Christianity a tongue of Fire
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| The Holy Spirit depicted as a dove, surrounded by angels, by Giaquinto, 1750s. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
It was a symbol of their “power,” the power whereby the new kingdom was to be built up; the power for which they had so long to tarry, and so eagerly to pray, when all other things were prepared; for which the whole arrangement of the world’s conversion was commanded to stand still. The appearance of this one symbol was the signal that former ones had waxed old, and were ready to vanish away.
Altar and cherubim, sacrifice and incense, ephod and breastplate, Urim and Thummim—their work was done. Even of the most sacred emblem of all, that which was the “pattern of things in the heavens,” the Ark itself, it had been foretold, “They shall say no more, The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord; neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall it be magnified any more.” Of the temple itself the Master had said, that not one stone shall be left upon another.
All the emblems of the old dispensation were forever superseded. In their room the Lord had appointed only two; and they chosen with a singular aptness at once to suggest ideas, and to avoid image representation:—the water, wherein the mind could see a symbol of the cleansing Spirit, but the eye no attempted likeness: the bread and wine, wherein the body and the blood are forcibly brought to mind, but no personal similitude is set before the eye. These two only were the unartistic emblems which Christ had ordained for His Church. His was to be a religion of the understanding and the heart; wholly resting on the convictions and the principles, building nothing on sense, and permitting nothing to fancy.
In strict keeping with this spiritual stamp of Christianity was the symbol which, once for all, announced to the Church the advent of her conquering power—the power by which she was to stand before Kings, to confound synagogues, to silence councils, to still mobs, to confront the learned, to illuminate the senseless, and to inflame the cold—the power by which, beginning at Jerusalem, where the name of Jesus was a byword, she was to proclaim His glory through all Judea, throughout Samaria, and throughout the uttermost parts of the earth.
The symbol is a TONGUE, the only instrument of the grandest war ever waged: a tongue—man’s speech to his fellow-man; a message in human words to human faculties, from the understanding to the understanding, from the heart to the heart. A tongue of fire—a man’s voice, God’s truth; man’s speech, the Holy Spirit’s inspiration; a human organ, a superhuman power! Not one tongue, but cloven tongues; as the speech of men is various, here we see the Creator taking to Himself the language of every man’s mother; so that in the very words wherein he heard her say, “I love thee,” he might also hear the Father of all say, “I love thee.”
How does that fire-symbol, shining on the brow of the primitive Church, rebuke that system which would force all men to worship God in one tongue, and that not a tongue of fire, but a dead tongue, wherein no man now on earth can hear his mother’s tones! Cloven tongues sat on each of them; so that each had not only the fire-impulse to go and tell aloud the message of reconciliation, but also the fire-token that all mankind, of whatever nation, kindred, people, or tongue, were heirs alike of the Gospel salvation, and of the word whereby that salvation is proclaimed.
Blessed be the hour when that TONGUE OF FIRE descended from the Giver of speech into a cold world! Had it never come, my mother might have led me, when a child, to see slaughter for worship, and I should have taught my little ones that stones were gods. “Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things! And blessed be His glorious name forever: and let the whole earth be filled with His glory! Amen and Amen!”
Arthur, W. (1900). The Tongue of Fire or, The True Power of Christianity (pp. 37–40). New York; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers.
