Is there a heavenly language? What language will we speak in heaven?

Likewise tongues, originally the result of man’s sin at Babel, will cease for Divine love will triumph, and only one tongue will be its vehicle in eternity.

About two thousand years after the confusion at Babel, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, came into the world to die for sinful men. He was raised again from the dead; and after forty days He went back to Heaven. Ten days later, those who believed in the Lord Jesus were together in one place: suddenly God sent His Holy Spirit from Heaven, and they were able to speak in other languages. There were people from all over the world there, who were all greatly surprised to hear them by the Holy Spirit speaking in the native language of each one. They said. How is it? At Babel it was God's great power that scattered. Now it is God's great power that makes them all able to understand and hear the good news of Salvation. In Heaven, we shall use only one language. Each will understand the other because there all will have been born again into one great family. Are you of the family of Heaven?

But there are themes in heaven that we cannot hear or understand in this earthly, mortal condition, and these things Paul heard, but could not communicate. And not until we are clothed upon with our house which is from heaven shall we be able to enter into them; then they will become the subjects of our conversation. We shall not then hear, and speak, and know in a partial way, as 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 tells us. All that is imperfect, and belongs to our present state of mortality, will be swept away by the power of immortality, and heaven's language will become our familiar tongue, and we shall have the unfettered capacity to enter into the full life of all that is expressed by it. Wonderful prospect! Glories too bright for mortal eyes shall pass before our ransomed vision, and as glory flows on glory throughout the generations of the ages, as now grace flows upon grace, we shall speak a language that will express our full appreciation of if all. No more with lisping, stammering tongues," but our whole beings strung and tuned by Divine power to bless, and praise, and worship God our Father and His Christ.

But there are themes in heaven that we cannot hear or understand in this earthly, mortal condition, and these things Paul heard, but could not communicate. And not until we are clothed upon with our house which is from heaven shall we be able to enter into them; then they will become the subjects of our conversation. We shall not then hear, and speak, and know in a partial way, as 1 Corinthians 13:9-12 tells us. All that is imperfect, and belongs to our present state of mortality, will be swept away by the power of immortality, and heaven's language will become our familiar tongue, and we shall have the unfettered capacity to enter into the full life of all that is expressed by it. Wonderful prospect! Glories too bright for mortal eyes shall pass before our ransomed vision, and as glory flows on glory throughout the generations of the ages, as now grace flows upon grace, we shall speak a language that will express our full appreciation of if all. No more with lisping, stammering tongues,” but our whole beings strung and tuned by Divine power to bless, and praise, and worship God our Father and His Christ.

Well, the apostle was caught up to the third heaven, and what did he hear? He says, I cannot declare what I heard; I heard unspeakable, or ineffable, words in the home of God; not the language of man, but the tongue of heaven in that home of God. Can we doubt that he heard divine communications of which we have been speaking? What else could it be? In the home of God, He must be the Speaker, and in the language of that place. Could the apostle find words in our language to express the fulness of that fellowship? Nay; that was impossible for a man to express.

It is necessary, in order to clear the ground a little, to call the reader's attention to a great marvel; namely, that God should be pleased to address men in human language at all. The spirit of a man knows the things of a man (1 Cor. 2:11); but here we are in communication with GOD, and in connection with that which is confessedly inscrutable. How incomprehensibly great is God! Our curiosity may lead us to wonder in what language He speaks to the angels, or what language we shall ourselves speak in the eternal state. But we can gather that God's desire is to speak to us in ordinary language in this world. It was for this reason on the day of Pentecost, when many languages were represented in Jerusalem, that the gift of tongues was bestowed, to allow people to hear in their own dialects the wonderful works of God (Acts 2:8). Actually the Bible as first given, was in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. These tongues were used of God, not because they were the study of any priestly class or religious order, but because they were the common languages current at the time the Scriptures were given, and among the people to whom they were given.

But what about angels-what language do they speak? If we suppose that they have a separate tongue, as some have deduced from 1 Corinthians 13: 1, we may be sure that they would have only one language. Which of the angels were judged by God at the plain of Shinar? It was only fallen mankind who could conceive the notion of building "a tower whose top may reach unto heaven;... lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (Gen. 11: 4). Clearly, angels did not need to reach unto heaven and neither were they judged with confusion of their tongue! But are we sure they do not speak another language? Reflect a little on their purpose. The word ev-angel-ist has at its root the word angel, meaning messenger. Angels are messengers. Their task was to bring messages from God to men and women.

But what about angels — what language do they speak? If we suppose that they have a separate tongue, as some have deduced from 1 Corinthians 13:1, we may be sure that they would have only one language. Which of the angels were judged by God at the plain of Shinar? It was only fallen mankind who could conceive the notion of building “a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; … lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Gen. 11:4). Clearly, angels did not need to reach unto heaven and neither were they judged with confusion of their tongue! But are we sure they do not speak another language? Reflect a little on their purpose. The word ev-angel-ist has at its root the word angel, meaning messenger. Angels are messengers. Their task was to bring messages from God to men and women.

And then, as we said, glory comes in after judgment. Some features of millennial blessedness are presented to us. It is told us, that with one life or language the nations of that kingdom, "the world to come," shall worship the Lord the God of Israel. The confusion of Babel shall be at an end; a sample of which was given at the Pentecost of Acts 3. The distant parts of the earth, those beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, shall take part in the common acknowledgement of the Saviour-God of Israel. Israel shall be purified, saved from all fear of evil any more, and be glad with all the heart, because the Lord their God is in the midst of them.

Is this not the foreshadowing of the glorious day when the Hebrew tongue shall swell the praises of Jehovah from multitudes of lips?