QUESTION: Do You Have to Speak in Tongues to Go To Heaven?

I received the following question a couple of weeks ago via the Question Box on our congregation’s website, www.Plymouth-church.com, where I have answered an average of 2 questions per week for the past four years.

Do you have to speak in tongues to go to heaven?

The short, quick answer is, “No.”

Corinth was a church where confusion reigned. Part, but not all, of that confusion was because many of the members of that congregation elevated speaking in tongues to something God never meant it to be. They seemed to be boasting of the ability to speak in tongues and disrupting the assembly of the church to “show off” their gift. By doing so, they

HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM (8): The Promise Is For You & Your Children

Much of Paul’s letter to the Galatians has to do with the Holy Spirit. Their problem was that they had begun in the Spirit – but were abandoning the Spirit to go back to human effort.

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by

BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (5): By One Spirit Into One Body

One passage frequently overlooked in Restoration Movement studies of the baptizing in the Holy Spirit is 1 Corinthians 12:13. We looked at this briefly in the previous post as we looked at the abuse of spiritual gifts in the Corinthian church as a step in understanding what had happened at the house of Cornelius.

In this post, I want to take a closer look at this text and relate it more directly to John’s statement that the coming Messiah would baptize you with or in the Holy Spirit.

BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (4): Cornelius

As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as He had come on us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said: “John baptized with wter, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” So if God gave them the same gift as He gave us, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God? – Peter, Acts 11:15-17

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. – Acts 10:44-46

The traditional understanding in the Church of Christ about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and here at the home of Cornelius, a Gentile Roman centurion, is somewhat confused.

HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM (3): THE GREAT COMMISSION AND PENTECOST

The Day of Pentecost

Pentecost after the Resurrection of Jesus was a pivotal day in the relationship of men to the Deity. The ascended Christ poured out His Spirit upon all flesh, and nothing is as it was before.

Prior to that day, Jesus had said to His chosen apostles:

(2) BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT & FIRE

Context is important when looking at Scripture. Who is speaking? To whom does he speak? What are the circumstances in which he spoke? Accordingly, I suggest we look first at the context of those passages in which John spoke of one coming after him who would baptize in the Holy Spirit and in fire.

Context

There are four passages where John said the one coming would baptize with (or in) the Holy Spirit, one in each of the four gospels.

(1) BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT – Introduction

There is a great deal of confusion about the baptism of the Holy Spirit in Churches of Christ. Most of our theology of the Spirit has come in reaction to others, not from a comprehensive study of the Scriptures ourselves.

We reacted against the Calvinist “direct operation” position in the early days of the Restoration Movement. Our emphasis then on the importance of faith coming by hearing the Word of God made many of us virtually put the Holy Spirit into retirement when the New Testament was complete.

In later years, we have reacted against the excesses of the charismatic Pentecostal movement

QUESTION: re Worship & Baptism in Spirit

Can a person praise God without having the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

Jesus spoke to the woman at the well about true worship, or praise, to God.

A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. – John 4:23-24.

In the chapter just before this important conversation, there was another important conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. There, Jesus told this Jewish leader about the new birth. When he asked how a man can be born when he is old, Jesus replied:

I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ – John 3:5-7.

I do not think these two conversations about a spiritual birth and spiritual worship are one right after the other by coincidence. The context of each includes the other. Spiritual worship follows the spiritual birth as naturally as being a member of a family follows being born into it.

Of course, your question is not whether one who has been baptized in the Holy Spirit can praise (worship) God, but whether having been baptized in the Spirit is required before one can worship God.

Note that God seeks worshipers who can worship in spirit and in truth. It is those who are born again or water and the Spirit who are spirit, and not just flesh. These are the worshipers God seeks. He wants them to become “spirit” by being born of water and Spirit.

Examples of this are in Philippians 3:3 and Revelation 1:10. In Philippians, Paul declared, “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh.”

In Revelation, John declared, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.” While we might find nuances of difference in these and Jesus’ statement in John 4 about true worship, I believe these are all in essence the same.

There is no doubt that this is the norm. But, does God accept worship from people who have not been born of the Spirit?

Throughout the entire Old Testament, men praised God – but the New Birth is not in the Old Testament. It is introduced by Jesus in the New Covenant where we have a new relationship to God in Christ as we live in Him empowered by the Spirit of God, whom God gives to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32).

I think of at least two people, though, in the New Testament who were praying to God before they received the Holy Spirit: Saul of Tarsus, after he saw the Lord on the Damascus Road, and Cornelius, the devout Gentile soldier.

In Acts 9, Saul had received warrants from the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem to go to Damascus to find Christian Jews to arrest and bring back to Jerusalem. On the road, Jesus appeared to him in a blinding light. When Saul realized who this was, he asked, “What shall I do, Lord?” (see Acts 22:10 where Saul, then known as Paul, retold this story years later). The Lord told him to go on into the city where he would be told what he must do. His companions led him into the city (for he was blind) where he prayed for three days as he waited to be told what to do. At the end of the three days, a disciple of Jesus named Ananias was sent to him and said:

Brother Saul, the Lord – Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here – has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized (Acts 9:17-18).

As Saul told the story, Ananias had said to him, “And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). In answering a question by the Jews who had killed Jesus, in Acts 2:38 Peter had said,

Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Ananias came to Saul that he might receive the Holy Spirit; he told him to be baptized, calling on the name of the Lord, to wash his sins away. Peter promised that those who were baptized in the name of the Lord for the forgiveness of sins would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So Ananias told Saul just what Peter had told the people on the Day of Pentecost. In each instance, praise to God and glorification of His Son followed (see Acts 2:47 & 9:19-20).

In Acts 10, an angel came to a devout, God-fearing Gentile man named Cornelius as he was praying. He told him to send for Peter who would tell him how he and his household could be saved (cf. Acts 11:14). When Peter arrived at the home of Cornelius, he preached the good news of Jesus to all who were there, the Holy Spirit fell on them, and they were baptized at the command of Peter.

Saul of Tarsus and Cornelius were both praying before they received the Holy Spirit. Were they praising God in their prayers? We do not know the specific content of those prayers. Did they include praise? My guess would be that they did. Saul’s prayer would likely have been similar to that of the tax collector in Jesus’ parable in Luke 18:9-14, who prayed, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” To look to God as the source of salvation and redemption is certainly one form of praise. As a God-fearing man, Cornelius praised God, not only in his prayers, but also in his deeds for “he gave generously to those in need” along with his regular prayers. Everything about what we are told of this man suggests that he was one who praised God.

But did you notice something about these two? God caused each of them to come to know His Son through whom we are saved, born again, and find our new relationship to God in the Spirit. He did not leave them without Christ and without the Spirit.

Jesus has promised that those who seek will find (Matthew 7:7). One who praises God without the Spirit is one who is seeking God. God will provide a way for such a person to come to know Him and to find fellowship with Him in His Son through the Holy Spirit – for God is seeking those who seek Him.

I hope these thoughts will be of some assistance to you in your journey with God.