with the completion of the New Testament canon (based on 1 Corinthians 13:8-10). Bernard responds:<blockquote>''"The New Testament is God's Word, but we are not yet perfect, nor is the world perfect. Perfection will come only after Christ returns."''</blockquote>And adds:<blockquote>''"It is difficult to see how the completion of the New Testament could have put a halt to tongues, prophecy, and knowledge. Did all tongues suddenly cease when John penned 'Amen' to the Book of Revelation? Did each person cease to speak in tongues when he first read the entire New Testament?"''</blockquote>He also anticipates the argument that Paul's letters describe tongues as a gift not given to all believers, and pre-emptively distinguishes between "tongues as initial evidence" (universal, for all Spirit-baptized believers) and "tongues as a continuing gift" (given to some for public ministry). This is how he tries to reconcile his position with 1 Corinthians 12:30.
+Okay. Now let's talk about why this doesn't hold up.
+----
+== The "Five Accounts" Problem — It's Not What You Think ==
+Bernard's strongest card is the claim that all five accounts of initial Spirit reception in Acts include tongues. Let's actually look at those five cases.
+'''Acts 2 — Pentecost.''' Yes, the 120 in the upper room spoke in tongues. Unambiguously. No argument there. But here's what Bernard doesn't address: Acts 2:41 records that ''three thousand people'' were saved and baptized that same day in response to Peter's sermon. Three thousand. And there is zero — I mean zero — record of any of them speaking in tongues. If tongues is the necessary initial evidence of Spirit reception, and Peter had just told them to repent and be baptized to receive the Spirit (Acts 2:38), why does Luke — who is clearly interested in tongues as a phenomenon, having just described it in vivid detail — say absolutely nothing about three thousand people speaking in tongues? Luke's silence here isn't a small problem for Bernard's argument. It's a large one.
+'''Acts 8 — The Samaritans.''' This one is the weakest link in Bernard's chain, and he knows it. The text says Simon the sorcerer "saw" that the Spirit was given through the laying on of hands and wanted to buy that ability (Acts 8:18-19). Bernard argues this implies tongues because something ''visible'' was occurring. That's it. That's the argument — an inference from Simon's observation. The text doesn't say tongues. It doesn't say anything audible. Bernard is reading his conclusion into a text that simply doesn't state what he needs it to state. That's not exegesis. That's eisegesis with a confident face on.
+'''Acts 9 — Paul's conversion.''' Here Bernard is even more creative. Acts 9:17-18 records that Ananias laid hands on Paul, he was filled with the Holy Spirit, scales fell from his eyes, he was baptized, and he ate something. Tongues aren't mentioned. Bernard's response is to note that Paul later says he speaks in tongues more than all of them (1 Corinthians 14:18) — and therefore ''presumably'' this started at his conversion. That's possible. It's also pure speculation. You can't build a doctrinal requirement on what ''might'' have happened in an account that doesn't mention it.
+'''Acts 10 — Cornelius.''' This one actually supports a form of the tongues argument, but it simultaneously destroys Bernard's broader salvation formula. The Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his household, they spoke in tongues and magnified God — ''before'' water baptism. Peter responds by saying, essentially, "Well, they got the Spirit, so we'd better baptize them." If you want to use Acts 10 to prove tongues accompanies initial Spirit reception, fine. But you've just proven that the Spirit arrives ''before'' the water baptism Bernard insists is necessary for salvation. You can't have it both ways.
+'''Acts 19 — The Ephesian disciples.''' Yes, they spoke in tongues when Paul laid hands on them. But this account is exceptional precisely because these people had received only John's baptism and had never even heard of the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:2). This is a corrective situation — Paul re-baptizes people who had an incomplete understanding and an incomplete initiation. It's an outlier, not a pattern for normal Christian conversion.
+So out of five accounts: one is clear (Acts 2), one is an inference with no textual basis (Acts 8), one is speculation from a later letter (Acts 9), one actively undermines Bernard's baptismal theology (Acts 10), and one is an exceptional corrective situation (Acts 19). That's not a uniform biblical pattern. That's a mixed bag being presented as ironclad evidence.
+----
+== The 1 Corinthians 12:30 Problem ==
+This is where Bernard's argument really runs into a wall. Paul writes, rhetorically:<blockquote>''"Do all speak with tongues?"'' (1 Corinthians 12:30)</blockquote>In Greek, this question is structured to expect the answer '''no'''. It's not "Do all speak in tongues, and isn't that wonderful?" It's "Not everyone speaks in tongues, right?" Paul's own grammar answers his own question.
