Did Jesus ever speak in tongues? The answer is “yes,” he did speak in tongues, that is, if we accept the testimony of Luke. It was in the Book of Acts, written by Luke, where the concept of speaking in tongues is introduced, and where we have documented evidence of the resurrected Jesus himself giving us the example of how tongues operates in the age of his New Covenant church. However, before explaining the one instance when Jesus did speak in tongues that is recorded in the Bible, it is worthwhile to recall the most doctrinally important time when he did not speak in tongues.
That instance occurred when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist, at which time the Holy Spirit descended from heaven and remained on him. Note that Jesus did not speak in tongues as a result of that anointing. If speaking in tongues had been the sign of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, then no doubt Scripture would have recorded that it was so at the time Jesus was baptized. But the Bible does not contain any reference to tongues at the time of Jesus’ baptism, which means that tongues is not a sign of receiving the Holy Spirit. If it had been, Jesus of all people would have exhibited speaking in tongues at his baptism. Today, only someone who considers his or her relationship with the Holy Spirit to be superior to that of Jesus would claim something Jesus did not experience.1
After his ascension to heaven, Luke records that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to indwell believers who were assembled in Jerusalem for the Day of Pentecost in 30 CE. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?” (Acts 2:1-6)
In like manner to Jesus’ baptism, tongues on that first church-age Day of Pentecost in 30 CE was not a sign of receiving the Holy Spirit but was instead an empowerment for sharing the Gospel. It is obvious that the Apostles at that first Pentecost in Jerusalem were speaking known languages to the crowds, since the hearers, who were Jews representing all parts and languages of the Roman Empire who were on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Festival of Weeks/Pentecost, heard what the Apostles were saying in the hearers own home-country language and, more important, could understand what they heard. They were not hearing an unknown tongue. “And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” (Acts 2:8-11)
So, it was the Apostles, who were unlearned Galilean believers, spontaneously speaking to the assembled crowd in known languages (the hearer’s native language) that was the gift of tongues introduced to the church at Pentecost. Note that nowhere in Scripture is the “hearing” of tongues indicated to be a gift of the Spirit given to the hearer. The gift of spontaneously speaking the language of the “foreign” hearer is only given to the speaker, who must be a believer in Jesus who wants to share the Gospel with someone who doesn’t understand the native language of the speaker.
Later in the Book of Acts, Luke records the instance where we have confirmation that Jesus spoke in tongues in the manner described in the above paragraph. In other words, we have Scripture that records an instance of Jesus speaking in a known language so that the person to whom he was speaking could understand the words of Jesus in the hearer’s native tongue.
You are no doubt familiar with Saul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, and that is where the example of Jesus speaking in biblical tongues is provided. “Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” (Acts 26:12-15) Jesus spoke to Saul (aka Paul) in a language he could understand, namely Hebrew, which Paul had undoubtedly used as an everyday language to study the Scriptures as a student of the great rabbi Gamaliel.
What about speaking in tongues done by everyone else in the church? From the testimony in Acts 2, we can see that the gift of speaking in tongues was the act of saved people spontaneously speaking in known languages that they did not previously know so that unsaved people who were visiting Jerusalem for Passover could hear them in their native language, a language that the visitors already understood. No interpreters were necessary for the visitors who already spoke the language they were hearing. It was their native tongue, a known language back where they came from, being spoken. As for the regular members who didn’t understand the visitor’s language, interpreters were necessary for them to be included since they did not understand the foreign language of the visitors that was being spoken to the visitors by someone exercising the gift of tongues.
And what did those who spoke in biblical tongues (known languages) on that Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 speak about? “And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” (Acts 2:7-11)
What about the gift of tongues today? As we learn from Acts, by the time of the latter days in the ministry of the Apostle Paul, tongues had ceased. There is no mention of tongues in the latter chapters of Acts. And, there is no modern instance of tongues being exercised by believers in a way that conforms to the specifications and safeguards described by Paul, namely, the person speaking a tongue is speaking a known language to unsaved people in the audience who can understand that known language, there are interpreters available to independently translate (into the known languages spoken by others in the audience) what is being spoken in the tongue,2 and elders are present who can verify that what is being spoken in the tongue agrees totally with but does not add to the completed canon of Scripture.
For example, imagine you are in a 1st-century church congregation in Italy in which everyone speaks Italian, but there are some Eskimos visiting who speak only their native language, Inuit. Then someone with the gift of tongues gets up and speaks in the Inuit tongue so that the Eskimos hear what is being said in their native language, even though the speaker had never spoken that language before. Since the Italian speakers would not understand the Inuit language, someone would need to be present who could translate the Inuit into Italian so that everyone present would be able to understand what was being proclaimed, and so that the elders could make sure that everything said was in accordance with the Gospel of Jesus.
That’s the way Paul described the gift and use of tongues in the early church.3 It’s purpose was to make sure everyone present could hear and understand the Gospel and teachings of Jesus in their own native language, and that the elders could make sure only the true Gospel of Jesus was being put forth in whatever foreign language was being spoken to visitors. With the advent of the written Scriptures, tongues ceased.
Footnotes
1 My advice is not to listen to such un-Scriptural people.
2 If you are in a church service where modern-day tongues are being spoken, request that two interpreters be present and that they write down their interpretation of the tongues being spoken independently of each other and then compare the two interpretations. If the two don’t agree exactly, then the service is not experiencing biblical tongues. If your request is denied, leave the service as fast as possible.
3 And, of course, when Paul said “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 1), it should be remembered that every instance of angels talking to saints that is recorded in Scripture, both in the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B’rit Hadashah (New Testament), reveals that they were speaking revelation from God but doing so in the hearers native tongue, not in some unknown angelic gibberish that the hearer could not understand.