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Romans 8.26—towards a theology of glossolalia?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

A. J. M. Wedderburn
A. J. M. Wedderburn
Affiliation:
St. Mary's CollegeSt. Andrews, Fife
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Extract

Traditionally Romans 8.26 has been a text to which at least some Pentecostals have appealed as scriptural support for the practice of speaking in tongues. However, this interpretation has by no means found favour with all commentators: Adolf Schlatter explicitly denies it, arguing that (a) the powerlessness that is described here is not an affliction peculiar to a few individuals but is the mark of all Christian prayer, whereas speaking with tongues is considered by Paul to be a gift given to certain individuals only, (b) it is a gift of thanksgiving and of singing of God's secrets, not of groaning, and (c) it is not ‘unspeakable’, for some interpreted it.2 Rather, he argues, the groaning here is wordless, but yet intercessory. Many commentators share Schlatter's view that Paul's language here does not fit the phenomenon of glossolalia: so Dodd refers to an ‘inarticulate aspiration’ that expresses itself in ‘sighs that are beyond words’, and Barrett explicitly prefers to see here a reference to an immediate communion between the ‘Spirit (-filled worshipper) and God’ which needs no spoken word.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , August 1975 , pp. 369 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1975

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References

page 369 note 1 Cf. Hollenweger, W. J., The Pentecostals (London, 1972), pp. 342fGoogle Scholar, Kildahl, J. P., The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues (London, 1972), p. 83.Google Scholar

page 369 note 2 Gottes Gerechtigkeit: ein Kommentar zum Romerbrief, Stuttgart (1959 3), p. 280Google Scholar; cf. also Siber, P., Mit Christus leben: eine Studie zur paulinischen Auferstehtmgshoffnung, ATANT, lxi (Zurich, 1971), p. 166, n. 212Google Scholar: he adds that glossolalia is occasional, not a permanent condition, and that it is not intercessory.

page 369 note 3 In Käsemann, E., Perspectives on Paul (London, 1971), pp. 122–137Google Scholar (E.T. of an article which first appeared in 1964 in Apophoreta, the Festschrift for Haenchen, E., pp. 142–55, reprinted in Paulinische Perspektiven (Tübingen, 1969), pp. 211–236)Google Scholar; now supplemented in his commentary An die Rōmer, HNT, viiia (Tübingen, 1974 2), pp. 229–231Google Scholar. Cf. also among more recent writers Cullmann, O., Salvation in History (London, 1967), p. 256Google Scholar, and Balz, H. R., Heilsvertrauen und Welterfahrung: Strukturen der paulinischen Eschatologie nach Römer 8, 18–39, Beitr. Ev. Theol. lix (München, 1971). pp. 79f.Google Scholar

page 370 note 1 p. 229.

page 370 note 2 Perspectives, p 129.

page 370 note 3 ibid.

page 370 note 4 ibid., p. 130.

page 370 note 5 ibid., p. 131.

page 371 note 1 ibid., p. 132.

page 371 note 2 Perspektiven, p. 231, my translation.

page 371 note 3 Coram., p. 231.

page 371 note 4 Perspectivesv, p 135.

page 371 note 5 Comm., p. 231.

page 372 note 1 At least in the case of unaussprechlich which is the word that Käsemann mainly uses.

page 372 note 2 A closer parallel would be the phrase (used parallel to in Ps.-Athanasius); cf. Balz, op. cit., p. 79, n. 133.

page 372 note 3 So N.E.B. and, most recently, Barrett, C. K. in his commentary ad loc. (Black's NT Comms., 1973).Google Scholar

page 373 note 1 Cf. Balz, op. cit., p. 80; he cites I Cor. I4.2 and seems to envisage that it might mean that no one hears the person speaking in tongues, although, rightly, he goes on to interpret it as meaning that no one hears him and understands what is being said; clearly the context is that of public worship. See too Hollenweger, op. cit., p. 342.

page 373 note 2 So Balz, op. cit., p. 79, n. 133; but ‘speaking worthless things’ is not quite what is meant here.

page 374 note 1 The distinction often drawn between public and private speaking in tongues (cf. Hollenweger, op. cit., p. 34a) should not be pressed too far: there is no indication in 1 Cor. 14 that Paul regarded public utterances as any more a recognisable language than glossolalia in private prayer; both were speaking in a tongue and the only difference lay in the audience.

page 374 note 2 Cf. Samarin, W. J., Tongues of Men and of Angels: the Religious Language of Pentecostalism (New York/London), 1972, especially pp. 162–173.Google Scholar

page 374 note 3 This may be the explanation of phenomena like that which Hollenweger (op. cit., pp. 3f) describes at the start of his book, where someone hears himself addressed by a glossolalist in a foreign language which he knows.

page 374 note 4 Cf. Samarin, op. cit., pp. 115–18.

page 374 note 5 Cf. ibid., pp. 129–49.

page 375 note 1 Kildahl, op. cit., pp. 57f, also claims that in one survey 85 per cent of cases of glossolalia were preceded by anxiety crises and 87 per cent in his own study; see also the views of Lapsley and Simpson which he quotes on p. 29.

page 375 note 2 Cf. Kildahl, op. cit., pp. 40, 45f.

page 376 note 1 So Kildahl, op. cit., p. 55.

page 376 note 2 ibid., pp. 40, 54.

page 376 note 3 A similar danger may lie behind the idea of glossolalia as a skill (cf. Samarin, op. cit., p. 69) or as something to be manipulated; it is then no more or less spiritual than any other psychological technique. If used, however, as an ability that can be used to impress others it becomes a form of boasting in one's own religiosity.