by Dr. Jay E. Adams

As we have seen, language is not of human origin. Prior to the creation of man, God spoke. We see this, for instance when we read the words, “Let there be light!” Both the power and the source of all language are exhibited in those remarkable words. Language, then is not merely the creation of God; it is also an attribute of God.

Jesus Christ told us that there is some sort of language communication between the persons of the Trinity (John 8:38; 3:32). And of course, God constantly spoke to man verbally and deposited His revelation with us in the form of written books. God’s living revelation to us He called the Word (John 1: 1ff.) because, like a word, Jesus Christ revealed to us what we could not know otherwise.
When we rightly concern ourselves with language, therefore, we involve ourselves in a high and holy task. Created in God’s image, man is the only creature that reflects this important divine activity. Teachers of freshman English classes in Christian colleges would do well to consider this fact and take the time to introduce their students to it in full rather than laboring over the artificial and inaccurate “rules” of grammar (actually, Latin grammar ineptly applied to the English language despite the fact that the two do not fit) that in so many places are still the rage. So far as I am able to discover, no one yet has given us a genuinely English grammar – i.e., one that describes what we actually do when we speak English. But enough of that; back to the origin of language.

We know that Adam was created with a capacity both to speak and to understand speech. But the question arises, did he come prepackaged with a vocabulary and a system of syntax – in short, with language? Or did he develop a language out of his capacity for language?
Of course, we can’t be sure of everything, but there are very strong indications that from the beginning Adam had a full-blown, though rudimentary, language. We do not read anything about God teaching Adam how to speak or of Adam teaching Eve. Yet their ability to communicate with God and the serpent, as well as with one another, is most clearly set forth. Indeed, that ability is assumed. There is no gradual, step-by-step process of gaining language capability or even language proficiency.

To believe that Adam was prepackaged with a language is in accord with the other facts of creation. For instance, it is clear that Adam and Eve were created adults. Just as trees were created trees, not seeds, so too Adam and Eve were from the first adults; they were never babies, children or adolescents. The biblical record of creation solves the old problem: the chicken came before the egg.

So too, Adam, at creation, possessed a basic language that had structure and vocabulary. Doubtless, this vocabulary was limited and in time was to be enriched and amplified as he would explore and subdue the earth. New structures also would be developed to express new discoveries, insights, experiences, shades of meaning, etc. But Adam’s language was plainly a working language through it was not complete. (No language is yet complete!) We know that his language would grow because Adam had not yet named the animals, though he knew the work for animal and probably had to determine names for specific plants and much else. But there can be no question at all that man spoke and understood language from the beginning, because language was used in communicating with God and in naming the animals.

Moreover, for Adam and Eve, language meant the ability to think uniquely. They could reason, worship, remember propositions, promises, and warnings, and in general bear a moral relationship to God. They could receive, interpret and discuss God’s word, as well as classify the particulars in the creation, and (doubtless) they could do many other things because they were language-capable. What a priceless treasure language was!
In all of this, man reflected God and demonstrated the great advantages that language gave him over the animals. Yet, while retaining all of these advantages to some extent, Adam’s sin ruined the image of God. And with that, sin cast its ugly blight upon all of man’s functions – including language. Nothing in his experience and makeup escaped; he became totally depraved so that every part of his life was adversely affected by sin.
It is useless to speculate about the wonderful possibilities man lost in the fall, and about the possibilities language would have afforded a perfect, sinless race. In this life there is no way to know all that was forfeited. But we may await even greater opportunities in the redeemed, glorified state into which every true believer will enter at death. Only then will we begin to see the enormous potential of perfect persons using a perfect language in perfect ways to achieve perfect results. When we read of the “tongues of angels,” we are reminded of these possibilities; but the language potential of man, once he has been redeemed in Christ who is seated at the right hand of the Father in the heavens, is even greater.

We have seen how the devil distorted and misused the great gift of language and how sinful man has followed him in doing so. Here are a few of the sad results of this apostasy of which we should be aware:

1. Man’s ability to use language properly to think, reason, worship and communicate has been seriously impaired.

2. Communication with God was cut off, and accurate, helpful communication with other human beings has been greatly diminished.

