36The Permanence of  Love (13:8-13)

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (13:8-13)

The theme of the final section of 1 Corinthians 13 is love never fails. Throughout all eternity love will never end. Love lasts.

Many of the Corinthians continually had their eyes on the wrong things. They were overly concerned about the temporary and little concerned about the permanent. Instead of being God’s salt in Corinth, they were being flavored by the culture around them. Instead of penetrating Corinth with a spirit of godliness, Corinth’s spirit of ungodliness had penetrated the church. Instead of being obedient to God’s Spirit and controlled by the fruit He gives, they were infected by materialism, pride, antagonism, selfishness, compromise, indulgence, hatred, sexual immorality, jealousy, and virtually every other sin imaginable. They were called to be light, but they did deeds of darkness. They were called to be righteous, but lived in sin. Instead of Corinth being Christianized, the church was being paganized.

Of all their many failings the Corinthian believers’ greatest failure was in love. Just as the presence of “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8), the lack of love causes a multitude of sins. The Corinthians had great lovelessness and great sin. What they needed above all else was great love and great righteousness. That which most completely characterizes God Himself should characterize His children.

In 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 Paul proves that, because of its enduring quality, love is God’s greatest gift, His gift above all gifts. In contrast to love’s permanence, spiritual gifts are temporary, partial, and elementary.

GIFTS ARE TEMPORARY

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. (13:8)

Fails (from piptō) has the basic meaning of falling, especially the idea of final falling, and was used of a flower or leaf that falls to the ground, withers, and decays. Never refers to time, not to frequency, and the idea is that at no time will divine love ever fall, wither, and decay. By nature it is permanent. It is never abolished.

Love cannot fail because it shares God’s nature and God’s eternity. In heaven we not only will have no more need for faith and hope, but no more need for the gifts of teaching, preaching, helps, prophecy, discernment, knowledge, wisdom, tongues, miracles, healings, faith, mercy, or leadership. None of those gifts will have a purpose or place in heaven. Yet love is, and forever will be, the very air of heaven.

It is important to note that never fails does not refer to success. Love is not a magic key that Christians use to unlock every opportunity and guarantee every endeavor. Love is not a spiritual formula that, faithfully applied, automatically fulfills our desires and produces human success. Love does not always win, at least not in the usual sense. Jesus Christ was love incarnate, yet He did not by His perfect love succeed in winning every person to Himself. He was ridiculed, maligned, denied, rejected, and crucified. Paul could be called the apostle of love, yet he did not leave a trail of perfect successes wherever he ministered. He was persecuted, arrested, beaten, imprisoned, and, like his Lord, put to death because of what he said and did in love.

On the other hand, whenever and wherever Christians are successful in their living and ministering, it will always be through love. Because love does not overpower human will, we cannot always accomplish our purposes, no matter how loving, spiritual, and selfless we may be. But no godly work can be accomplished without love. Success will not always be a part of love, but love will always be a part of true spiritual success.

Paul, however, is not speaking of love’s successes or failures, but of its lastingness, its permanence as a divine quality. Love never fails in the sense that it outlasts any failures. For the Christian, love is life, and both are eternal. Love is the supreme characteristic of the life God gives, because love is the supreme characteristic of God Himself. “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16). That is Paul’s point, the truth he hoped the Corinthians somehow could understand, accept, and follow He wanted them to be successful in love, successful in being like God.

Paul strengthens his emphasis on the supreme nature of love by comparing love’s permanence to the impermanence of three spiritual gifts: prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. Each of those gifts eventually will fall and disappear, but love will continue.

Though we are told here that all three gifts would someday cease to exist, two different verbs are used to indicate their cessation. Prophecy and knowledge will be done away, whereas tongues will cease.

Done away is from katargeō, which means “to reduce to inactivity,” or “to abolish.” The gifts of prophecy and knowledge one day will be made inoperative. Both forms of this verb in verse 8, as well as its form in verse 10, are passive; that is, something or someone will cause them to stop. As will be discussed below, that something is the coming of “the perfect” (v. 10).

Cease is from pauō, which means “to stop, to come to an end.” Unlike katargeō, this verb is here used in the Greek middle voice, which, when used of persons, indicates intentional, voluntary action upon oneself. Used of inanimate objects it indicates reflexive, self-causing action. The cause comes from within; it is built in. God gave the gift of tongues a built-in stopping place. “That gift will stop by itself,” Paul says. Like a battery, it had a limited energy supply and a limited lifespan. When its limits were reached, its activity automatically ended. Prophecy and knowledge will be stopped by something outside themselves, but the gift of tongues will stop by itself. This distinction in terms is unarguable.

