IN reference to tongues, have you read Isaiah 28:11?
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Nay, but by men of strange lips and with another tongue will he speak to this people
This quote from the OT reveals that the Assyrians would become Israel’s teachers because of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Paul refers back to this verse in 1 Cor. 14:21-22 saying;
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In the law it is written, By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers will I speak unto this people; and not even thus will they hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to the unbelieving: but prophesying is for a sign, not to the unbelieving, but to them that believe.
Tongues were a warning sign of judgment to come –to unbelieving Israel (not to the Gentiles). The Jews would rightly see tongues as a warning sign! When did judgment come? When was the judgment fulfilled? 70 A.D. Once judgment had come what further use would tongues be as a warning sign? Paul furthers his argument in 1 Cor 13:8;
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Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away.
The same Greek words are not used for the terms done away and cease! The word cease means that it will end, in and of itself (interpreted in light of Isaiah and 1 Cor 14:22 = 70 AD). Please note that the term done away is different in that it means that they will need to have something in the future to complete it. Thus, we are told here that all three gifts would someday cease to exist, however two (2) distinct verbs are used to indicate their cessation. Prophecy and knowledge will be done away, whereas tongues will cease. Tongues ceased!
The miraculous gifts ceased with the Apostolic Age. Hebrews 2:3-4 assumes that the sign gifts had for the most part ceased. Further, it offers evidence of the purpose of the sign gifts: to confirm that God was doing something new. Hebrews reveals the fact that there is a new and final revelation in Christ (Heb 1:1-2). He is the One to whom the whole OT points. The author of Hebrews makes an argument on Scripture over against experience. What is the author’s evidence? The audience’s past experience is their present evidence! If the gifts were continuing then one would expect the argument to be stated much differently (i.e. the continuing of the gifts).
Now Hebrews was written in app 68 AD. The gifts were already on the way out. However, if the miraculous gifts of the NC age had continued in the church, one would expect an unbroken line of occurrences from apostolic times to the present. There is none. Except for a brief mention of the gifts in 150 AD, the history of the church it pretty silent on these sign gifts. The Montanist movement (a teaching that prized ecstatic and apocalyptic prophecy) was a revival of spiritual gifts after they “biblically” ceased. The fact that the church condemned this movement is significant! They had first hand memory of the true Charismatic gifts and saw the difference(s)! Montanism (Please read, The Church's Debt to Heretics, by Rufus M. Jones) was condemned because it represented heresy! There is no new revelation!
Have you ever read Warfield’s Counterfeit Miracles?