3. The creation has been categorized, interpreted and classified in improper and inaccurate ways. Language constructions, terms, phrases, etc., have been formed to excuse man’s sin, to keep him from God and to explain away his miserable state as an unredeemed sinner.

4. Language has been perverted to mislead, to propagate and defend sinful concepts, attitudes and actions, and to further error.

5. There is an inability to understand the right meaning and application of God’s Word (apart from the illumination of the Holy Spirit), while on the other hand, there is a sinful, inborn tendency to see all of life Satan’s way. Language plays a significant role in this phenomenon.

All of these facts are of the utmost importance to Christian counselors. The particular problems of counselees are often the direct results of defects in language usage. Not only must the counselor use language to locate and correct sinful patterns, but there is the added difficulty of having to rely largely on the language of the counselee (affected as it is by sin) to discover what his problems are. Clearly, counselors have a large investment in language; and unless they study it and understand it thoroughly, they will constantly be tripped up by language difficulties in both the analysis of and the solution to problems.

Leonard Bloomfield wrote, “. . . psychologists generally treat language as a side issue” (in Mowrer, “A Psychologist Looks at Language”). Though more concern has been evidenced since those words were written, they are, doubtless, still an accurate description of the situation today. Others may consider language a side issue, but Christian counselors must not. It is at the very core of all they do. In order to understand this better, let’s try to discover some of the functions of language.

LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS

What does language do for us? Why did God share this amazing attribute of His when He created us in His image?

First, language unifies or separates.

The word communication and the words communion, community, all have a common root. Language was given to allow the communion of persons to occur on a deep level that involves sharing, participating in, and directly influencing another’s thinking. Such sharing binds and unites in ways that the mere presence of persons does not. Jesus’ description of a friend (John 15:14, 15) is instructive in this regard. Two elements are involved in friendship:

1. Obedience to commands (action growing out of God’s verbal, written communication to us – v. 14).

2. Willingness to share with another what one is doing (sharing one’s thinking through language – v. 15).
It would be instructive for someone to analyze thoroughly and develop fully an essay, or even a book, on the concept of friendship presented here by Christ.

But back to the main point: language was designed to bind; it bound man to God, Adam to Eve. The animals provided no counterpart to Adam; they were unlike him in many ways – but especially in terms of the means of communications. He simply could not communicate with them by language, the vehicle of thought that sets man apart from the rest of the creation in this world. As Genesis 2:18, 20 points out, that is why Adam was lonely before the creation of Eve. When God mad Eve, Adam called her bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, i.e., someone exactly like him.
But there was a risk in language; man also could become bound to another creature who had language capability. And he did. Listening to the false, damning counsel of Satan, he united himself to the father of lies. Along with that bond came sin, misery, death and all the evils of the curse.

The very purpose of language was perverted. It was designed to bind, but in cementing this forbidden bond, man discovered that language also could separate. It separated man from God, and human being from human being. The separation of man from God was total; the separation of man from man was partial. Though language remained the principal means of intellectual communication between human beings, communication became faulty. Individuals misunderstood and misled one another as language began to be used for all sorts of wrong purposes. Man discovered ways of using language to exalt himself rather than God. Through this cooperation in evil, the human race began to build a tower to heaven, substituted false gods for the true Creator and, as the result, brought upon itself yet another devastating judgment that was aimed at the very uniting power of language.

God was infuriated by man’s proud attempt to usurp His power and position. So He struck mankind at the point of cohesion: He confounded our language! Ever since, the unity of the human race has been an impossibility. A common language binds together while (as we have discovered to our continuing sorrow) distinct languages divide. Indeed, many of the misunderstandings among the races of mankind, including wars, can be traced, at least in part, to language differences.

Today, even among those having a common language, it is easy to see how language makes or breaks relationships. We read of people wanting to propagate “black English,” while others, seeing that this will further divide, fight any such attempt to set it apart as a distinct, recognized language of its own. But, even within the same dialects, where there is no confounding of the understanding, it is still principally by language that persons are united or divided. Listen to the following two exchanges:

1. “Hi!” “Hi!”
2. “Hi!” “Get lost!”

