The Holy Spirit – Part 1:
Do I Have to Speak in Tongues?
Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. (John 14:17)
Perhaps it was just hours before Jesus' arrest in the garden. He had explained to His disciplines that the Spirit that He operated by, had been living with them in the person of Jesus. Now a great change was coming. Jesus was going to physically leave them and this Spirit from God was going to be living within them. Any talk of their Master's departure from them was the saddest news possible. To their complete disagreement, Jesus told them it was actually going to be to their great advantage to have things this way. They did not believe it. They did not agree with it. However, Jesus made a pronouncement and, like everything else He said, it was going to happen whether or not anyone understood it or believed it. And the disciples were going to take part in this tremendous event in the very near future.
Jesus was arrested, crucified, and buried. These are events that are so important, but it is what happened shortly after His resurrection that I want to point to. At evening on the first day of the week, the newly resurrected Christ appeared to His disciples.
...(Jesus) breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: (John 20:22)
It seems that one of the first things Jesus did after coming out of the grave was to announce that the Holy Spirit had now come to dwell inside the believer. It almost seems that the Father and the Son were anxious to make their home inside of men and women who trusted that Jesus was truly raised from the dead.
Every believer has the Holy Spirit (or so everyone claims).
…Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. (Rom 8:9)
This is a backdoor way of saying that every one of Jesus true believers has the Holy Spirit within themselves. Most of Christianity claims to have the Holy Spirit indwelling them solely upon the fact that they trust in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. At least, that is what is claimed.
Paul says,
But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.(I Cor 6:17)
If, or since, (so everyone claims) we have the Spirit or God within us, then our human spirit has been reborn by God (so everyone claims) and is joined intimately to Him. Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (so everyone claims) says,
For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth...(I Cor 14:14) Some will ask, Is that in the Bible?
What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also. (I Cor 14:15)
There was a charismatic/Pentecostal man teaching a class. Most all of his students were Christians but of a non-charismatic persuasion. As such, they would often challenge his doctrinal position on unknown tongues. At times he would say to the belligerent student, “Stand up and speak in tongues”. Usually they would begin speaking in a language that was unknown to them. None would be as surprised as the student himself.
Paul says four times in I Cor 14:15 that “I will”. Many Christians today say, “I will not!” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue.
Goodnight, folks.
But if this article were to continue, we might be have to be honest enough to admit there is a great disconnect with what we say we believe and what we actually do believe. None of us is perfect in this regard. Hopefully though, we will strive to consider God as true and every man is a liar (by comparison), His communication to us through the Scriptures is faithful, and He does not have “filler” in His Book just to take up space. He means what He says to us (we living in the Day of Grace) in the writings of Paul.
What have we seen so far?:
Every true believer in the resurrection of Jesus has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them.
His Spirit is joined with our spirit as to make the two into one spirit.
If we allow His/our Spirit to pray, it will be manifest in a language we cannot understand.
All this is based upon our trust in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus and nothing else. In other words, anyone can speak by the Spirit in unknown languages if they are a Christian.
But what is the Baptism of the Spirit and what about seeming anomalies? This will be covered in the remaining parts, especially Parts 2 and 4.