Before men sought to reach the heavens by building a high tower, they all spoke the same language. This is the same language everyone spoke prior to the confounding. Even the angels spoke this language of God! Paul referred to that common language:
1 Corinthians 13:1 "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal."Whenever Paul apparently spoke in "tongues" it was the language the angels spoke. It would seem that heaven has an official language and before the Tower of Babel was built, God, the angels and mankind spoke that one heavenly language. It wasn't an unknown tongue; it was a forgotten language; at least by confused men. Let's recount when things changed for mankind:
Genesis 11:1 "And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech." 6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth."God confounded their speech and language for one reason: it was to restrain them from knowing what God knows. The same issue as when Adam and Eve had in eating the forbidden fruit; it would make them knowledgeable as gods! Since the original language was confounded to prevent men from knowing what God knows, the restoration of that language in apostolic times was to allow Christians to commune with God! The former was because the people sought to commune with God by their own initiative, but the latter was God communing with Christians at his initiative. Confounding toppled the idols of "selfs". Restoring the original language assured the "self" of the reality of God. The former denigrated God; the latter magnified God!
Linguists have never been able to establish the "original language" of mankind. In fact because of the impossibility to "prove" what that language was, science doesn't spend much time on researching. However, the early church father's (those subsequent to the apostles) believed that Hebrew was the original common language, and is the preferred language of God and of the angels. It must be noted that "tongues" research among Pentecostals indicates that they are not speaking Hebrew, nor any known language, although it has the basics of the speakers own language. That is true among the babblings of peoples of pagan religions as well. The common theme is a parallel between the "unknown tongues" of Christians and pagans.
Others say that there was a proto-Canaanite language, one that preceded what the Canaanites spoke. It's likely that whatever language that was, the purity of it has changed with time as has most languages. That's because a world of people whose languages were confounded mingle and corrupt the language of those with whom they associate. Therefore, let's say that the original language is unknown to us and it was unknown to the apostles as well. Although scripture doesn't use the expression "unknown" when referring to "tongues", it's obvious that we don't know that language and neither did the Jews on Pentecost. However, God and the angels knew it!
If we look at messaging in the electronic world, many are encrypted. It's putting messages in code so that only those who have the information to decode can read the message. Decoding is called decrypting. That process makes the message in crypt intelligible only to the ones it's intended!
Before Babel the common language was "pure'. God spoke to his people in a language not coded. Everyone understood! Then with Babel, the common language was encrypted. Each race of the people got their own language. Since, they couldn't understand others, God scattered them so they could be less civilized and astute than what they were before. One of these languages was surely Sumerian. Many peoples of the world have languages and writings strongly influenced by the Sumerians.
In Acts Chapter 2 we find all manner of Jews there from the different nations. They were a cornucopia of confusion... until! Until the Holy Ghost came! At the Tower of Babel God encrypted his word. At Pentecost God decrypted it! Pentecost was an undoing of the confusion of Babel. Confounding was to prevent the peoples of the world from straying from God. The tongues of Pentecost was so that the people could tell the world about God. No, it wasn't to reverse the confusion of languages, but to allow all the people's of the world know the reality of God by speaking, hearing and interpreting God's original tongue! It was never God's intent to have everyone speak a common language again, but to reveal to us that God does have his own language which he decrypts for those who receive him!
The Holy Trinity was always with mankind. God is unchanging, "the same yesterday, today and tomorrow". God the Father is who created it all. Jesus was his voice and his Holy Spirit was with the Hebrew prophets. In fact, God used his own Spirit to conceive his Son called Jesus. In patriarchal times the focus was on God, but the Son and the Spirit were shadows. Let's look at all three as appearing to Moses:
Exodus 3:2 "And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.4 And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. 5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. 6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. Exodus 4:12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say."Note that "THE angel of the Lord" appeared in the flames. This was a particular "angel". It's the same angel who wrestled with Jacob. THE Angel is the pre-incarnate Jesus. Because he spoke to Moses he was "THE Word" (he who was made flesh). The Word in the burning bush spoke. It says "God called to him... Here I am!' Then the angel said "Go, and I will be thy mouth to teach thee what thou shalt say".