The question remains as to when and how these gifts will end. Prophecy and knowledge are said to end “when the perfect comes” (vv. 9-10), and we will discuss the what and the when of “perfect” when we come to those verses.

The cessation of tongues, however, is not mentioned in relation to the coming of the perfect. They will have ceased at an earlier time. That is why they are not stopped by the same thing that stops the other two gifts. As was discussed in some detail under 12:8-10, 1 believe that gift ended with the apostolic age.

In the first place, tongues was a sign gift and, as with the gifts of healing and miracles, it ceased to operate when the New Testament was completed. God has never ceased to perform miracles, and He continues today to heal miraculously and to work in other supernatural ways according to His sovereign will. But the Bible records only three periods of history in which human beings were given the gift of performing miracles. The first period was during the ministries of Moses and Joshua, the second during the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, and the third during the ministries of Jesus and the apostles. Each period lasted only about 70 years and then abruptly ended. The only other age of miracles will be in the millennial kingdom, and the sources of those miracles are described as “the powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:5). The last miracle recorded in the New Testament in which God worked directly through a human instrument occurred about the year 58 (Acts 28:8). From that time until about 96, when John completed the writing of Revelation, not a single miracle of that sort is mentioned.

The New Testament miracle age was for the purpose of confirming the Word as given by Jesus and the apostles, of offering the kingdom to Israel, and of giving a taste, a sample, of the kingdom. When Israel turned its back on Christ and His kingdom, it was “impossible to renew them again to repentance” (Heb. 6:6), and the gospel was then offered to the Gentiles. The teaching of Christ and the apostles had been confirmed to Israel “both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit” (Heb. 2:3-4). It is interesting that, though Hebrews was written as early as 67 or 68, the writer there speaks of this confirmation (ebebaiōthē, aor. pass, ind.) in the past tense, as if the signs, wonders, and miracles had ceased. Those gifts were uniquely tied to the apostles (2 Cor. 12:12).

The second evidence that the gift of tongues ended with the apostles is that its purpose as a judicial sign of Israel’s judgment ceased to apply at that time. Paul reminds the Corinthians that “In the Law it is written, ‘By men of strange tongues and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people, and even so they will not listen to Me,’ says the Lord” (1 Cor. 14:21; cf. Isa. 28:11-12). In other words, because Israel refused to listen and believe when God spoke to them in clear language, the prophet said the day would come when He would speak to them in a language they could not understand, as a testimony against their rejection of Him.

Tongues were not given as a sign to believers “but to unbelievers” (1 Cor. 14:22), specifically unbelieving Jews. With the destruction of the Temple by the Roman general Titus in A.D. 70, Judaism ended except as a shadow religion. When the Temple was destroyed, the sacrificial system was destroyed, and the need for a Jewish priesthood was destroyed. From that day it has been impossible for the requirements of the Old Covenant to be fulfilled. When that destruction occurred, some 15 years after Paul wrote this epistle, the need for tongues as a judicial sign to Israel had no further value. There is no need today for a sign that God is moving from Israel to the world.

Third, tongues ceased because they were an inferior means of edification. When properly interpreted, tongues had the ability to edify in a limited way (1 Cor. 14:5; 12-13; 27-28). But the primary purpose of 1 Corinthians 14 is to show that tongues were an inferior means of communication (vv. 1-12), an inferior means of praise (vv. 13-19), and an inferior means of evangelism (vv. 20-25). Tongues provided limited and inferior edification, whereas prophecy is far superior in every way (vv. 1, 3-6, 24, 29, 31, 39). Five words spoken intelligently and intelligibly in ordinary language are of more value “than ten thousand words in a tongue” (v. 19).

Fourth, the gift of tongues has ceased because its purpose as a confirming sign of apostolic authority and doctrine ended when the New Testament was completed. Genuine tongues-speaking involved direct revelation of God to the speaker, though it was veiled revelation that always needed translation or interpretation, often even to the speaker himself (1 Cor. 14:27-28). Revelation of God’s Word was completed, however, when the New Testament was completed, and to that nothing is to be added or subtracted (Rev 22:18-19). The confirming purpose of tongues was completed.

Fifth, it is reasonable to believe that tongues have ceased because their use is mentioned only in the earlier New Testament books. Most of the books, in fact, do not mention it. Paul mentions it only in this one letter, and James, Peter, John, and Jude make no mention of it at all. Nor does reference to it appear in the book of Acts after 19:6. It seems clear from the New Testament record itself that tongues not only ceased to be an issue but ceased to be practiced well before the end of the apostolic age. Nowhere in the epistles is it commanded or enjoined on believers as a responsibility or spiritual exercise.

