What language does God speak?

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.

Nobody doubts that scripture without exception has a human element. In it God speaks and writes permanently to man, and therefore in human language. It were unintelligible otherwise. As the general rule Hebrew was employed in the so-called O.T., Greek in the New. We can readily perceive His wisdom in thus writing by man to man (Deut. 5:22, Deut. 9:10, Deut. 10:4), save in the most solemnly exceptional case: the law with all its variety of meaning in the language of His ancient people; the gospel with all the fulness of grace and truth in the chief tongue of the Gentiles.

In Genesis 11 divided tongues were sent in judgment. In Acts 2 divided tongues were sent in grace. The blessed God of all grace would cause each one to hear of full salvation, and hear of it in those very words in which his infant ears had hearkened to the earliest whisperings of a mother's love — in “his own tongue wherein he was born.” It mattered not whether the language were soft or harsh, refined or barbarous, the Holy Spirit would use it as the vehicle for conveying the precious message of salvation right home to the poor heart. If divided tongues had once been given to scatter in judgment, they were again given to gather in grace — not now around an earthly tower, but around a heavenly Christ — not for the exaltation of man, but for the glory of God.

It is worthy of notice that when God was giving the law from Mount Sinai, He spoke only in one tongue and to one people. The law was carefully wrapped up in one language and deposited in the midst of one nation. Not so the gospel. When that was the burden, God the Holy Spirit Himself descended from heaven in cloven tongues to send the soul-stirring tidings far and wide over the whole world and convey them “to every creature under heaven” in the very dialect wherein he was born. This is a great moral fact. It comes down upon the heart with uncommon weight and power. When God was speaking in terms of requirement and prohibition, He confined Himself to one language, but when He was publishing the message of life and salvation, pardon and peace through the blood of the Lamb, He spoke in every language under heaven. When man's duty was to be declared, God spoke in one dialect, but when God's salvation was to be published, He spoke in every dialect under heaven.

Reader, is not this a telling fact? It will perhaps be said that those who heard Peter and the rest on the day of Pentecost, were Jews. Well, that in no wise robs our fact of its charm, its sweetness, and its power. Our fact is that when the eternal Spirit descended from heaven, to tell of the resurrection of Christ, to tell of accomplished redemption — to publish the glad tidings of salvation — to preach repentance and remission of sins — He did not confine Himself to one language, but spoke in every dialect under heaven!

And why? Because He desired to make man understand what He had to say to him — He desired to reach his heart with the sweet tidings of redeeming love — the soul-stirring message of full remission of sins. When the law was to be given — when Jehovah had to speak to man about his duty — when He had to address him in such terms as, "Thou shalt do this, and thou shalt not do that," He confined Himself to one solitary language. But when He would unfold the precious secret of His love — when He would prove to man that He was for him, He, blessed for ever be His name, took care to speak in every language under heaven, so that every man might hear, in his own dialect wherein he was born, the wonderful works of God.

Let the reader turn to the second chapter of the Acts. "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 to 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 Galileans? 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."

Here then we mark one special fact — a fact of deepest interest — three times referred to in the foregoing quotation. It is this, the Holy Ghost came down to speak to every man "in his own dialect" — not the dialect in which he was educated merely, but "in which he was born" — the very dialect in which his mother first whispered into his infant ears, the sweet and tender accents of a mother's love. Such was the medium, such the vehicle which the divine Messenger adopted for the blessed purpose of making known to man that God was for us. He did not speak to the Hebrew in Greek, or to the Greek in Latin. He spoke to each one in the language which he understood, in the plain vernacular — the mother tongue. If there was any peculiarity in that mother tongue, any idiom, any provincialism in the dialect of each, the blessed Spirit would make use of it for the purpose of reaching the heart with the sweet story of grace.

Contrast with this the giving of the law from Mount Sinai. There Jehovah confined Himself absolutely to one language. If persons had been gathered there "from every nation under heaven," they would not have understood a single syllable. The law — the ten words — the record of man's duty to God and to his neighbour was sedulously wrapped up in one tongue. But when "the wonderful works of God" were to be published — when the blessed story of love was to be told out when the heart of God towards poor guilty sinners was to be revealed, was one language enough? No, "Every nation under heaven" must hear. and hear, too, in their own very mother tongue.

