A Miracle of Hearing on the Day of Pentecost?

This article is part of my resource titled: An In-Depth Study of the Nature, Purpose, and Duration of Tongues.

There are some who suppose that two miracles occurred on the day of Pentecost: one of speaking, the other of hearing. The idea seems to be that the apostles supernaturally spoke in one non-human language and that the crowds supernaturally heard that language as their own native one. At the heart of this argument is the unwavering commitment to the theory that tongues were not actual human languages as can be seen by the observation of the fact that the only proponents of this hypothesis are those who practice speaking in private prayer languages today. If one were not so ardently committed to this practice then no attempt would be made to explain the events of Pentecost thusly.

But given the agenda of the charismatic, who needs every shred of possible biblical evidence he can find to support his tongue-speaking, it’s easy to see how this theory has developed. Instead of allowing the text to speak for itself, additional elements are added to the text so as to make it appear sympathetic to their persuasion. As we’ll see from the following arguments, however, the Bible is clear that on the day of Pentecost one miracle took place and that was the miracle of the apostles being supernaturally enabled to speak the languages of the foreigners who were then present at Jerusalem.

In this lesson we’ll address the claim made by the charismatic that the crowds were supernaturally enabled to hear a single, non-human language as their own.

The Heart of the Issue

When boiled down to its most basic level, this theory is really an argument for the nature of tongues. If the apostles spoke in a single heavenly language on the day of Pentecost then it must support the idea of contemporary believers speaking in their own individual prayer languages. The goal of the argument then is to provide support for the claim that tongues were not real human languages but non-human languages, giving way for modern tongue-speakers to continue in their practice with the illusion that Scripture supports them.

While this argument may seem plausible at first glance, a deeper look into it will give us all the evidence we need to deem it unbiblical.

Was the Crowd Empowered by the Spirit?

The first question we have to ask when engaging with this theory is, “Did the Spirit supernaturally enable the crowds to hear a single language as their own native one?”. Given the ardency with which this view is propagated, we should expect to find definitive proof that such is the case. However, when we examine the passage in its entirety, we find that the only verses which could possibly support this theory, do so on inference. 

After the apostles “spoke in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4) the crowd was “bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language” (Acts 2:6). They then asked, “how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?” (Acts 2:8). And finally they exclaimed, “we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11). The fact that the crowds heard the apostles speaking to them in their native languages could be taken either way. Did the apostles actually speak in the languages of the foreigners present or did they speak a heavenly language that the crowd miraculously heard as their own?

One observation we should make here is that nowhere in the passage does the text say anything about the crowds being enabled by the Holy Spirit to do or hear anything. At this point the Holy Spirit is completely detached from the crowd. In fact, they can’t even comprehend what’s going on and it’s only later, after Peter preaches to them, that the Holy Spirit is even mentioned in connection to them. After his sermon the crowd was “cut to heart” and asked, “Brothers, what shall we do?”. To which Peter responded, “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” (Acts 2:37-39).

Are we to assume that the Holy Spirit gave an unbelieving crowd a supernatural ability prior to their conversion? Gifts of the Spirit are for those who have obtained the Spirit through faith in Christ. They’re never given pre-conversion. This can be clearly seen by the apostles’ ability to speak in tongues only after they had been filled with the Spirit.

Furthermore, in Acts 2:4 we read that “they [the apostles] were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” The only people the Spirit is said to have empowered are the apostles themselves. Does this not argue against the theory in question? We have definitive proof that the apostles were enabled by the Spirit, we have only a notion that the crowd was.

The Cause of the Crowds Astonishment

As previously mentioned, Acts 2 records the crowds testimony of having heard the words of the apostles in their own language. 

• Acts 2:6 – “And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.”
• Acts 2:8 – “And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language?”
• Acts 2:11 – “…we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

Some focus on the words hear and hearing in these verses so as to make the claim that Luke, the author of Acts, is placing emphasis on the crowds ability to supernaturally hear the apostles words as their own native language as opposed to the theory that the apostles were indeed speaking those languages. But what else could the crowd have said? In either scenario they recognized the speech of the apostles as being their own native language so the only way to express that is to say what they said. It’s not as though their testimony can only be taken to mean that they had received a supernatural gift of hearing from the Holy Spirit.

One proponent of this theory stated the following to me in support of this position:

The fact that in Acts ch. 2 it is repeated three times that the men in the crowd inquired of each other how they were hearing the believers speak in their native languages indicates that the Word is using this threefold repetition to direct our attention to the what the men in the crowd were experiencing more so than what the believers were experiencing. Otherwise it would only be written once. The Word directs us to a deeper meaning of what is written there than what it appears to say by repeating it three times.