We must conclude that the biblical evidence clearly describes the origin of what we all experience day by day – language binds or, in this world of sin, separates. That is one of its principal functions.

A second function of language is to share information. Slamming a door in another’s face says something to him, but it also leaves a lot unsaid that only language can communicate: why the person reacted that way is never made clear in the act itself. It takes language to share that kind of information.

Moreover, man is not only a social creature but a moral-reasoning creature as well. His relationships with God and his neighbors involve intellectual and responsible elements regardless of what the Skinnerians and the existentialists may say. He cannot, indeed, does not want to, avoid these elements in his relationships with others. Man’s nature demands language; language is not simply a tool that man originated and developed later on in history. No, from the outset, his nature cried out for the kinds of relationships that could be brought about and maintained by nothing less than language.

Language was a valuable, moral force that enabled man to become a moral creature. There is no morality among the creatures that do not have a propositional language; similarly, man could not have sustained moral relationships without language. This relationship depended upon shared information: commands, covenant relationship, etc. – all of which are language-dependent activities. But, because this is so, as I said, human language capacity made man potentially able to relate to Satan on an immoral basis. He too is a language-capable being who sustains responsible, moral relationships. The fact is that, without language, man could not have sinned! But neither could he have been saved. Language, then is a powerful force for good or evil because language makes it possible to share information, whether true or false.

A third function of language is to talk to one’s self – or as that implies, to think, reason, plan, meditate and decide inwardly. Psalm 14:1 makes it clear that the atheist is a fool, because without evidence, he has allowed no greater authority than himself to talk himself into disbelief: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘there is no God.’ ” Look who he is listening to – a fool!

Not only are good plans and resolutions devised and determined in the heart by talking them over with one’s self, but sinners concoct every sort of evil and self-deception in the same way. When we speak audibly, the process is still at work: we may not be able to convince others, but we are very likely to believe what we say ourselves. We are very susceptible to our own arguments, especially when articulated. The repetition of what Margaret Meade once called “pickled cliches” is an element for which every counselor searches diligently in the speech of his counselees. This is a good example of self-persuasion. We tend to believe what we have heard others say often, but especially what we have heard ourselves frequently repeat. Examples of this are the old saws, “You’ll never teach an old dog new tricks” and “You’ll never understand a woman.” The counselor looks for statements like these because he knows that when a counselee says them often enough he soon believes them and lives by them. More often than not, as in the two cases cited above, these cliches are quite contrary to biblical fact.

Moreover, the counselor looks for inaccurate and biased words and language constructions that, when repeatedly spoken by him, may influence the counselee’s thinking an behavior. Some counselees live by these maxims. If he keeps hearing the counselee speak of his “need” to do this and his “need” for that (a somewhat newer excuse that is spreading rapidly because of its inherently self-justifying character), the counselor will soon find it necessary to explain to him that what he persists in calling a “need,” Good actually calls a “desire,” or, sometimes, “lust.”

But now, on the brighter side of things, in the Bible God shows us how to use self-talk productively when He commands us to meditate. This human capacity for self-talk, like every other God-given capacity, has a positive use. Meditation is one good example of such a positive use. In my book, Ready to Restore, I have said this about meditation:

If meditation is useful for [counselees or Christians in general], then the pastor ought to take the time to explain
(1) What meditation is;
(2) How it relates to the problem (depression or whatever);
(3) How to meditate (in detail).

Since this is rarely done, it might be of importance to sketch an idea or two on the subject. Moreover, meditation itself, as we shall see, is intimately connected with the “how to” about which I have been speaking.

To begin with, he would want to distinguish biblical meditation from T.M. (transcendental meditation) and other similar forms of meditation practiced today. These focus one’s attention on himself. The Christian, in contrast, meditates on biblical truth. He focuses his attention on Christ and His teaching. Christian meditation is not a trance; it is though – deep thought – about truth, its implications, and its implementation. Christian meditation involves rational thinking about content.