Here we have the Father (God who they worshiped), the Son (the angel of the Lord) and the Holy Spirit, the one who would "Comfort Moses, all there together on Holy Ground!
Note that the Lord appeared unto Moses as "a flame of fire". Compare that to how the Holy Spirit appeared to the Jews at Pentecost: The Holy Ghost appeared to them in a cloven tongue as of fire. Just as the flames billowed from the burning bush, the Holy Ghost appeared as "a rushing mighty wind". Moses life was changed at that moment. He had the Holy Ghost with him. Christians changed at Pentecost, they were filled with the Holy Spirit!
Exodus 33:18 "And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. 19 And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. 20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. 21 And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: 22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: 23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen."This incident occurred later between Moses and God. The Son had appeared in the burning bush and Moses looked upon him. Jesus is the face of God. He appeared to men many ways until he was incarnated, then he appeared as a man. After he ascended, Jesus is still with us. It's the same as it was for Moses. The Holy Spirit is the representative of Jesus who lives within those who know him!
Moses was in the presence of the Father, on whom he could not gaze. God is real. He IS and Moses was in the presence of who we call "The Father". It was He from whom emanates both the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Exodus 34:6 And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. 27 And the Lord said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. 28 And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments. 29 And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. 30 And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him."
Two things stand out here. Moses is a type of Jesus. Where Jesus did without food or drink forty days to stand strong against Satan, Moses was with the Lord forty days without nourishment. Jesus did this after he was filled with the Holy Ghost. It's my contention that Moses had the Spirit "on him" as Jesus had at his baptism, but the Spirit was not yet "in him".
On Mt. Sinai The Word gave Moses The Ten Commandments! It was in God's language and Moses understood. It was the Holy Ghost which came upon him at the burning bush. Now he could understand the message The Word gave to him in the "original tongue". Yes, Moses had the Holy Ghost and he could, in my opinion, understand the language of angels, the same language Paul understood!
In Acts Chapter 2 we see that after the coming of the Holy Ghost the people changed! True they too spoke and understood the same language Moses could, and they spoke in God's language. Just like Moses got the Holy Ghost to convince the Jews to be assured of their salvation by escaping the bondage of Egypt, Christians at Pentecost spoke and understood God's language to be assured that God lives within them; the Holy Spirit! How else would they know?
There were 400 years between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Prophecy ceased. There was no overt communion between God and man!
Malachi 4:5 (ESV) “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction."Malachi was the last prophet. The OT ends with a promise of the coming of the Lord who will be announced by John the Baptist, Elijah being the prototype of John. The Holy Ghost had stopped his work. He had been with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and the prophets. He took himself out of communion with mankind because the time was not yet ready. Then we see the Holy Ghost coming again with John the Baptist (An Elijah type) and certainly on Jesus Christ! The Holy Ghost brought forth both John and Jesus. He was with Jesus until Jesus ascended, then he returned when Jesus stayed in heaven!
The Holy Ghost came to comfort Christians in the absence of Jesus. How were they to know? They needed to hear the language of God from the Holy Ghost just as Moses heard! The Holy Ghost had 400 years of rest. Now he was back! He came as a rushing wind and as a flaming fire, just as he appeared to Moses. Moses's change was a radiance about his face. The Christians at Pentecost radiated with understanding other languages. They heard and spoke the original language! But more importantly, the Christian Jews showed love. That's what Jesus is all about!
Did the miracle of tongues remain until the present time? Only God knows. Tongues served their purpose. It was to demonstrate the presence of God to Christians just as to Moses. Moses spread the word. The Holy Ghost was with him when he confronted Pharaoh and his own Jewish people. The Holy Ghost quit speaking for a spell; 400 years. With the return of the Holy Spirit, Christians spread the word! Did he quit speaking after the apostolic age. Pentecostals say "not", I say "yes"; except for those who need signs to believe what Jesus said, just as the Jews needed miracles!
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