Indeed, the focus is on “what the men in the crowd were experiencing” but the fact that their testimony is recorded three times doesn’t necessarily correlate to their having been given the supernatural ability to hear the apostles’ heavenly language as their own. The crowd was experiencing something amazing but it wasn’t something imparted unto them by the Holy Spirit. The apostles received the Holy Spirit and were enabled by it to supernaturally speak the languages of those present. Those foreigners being present in Jerusalem provided the occasion for the gift of tongues to operate. They were the beneficiaries of the miracle of tongues being given to the apostles, but they were not the recipients of any such miracle themselves.

Furthermore, the crowd points to the fact that those who spoke to them were Galilean. In Acts 2:7 we read, “And they were amazed and astonished, saying, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?” (Acts 2:7). Their astonishment was not caused by their newfound ability to hear heavenly languages as their own native ones but the fact that Galileans who, by their estimation should not have known the languages and dialects with which they spoke, spoke them perfectly.

If tongues on the day of Pentecost were non-human languages then it wouldn’t have mattered where those who spoke them were from. It would have been an irrelevant point to make. But the fact that the crowd pointed out that those who spoke were Galilean further suggests that their amazement stemmed from the apostles’ ability to speak their native languages so fluently.

Tongues Aren’t Exclusive to Christianity

We should also consider the fact that speaking in tongues is not a phenomenon exclusive to Christianity, nor is it a practice that stemmed from it. Prior to the day of Pentecost, other religions made use of this practice. Their tongues, however, are mostly said to have been random sounds and syllables uttered during a state of ecstasy. In other words, they weren’t real languages. They may have been strung together in the form of such but they were unintelligible, much like the individual prayer languages passed off as tongues in the charismatic church today.

This being the case, why would God give a gift that so closely resembles a pagan practice? Why would God not somehow distinguish His gift of tongues from those practiced by other religions? This is, in fact, exactly what God did. In that Biblical tongues are real human languages they stand apart from the ecstatic utterances produced by pagan worshipers. The idea that, on the day of Pentecost, God gave His apostles the ability to speak in tongues which were identical to those practiced in other religions is to dumb down the gift and remove from it its miraculous nature. It’s easy to see the miraculous nature of tongues when we understand them to be real human languages supernaturally spoken by people who have no former understanding of them. Incoherent babble uttered during a state of ecstasy, however, has no miraculous value.

Biblical Tongues are Real Human Languages

Finally, we should point out the evidence which stands in support of tongues being real human languages so as to further disprove the theory that tongues were heavenly languages and that a miracle of hearing was bestowed upon the crowd. Here are several arguments in support of this position:

1. The Greek word used for “tongues” is glossa and it means the tongue, as in the physical organ of speech, or a language, as in real human languages. Nowhere in its 50 occurrences in the New Testament is glossa used to depict non-human speech. Furthermore, its used interchangeably with dialektos, which is another Greek word for human languages. Being that neither of the Greek words used in connection to tongues has any correlation to non-human languages, tongues in the Bible cannot refer to non-human speech.

2. The fact that the crowds mention hearing the apostles speaking to them in their own native language, and the miracle of Pentecost was one of speech, it should be understood that the apostles were, indeed, supernaturally speaking foreign languages which they weren’t previously familiar with.

3. Paul equates tongues to real human languages in 1 Corinthians 14:21 when he references Isaiah 28:11. The Greek word used for “strange tongues” in Isaiah 28:11 is heteroglóssos and it means of another tongue or language. In other words, a foreign language. The original passage in Isaiah supports this. In context, the passage refers to a point in time during which Israel would be judged and subsequently ruled over by people whose language they didn’t understand. The tongues Paul speaks of in his day were to serve as a sign to the unbelieving Jews just as the foreign tongues in Isaiah’s day served as a sign of God’s judgment.

4. Supernaturally speaking in real foreign human languages constitutes a divine miracle whereas speaking in a “heavenly language” does not.

5. Linguistically, the phraseology used to describe tongues in Paul’s writing are the same as those used in Luke’s. Being that Luke was a companion of Paul, wrote Acts after Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, and used the same terminology as Paul did when writing about tongues, it stands to reason that Luke understood tongues to be real human languages which is why he makes mention of the men from various different nations gathered at Jerusalem who heard the apostles speaking to them in their own native languages.

In Conclusion

The record of Acts 2 says nothing of the crowds being able to supernaturally hear as the Spirit gave them the ability. This alone should be all the evidence we need to disprove the theory in question. However, given the fact that most people who speak in tongues base their practice on proof texts, we should not hope that the lack of this mention would be enough to persuade even the most unsure of them. For this reason we have discussed the matter at length so as to provide ample proof in support of our position. 

The sole miracle which took place on the day of Pentecost was one of speech. The apostles were promised the gift of the Holy Spirit and that they would be “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). The sign of tongues which emanated from that infilling was proof that the promise had been fulfilled. They were the ones upon whom a miracle was bestowed and the crowd which was gathered was the beneficiary of that miracle having heard the apostles telling them in their “own tongues the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11), which subsequently led to their salvation.