The two principal words for meditation in the Bible means “to murmur or mutter” and “to speak to one’s self.” Meditation is a process of thinking (not feeling) through language that takes place in the heart (or inner life). In meditation, a Christian discusses various biblical facts with himself in an intensive way. The italicized words at the end of the previous sentence are significant. Sometimes we talk things over with ourselves and quickly come to a decision. That isn’t meditation. Meditation is careful, detailed thought that gives the fullest possible consideration to what one is thinking about. And, as I have noted, this all goes on in the heard (Ps. 19:14; 49:3; Isa. 33:18), which is the inner person (1 Pet. 3:4) who lives, thinks, speaks (Ps. 14:1) to himself before God (1 Sam. 16:7).

Moreover, as one of the Hebrew terms for meditation (the OT was written in Hebrew) indicates, meditation refers to self-talk that is productive. This inner meditation on the Scriptures is like a tree with inner resources that cause it to bud, and at length to blossom. So the purpose of meditation is to produce various outer life responses (Josh. 1:8; Prov. 15:28). A Christian meditates, not to attain peace, calmness or a sense of tranquility, as so many wrongly seem to think. Meditation, indeed, may at times be quite upsetting (Isa. 33:18). Meditation is not feeling-oriented; it is a process of focused, concentrated inner reasoning that leads to outer action. As God told Joshua (Josh. 1:8), success in fulfilling God’s law depends upon it. The process itself is of no merit or value, nor does it seek to accomplish something subjective for the person meditating. No, it is an inner experience, but one that is designed to achieve objective results. What are these results?

The mediator, as Joshua 1:8 makes clear, wants to understand how to relate biblical truth to life. He will not settle for mere Bible reading, rote memorizing or filing away facts. His burning desire is to turn a truth over and over, and over again, until he knows all he can possibly know about it. He examines it from every vantage point, intently, as one views the man-hued refraction of light that glance off every facet of a diamond. He will not let a truth go until it blesses him! He wants to know that truth in all its length and breadth in his own life. He is not satisfied merely to intellectualize about scriptural data; he thinks through all of its implications and studies ways to implement it. He takes time to plan out ways and means of gearing it into daily living. Meditation is a process of deepening the understanding and of planning.

So, as you can see, language has an important function in the thinking and planning process as one literally talks himself through a matter to its conclusion.

A fourth function of language is to interpret. As I noted earlier, the slammed door in a salesman’s face does not carry its own interpretation. But if, at the same time, one shouts, “You’re the tenth salesman to appear this morning!” he knows a lot more about the act. There is no other way to know the motives, desires and the internal thoughts of another person.

Without language, our salesman is likely to misinterpret the reason behind the action: “She is afraid of me,” “She didn’t like my face,” or “I guess she doesn’t want to buy any magazines,” etc. Because language interprets what cannot be interpreted otherwise, it is an essential factor in helping us to understand God and one another. Actions alone give you some of the what but rarely any of the why in a situation, unless the action is performed in a previously language-conditioned setting.

Language, then, helps us to understand persons as well as actions. There is no other way to understand God. If He had not revealed Himself to us, we would not have know His will. Nor would we have been able to do more than guess at His character and attributes. Chances are that we would have ended up like the polytheists of Greece and Rome who created their gods in their own images. That might have gotten them somewhere (though not far enough) in a perfect world of perfect people, but in a world where God’s image in man has been ruined by sin, man could conceive of nothing better than sinful, erring, weak, jealous, fighting gods who reflected the worst of human sin. When Jesus Christ Himself came, along with the written Word, to interpret God to man, He was called the Word (John 1:1ff.). John Calvin called Christ God’s “speech.” Jesus was called the Word because, like a word, He interprets:

Nobody has ever seen God at any time; it is the unique God Who is closest of all to the Father Who has explained Him (John 1:18)

The term explain in this verse is, in the Greek original, “exegete.” God could not be understood apart from the Word.
Language also helps us interpret the environment. When Adam named the animals he was engaged both in a scientific classifying act that made communication about animals possible through labels that declared, “This is like that,” and in an interpretive act in which he said, “They are not like me and serve a different function in God’s world, and they will not satisfy my need for companionship” (a genuine need, by the way). He understood this as he began to name them according to their characteristics and functions. That act of interpretation is implied by the explanation given in Genesis 2:20b, “but for the man himself there was found no suitable helper.” The same principle is used in naming the woman Eve: “She is the mother of all living.” Both are functional explanations.

