Acts 2:4 “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
One of the most enlightening aspects that help us to more clearly understand the spirit of the born-again believer is the gift of speaking in other tongues. In the above quoted passage of scripture we see the gift of other tongues being given to the New Testament saints for the first time on the day of Pentecost. The reason this gift was never given to the saints under the Old Covenant was because they could not be born-again and could therefore not be filled with the Holy Spirit. For although the Holy Spirit could come upon certain individuals under the Old Covenant to anoint them to stand in certain offices, i.e. prophet, high priest and king, He could not dwell within the spirits of the Old Testament saints because they were still spiritually dead. And so because New Testament saints are born-again, they can be filled with the Holy Spirit and thus receive the gift of other tongues that the Holy Spirit imparts to them. Although the gift of tongues is only given to saints that are filled with the Spirit it is nevertheless available to all saints under the New Covenant, because the baptism of the Holy Spirit is available to all saints. For various reasons however, some New Testament saints have not yet partaken of the baptism. Nevertheless as we will see in this section the gift of tongues gives us substantial insight into various aspects of the born-again spirit.
1 Corinthians 14:14-15 “For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. (15) What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture the apostle Paul, in discussing the gift of tongues, gives us a number of insights into the nature of the born-again spirit. Firstly we see that when the saint speaks to tongues that it is in fact the spirit of the believer that is speaking, for Paul states that when we pray in tongues that our spirits are praying. And so we see that just as our minds use our body’s vocal chords to communicate with God and others in a known language, so our spirits also use our body’s vocal chords to communicate to God in an unknown language. When I use the term unknown language I am referring to a language that is unknown to the mind of the saint, for in this passage Paul teaches us that when we speak in tongues that our minds do not understand the words that are spoken, because to our minds the tongue spoken is a foreign language. The spirit of the believer however understands the language perfectly, for it is the spirit that is communicating with God. As an aside, God obviously also understands the language that the spirit is speaking, for He is the one who gave the spirit its language in the first place. And so if God were to supernaturally give us understanding of the language spoken, when we speak in tongues we would hear our spirits communicating various petitions and supplications to the Lord. This particular truth helps us to understand the concept of our spirits having their own understanding, because our spirits are able to communicate with God just as our minds are able to, just at another level. There is one other truth that I want you to notice from this passage, which is that Paul lists praying with the spirit before praying with the understanding, and the reason for that is because Paul recognised the greater effectiveness of his spirit’s prayer in comparison to the prayers of his understanding.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comentários