Tongues

WORD DEFINITIONS
The best way to begin to understand any Biblical topic is to look at word definitions in both the Old/First Covenant and New Covenant scriptures. With respect to the topic of tongues, it is instructive to look at these words:

Hebrew word saphah that is most often translated as lip and language:

  • lip, language, speech, shore, bank, brink, brim, side, edge, border, binding
  • lip (as body p art)
  • language
  • edge, shore, bank (of cup, sea, river, etc)

Hebrew word La`az that is translated as strange language in Psalm 114:1:

  •   speak indistinctly, speak unintelligibly

Greek word Glossa that is translated as tongue in the New Testament:

  • the tongue, a member of the body, an organ of speech
  • a tongue
  • the language or dialect used by a particular people distinct from that of other nations

The conclusions to be taken from these definitions is that tongues or language are typically used as the way of differentiating one nation or country from another. Thus we identify the French by the French language (i.e. tongue), Russians by the Russian language (i.e. tongue), and so on. In the Bible, God uses this convention to differentiate the nation of Israel from all other religious nations. But he does not consider the physical language as the means by which the nation is identified. Rather, it is what that nation says, not the way it says it, that is important to God. And, for God, what someone says is important because speech indicates what is in the heart. This is so because God is always and only concerned with the condition of the heart.

STUDY TIP: See THE HEART IS THE PLACE for understanding of God’s emphasis on the heart.

In God’s view of language, there are only two languages: Old/First Covenant and New Covenant. These two languages represent two very different nations. The Old/First Covenant nation is in the kingdom of Satan, and the New Covenant nation is in the Kingdom of God. God contrasts the extreme difference between the two nations by saying that the Old/First Covenant nation is another world that is as different from his world as clean food is from unclean food. He also differentiates the two nations by calling the Old/First Covenant nation of religion flesh and the New Covenant nation Spirit. These symbolically represent two different nations with that speak with two different tongues (i.e., languages.)

There are many scriptures that contrast the differences between flesh and Spirit. In these we see that the two worlds are so different that the nation of the Old/First Covenant is equated with death, while the nation of the New Covenant is equated with life. The separation between the two nations is also explained as heaven and hell.

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