Language also interprets problems and interprets other language that is not immediately clear. As counselors know, it allows us to ask questions and to gather and interpret the data that we glean from the responses to those questions. Because I shall say more about this later on, I shall go no further with it here.

A fifth function of language is to help us to remember. Recorded history, a uniquely human product, has made the heritage of truth and the discoveries of previous generations available to subsequent ones. This allows for progress. The animal world makes no such progress because there is no propositional language capability among the various species. Propositional memory made possible the writing and the transmission of God’s Word in the Bible. God’s commands, promises, warnings, instructions thus became available to all generations. All technological advancement depends on language-capability. But propositional memory also combines with conscience (the human capacity that God built into us to enable us to make self-judgments) to create the important and necessary sense of guilt that modern psychotherapy is so bent on erasing in the wrong way.

A sixth function of language (the last I shall mention, though not necessarily the final work on the subject) is its ability to get things done. Language is a powerful means of accomplishing what we wish to do. The great phrase of the general semanticists, which we tire of hearing, is “The word is not the thing.” I cannot altogether agree with that dictum, however. The biblical word dabar is a Hebrew term that means both word and thing. Clearly, the Hebrews saw a closer affinity between the two. They believed that there is power in words; they knew, for instance, that God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. We know that the world was created through the Word (John 1). So, it is plain that in the Scriptures word and fact are closely intertwined.

Because man was created in God’s image, his words have power too. They are not creative, of course, in the way that God’s words were, but they do bear a very close relationship to things. For instance, we have seen how powerful the effects of talking to one’s self can be. By convincing one’s self that something is true, one’s lifestyle is influenced significantly. Words contain ideas which, in turn, are the substance of action.

But words can have powerful effects on others as well. Shout “Fire!,” and, if taken seriously, the word itself will have the same effect as the thing. In its effect, in all such instances, then, we can see how the word and the thing are the same. This is an important fact for counselors to understand. A person, in reality, may have nothing to fear; yet the fear may be present just as surely and just as debilitating as if the thing he fears were a reality. All he must do is believe that the dreaded situation exists to arouse within himself the very same emotional response as if it did. Very frequently, counselees labor under misinterpretations of fact that, in one way or another, influence their lives. When you analyze what they are grappling with, often it is a wrong concept that is capsulated in a wrong word, e.g., “I can’t,” “It is hopeless.” Wrong words must be countered with the freeing, life-giving Word of God; God says “You can.”

I could mention how words put a handle on problems to allow us to take hold of them and deal with them in a scriptural manner, but I shall come to that at a later point when I shall discuss labeling. Likewise, the precision-making power of words and their ability to fix ideas and concepts for good or ill are subjects of discussion in other places. So, with one final comment I shall conclude this chapter.

The function of language is great, and the importance of language in all of life (not only in counseling) is obvious. We all use language for these purposes and others, all of the time, all day long. We cannot avoid doing so. The only question is whether we use language properly – God’s way – or whether we go along stumbling over our own feet as well as stepping on the feet of others by our sinfully harmful use of this great and wonderful gift of God. That is what counselors are deeply involved in analyzing as they listen to words and thoughts of their counselees. In the redemptive renewal of the mind, so vital to successful counseling, language plays a most prominent role. How, then can a Christian counselor say, “Oh, language? That’s not my interest”? It is at the very heart and core of what he is doing all of the time.

© by Jay Adams. All rights reserved.

Jay Adams is best known for his many books, including Competent to Counsel, The Christian Counselor's Manual, and The Christian's Guide to Guidance. He served for many years on the faculties of Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia) and Westminster Theological Seminary in California, and founded the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation in Glenside, Pennsylvania. Retired from the pastorate, Dr. Adams continues to write and speak on counseling and Christian Living issues. His books can be found at Timeless Texts.