True, He called on man to judge himself, to repent, to take his only true and proper place. Why not? How could it be otherwise? Repentance is — as we have already fully shown and earnestly insisted upon in these papers — a universal and abiding necessity for man. But the Spirit of God came down to speak face to face with man, to tell him in his own mother tongue of the wonderful works of God. He did not speak to a Hebrew in Latin, or a Roman in Greek; but He spoke to each in the very dialect in which he was born, thus proving to a demonstration — proving in the most affecting manner possible — that it was God's gracious desire to make His way to man's heart in deepest, richest, fullest grace. All homage to His name!

How different it was when the law was to be published from mount Sinai! If all the nations of the earth had been assembled round that fiery mount, they could not have understood one word — unless, indeed, any one happened to know the Hebrew tongue. The law was addressed to one people, it was wrapped up in one language, it was enclosed in the ark. God took no pains to publish the record of man's duty in every language under Heaven. But when grace was to be published, when the glad tidings of salvation were to be sounded abroad, when testimony was to be borne to a crucified, risen, ascended and coming Saviour and Lord, then, verily, God the Holy Ghost came down, for the purpose of fitting His messengers to speak to every man in a tongue which he could understand.

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.

In Babel, where man had once been of one lip, and one language, God had confounded their pride, and men were shut up into a dissociable condition, used of God for providential purposes, but which set up barriers which precluded common communications. Israel had one of these tongues perhaps, and, probably, the original one; and the true knowledge of God was confined to them. When Christianity came in, power was not yet going to set the world right, but grace was overstepping these barriers, and the over-flowing love of God saluting the heathen where they were, in their darkness and misery, without compelling them to bend their neck under the galling yoke of Judaism. What could be more expressive of this than speaking to every one of them in their own tongue? The barrier was gone — at least God's love had over-stepped it, and visited every heart where it was at I home, where judgment, indeed, on man's pride had placed it. Was there not something most beautifully significant in this? Surely there was. Hence it became a kind of distinctive miracle.

We sometimes wonder how language first came into existence. One can only come to the conclusion that at first it was the miraculous gift of a beneficent Creator to our first parents. Was it the Hebrew language? We cannot tell.

Again, we would call attention to the languages chosen, by which to convey the thoughts of God, as an additional proof that what was written, and so carefully selected, was for man's use and guidance. In Hebrew, Chaldee, and Greek, has the Spirit of God been pleased to write. He spake by the disciples, on the day of Pentecost, in many different tongues. In three only has He written what, it pleased God we should be acquainted with. To them must we turn, if we would learn the exact sayings of the Spirit about the Son of God, about man, about the world, the final destiny of the human race, and the earth on which we tread. And each of these languages, when employed, was just the best medium that could have been found, by which to publish far and wide the acts and purposes of God. Hebrew, the language of Palestine, as the names of places and people, before Israel possessed it, indicate the adopted language of Abraham and his descendants, as the difference between the language of Jacob and that of Laban, the Mesopotamian, clearly shows (Gen. 31:47.) Hebrew was also the language of commerce, the Phoenicians being the great carriers of the world in their days. Westward, along the Mediterranean to the far off Islands of the Cassiterides they penetrated, Eastward, down the Red Sea, along the Eastern Coast of Africa, and to India they found their way. The navies of Solomon, too, in the days of Israel's greatest glory, went to Ophir. By such means, the knowledge of the Hebrew tongue must have been extended beyond the confines of Canaan, and so an opportunity have been afforded of letting men, of different nations, speaking languages of different families from the Semitic, hear something of the wonders and truth of that God who, was worshipped in such splendour at Jerusalem as Jehovah God of Hosts. How far, through the faithlessness of Israel, this result fell short of what might have been, we have not now to inquire. We have only to do with the fact that God chose this language, in which, for 1100 years, with only a brief interval, He communicated His thoughts to men. Was it a mere accident, as men would say, that Hebrew was the language selected; was it not rather from design? For what other tongue could have answered the end so well? Abraham gave up his native tongue for the language of Canaan; but God was by this preparing for that time, when His word should not only be written on tables of stone, or altars, in Canaan, so that Israel could understand it, but be recorded in that tongue, some knowledge of this must have extended, as names of places to this day testify, wherever the great merchants of Tyre and Sidon penetrated with their wares.