TONGUES - AN UNSOUND EVIDENCE OF SALVATION

"as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination ... Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, 'I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.'" (Acts 16:16-18)

Acts 16 is a deep Scipture - deceptively simple, but one of those scriptures we come across from time to time that is bursting with meaning beneath the surface. Paul was much annoyed with this girl who had a 'spirit of divination'. Let's look at those words. In Greek, she had a pneu'ma py'tho·na, or literally, "a spirit of python". The NRSV Harper-Collins Study Bible notes of Acts 16:

"Spirit of divination, lit. 'a spirit of the Python,' which was associated with the Delphic oracle."

The Python was a mythical beast which guarded the Oracle of Delphi, near Corinth. At the Oracle of Delphi, travellers would congregate to hear a prophecy of the future for themselves or their country. According to some historians, the Pythoness (priestess) would cry out in unintelligible sounds which were interpreted by another person to form ambiguous verses. To have a spirit of the Python would be to be like the Pythoness - it would be someone who was filled with the demonic spirit of the oracle... someone who would prophecy by crying out in unintelligible sounds!

And as such, there is scriptural evidence in Acts 16 for false tongues. That is not to say that all tongues are wrong. While Paul excorcised this slave girl in Acts from the spirit of the Python, he himself spoke in tongues, and was glad of the experience (1.Cor.14:18). What does it tell us? It tells us clearly that there can be false tongues in the world! As Paul also wrote:

"The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved" (2 Thess 2: 9-10).

What have we learned from the experience of the slave girl? When someone 'speaks in tongues' we cannot be sure that they have salvation, becuase tongues is not a solely Christian phenomenon. According to Professor Maja-Lisa Swartz of the Helsinki University, after her research of the Tanzanian tribes people, "speaking in tongues is nothing specific for the Christian religion. It appears in all religions and is no guarantee for what type of spirit it is that the speaker is speaking for".

For example, John MacArthur writes, in Charismatic Chaos, "Ecstatic speech is a part of many pagan religions in Africa, East Africa. Tonga people of Africa, when a demon is exorcised, sing in Zulu even though they say they don't know the Zulu language. Ecstatic speech is found today among Muslims, Eskimos, Tibetan monks. It is involved in parapsychological occult groups. Did you know that the Mormons, even Joseph Smith himself advocates speaking in tongues? It could be demonic." An Encyclopędia of Occultism says, “Speaking and writing in foreign tongues, or in unintelligible outpourings mistaken for such, is a very old form of psychic phenomenon.”

Tongues are, therefore, an unsound evidence of salvation. They can be demonic! Do you say that someone is 'saved' when they speak in tongues? It is a poor test, if even pagans speak in tongues. Are the Tonga people saved when they speak in tongues? Are the Voodoo people, or the Buhhdist monks saved when they speak in tongues?

Tongues is clearly not God's evidence of salvation. And yet, someone can know whether they are saved or not. In 1John 5:13, it is written:

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

How do you know you have eternal life? John doesn't mention tongues. If tongues were the sign that someone was saved, he would have metioned it there. But instead he says about those who know they have eternal life "you who believe in the name of the Son of God"! Recall the comments about testing the Spirits, "test the spirits to see whether they are from God: for many false prophets have gone out into the world ... every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God" (1John 4:1-3). So how do you know you have the right Spirit and eternal life? The answer turns on whether you can "confess Jesus". It is here that the Tonga people, Voodoos, and Buhhdist priests fail.

Perhaps you speak in tongues, and have always thought it was clear evidence of your salvation. Yet, you see now that tongues cannot prove anything. You can confess Christ right now, as you read this, and accept the real evidence of salvation in your life. Paul writes,

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9).

You may also want to make this prayer:

Jesus, I don't want to put all my trust in tongues any more - I want to put my trust in you. I realise that tongues are not the evidence of my salvation - my salvation is in you, and in you alone. I believe now that you died, were buried, and on the third day rose again. On that gospel alone I put my trust. Help me to reject the false teachers who show me a gospel different to that one you gave. On this day, I confess you Jesus as Lord.

© 1997, All rights reserved. Please copy and distribute information on this page freely, but don't alter or sell it without my permission. Unless otherwise indicated, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, Copyright 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.