+Bernard's response — distinguishing between "initial evidence tongues" and "gift of tongues" — is clever, but it's a theological construction that has no basis in the text itself. Paul doesn't make that distinction anywhere. He doesn't say "there are two kinds of tongues — the kind everyone gets at salvation and the kind only some receive for ministry." That's not in 1 Corinthians 12, 13, or 14. Bernard has invented a category to rescue his position from a verse that directly contradicts it.
+And honestly? The fact that Bernard ''needs'' to invent this two-tier tongues doctrine to escape 1 Corinthians 12:30 should tell you something. When an interpretation requires you to create distinctions the text doesn't make, you're doing theology in reverse — starting with your conclusion and working backward to the Bible.
+----
+== The Assurance Problem — And This Is the Pastoral One That Really Matters ==
+Here's where things get genuinely damaging. If tongues is the necessary initial evidence of Spirit baptism, and Spirit baptism is necessary for salvation, then a person who has never spoken in tongues cannot have assurance of salvation. Full stop.
+Think about what that does to someone. You believe in Jesus. You've repented of your sins. You've been baptized. You've prayed for the Holy Spirit. But you haven't spoken in tongues yet. Under Bernard's framework, you're still lost. And if you go to a Oneness Pentecostal church and start attending the "tarrying" services — the extended prayer meetings where people cry out for the Spirit until tongues come — you're going to go home night after night uncertain whether God has accepted you.
+This is not a hypothetical scenario. It's the lived experience of thousands of people in Oneness Pentecostal communities. Exit testimonies from former Oneness believers consistently describe the anxiety of waiting for tongues, the performance pressure, the relief when it finally came (whether genuine or manufactured), and the spiritual devastation when it didn't. Making a physical, producible phenomenon the basis of salvation assurance is pastorally catastrophic — and it contradicts the entire New Testament framework for assurance, which is grounded in Christ's finished work received by faith.
+Romans 8:1 says: ''"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."'' Not "no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus and have spoken in tongues." The basis of assurance is union with Christ through faith, not a verifiable physical experience.
+----
+== What About Bernard's Cessationist Rebuttal? ==
+Bernard's counter-argument against cessationism is actually pretty solid, and it's worth being honest about that. His point — that it's hard to pinpoint the moment tongues ceased if they did, and that Paul who wrote about tongues "ceasing" also spoke in tongues himself more than all the Corinthians — is a fair observation. Cessationism has its own exegetical problems.
+But here's the thing: ''you don't have to be a cessationist to reject Bernard's position.'' You can fully believe that tongues is a real, valid, ongoing spiritual gift and still reject the claim that it's the necessary initial evidence of salvation. Those are two completely separate questions. Many charismatic and Pentecostal Christians — including millions within the Assemblies of God — affirm tongues as a genuine gift while explicitly rejecting the "initial evidence" doctrine.
+Bernard's argument only works if you grant his initial premise — that Spirit baptism always produces tongues as verifiable evidence. But the biblical record, as we've seen, doesn't consistently support that premise. And 1 Corinthians 12:30 actively contradicts it.
+----
+== The Bigger Picture ==
+Here's what's really going on beneath all the exegesis. Bernard's theology requires an external, verifiable criterion for salvation because the Oneness Pentecostal system is built around the idea that you can identify the saved by their obedience to a specific formula: repentance + Jesus-name baptism + Spirit baptism with tongues. Remove tongues as a verifiable marker, and the system loses its ability to identify who's in and who's out. The doctrinal stakes aren't just theological — they're sociological. The community's sense of being the restored true church depends on having a clear, observable distinction between those who have "the experience" and those who don't.
+That's not exegesis driving the doctrine. That's the doctrine driving the exegesis.
+And that's the part that should concern anyone who takes Scripture seriously. When a theological system ''needs'' a doctrine to be true for the system to function, and then works backward through the Bible to prove it, you're not doing biblical theology anymore. You're doing apologetics for a predetermined conclusion.
+The New Testament's answer to "how do I know I'm saved?" is not "did you speak in tongues?" It's "do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?" (Acts 16:31). That's not a placeholder. It's the answer.
+----''Sources: Bernard, David K. The New Birth. Hazelwood, MO: Word Aflame Press, 1984. Boyd, Gregory A. Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992. Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.''