Finally, the gift of tongues has evidently ceased because, since the apostolic age, it has reappeared only spasmodically and questionably throughout nineteen centuries of church history. The gift of tongues is nowhere alluded to or found in any writings of the church Fathers. Clement of Rome wrote a letter to the Corinthian church in the year 95, only about four decades after Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. In discussing problems in the church, Clement made no mention of tongues. Apparently both the use and misuse of that gift had ceased. Justin Martyr, the great church Father of the second century, visited many of the churches of his day, yet in his voluminous writings he mentions nothing of tongues. It is not mentioned even among his several lists of spiritual gifts. Origen, a brilliant church scholar who lived during the third century, makes no mention of tongues. In his polemic against Celsus he explicitly argues that the sign gifts of the apostolic age were temporary and were not exercised by Christians of his day. Chrysostom, perhaps the greatest of the post-New Testament writers, lived from 347 until 407. Writing on 1 Corinthians 12 he states that tongues and the other miraculous gifts not only had ceased but could not even be accurately defined. Augustine, in his comments on Acts 2:4, wrote, “In the earliest times the Holy Spirit fell on them that believed and they spoke with tongues. These were signs adapted to that time, for there behooved to be that betokening of the Holy Spirit. That thing was done for betokening and it passed away.”

The historians and theologians of the early church unanimously maintained that tongues ceased to exist after the time of the apostles. The only exception of which we know was within the movement led by Montanus, a second century heretic who believed that divine revelation continued through him beyond the New Testament.

Apparently no other tongues-speaking was practiced in Christianity until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it appeared in several Roman Catholic groups in Europe (Cevenols and Jansenists) and among the Shakers in New England. The nineteenth century Irvingites of London were marked by unbiblical claims of revelations and by “tongues-speak.” For over 1800 years the gift of tongues, along with the other miracle gifts, was unknown in the life and doctrine of orthodox Christianity. Then, around the turn of the twentieth century, tongues became a major emphasis within the holiness movement, a large section of which developed into modern Pentecostalism. The charismatic movement, which began in 1960, carried the practice of tongues beyond traditional Pentecostalism into many other denominations, churches, and groups, both Catholic and Protestant, filling the void in true spiritual living with false experience.

Many charismatics defend as biblical the modern tongues-speaking as part of the latter-day signs spoken of by Joel (2:28-32) and quoted by Peter in his Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:17-21). But it is clear from a careful examination of those passages that the prophecy does not apply either to Pentecost or to modern times. From earlier in Joel 2 we see that the time referred to is the second coming of Christ (of which Pentecost was only a sample), when the Lord “will remove the northern army far from [Israel]” (v. 20), just before the millennial kingdom is established and God’s chosen people turn to Him (vv. 21-27; cf. Ezek. 36:23-38). It is only “after this” (v. 28) that the miraculous signs in the heavens and on the earth will appear.

There were no blood, columns of smoke, darkening of the sun, or changing of the moon to blood associated with Pentecost. Nor have any such things happened in modern times. Peter was not saying that Pentecost completely fulfilled Joel’s prophecy, because obviously it did not. He was saying that the limited miraculous signs that had occurred shortly before he began his sermon were a glimpse of much greater and far-reaching signs and wonders that would come in “the last days” (Acts 2:17). There simply is no biblical explanation here for the modern reappearance of tongues or of any of the other miracle gifts.

Some charismatics also maintain that “the early and latter rain” of Joel 2:23 refer to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and in modern times, respectively. But the early rain was the literal rainfall that came in the autumn and the latter rain was that which came in the spring. Joel’s point is simply that God will make crops grow profusely in the kingdom, as the following verses (24-27) make abundantly clear.

George N. H. Peters, a Bible scholar of the last century, said, “The Baptism of Pentecost is a pledge of fulfillment in the future, evidencing what the Holy Ghost will yet perform in the coming age.” A contemporary theologian, Helmut Thielicke, describes the miracles of the first century, including tongues, as “the lightning on the horizon of the Kingdom of God.”

GIFTS ARE PARTIAL

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. (13:9-10)

The cessation of tongues took place a short while after Paul wrote this letter, but the gifts of prophecy and knowledge have not yet been done away, because the perfect has not yet come. Like tongues and all other gifts, those two gifts are temporary, but they are less temporary than tongues. The unique and isolated purpose of the gift of tongues is seen in the fact that, unlike knowledge and prophecy, it did not exist either before or after the apostolic era. As far as his discussion of love is concerned, Paul considers tongues already to have stopped, because that gift is not mentioned after verse 8.

Paul’s first emphasis in verses 9-10 is the partiality of knowledge and prophecy: we know in part, and we prophesy in part. Those gifts are representative of all the gifts, which will be done away when the perfect comes, because at that time no gift will have further reason for existence.

God’s gifts are complete, but those to whom He gives them are limited. Paul included himself in the we. Even the apostles knew in part and prophesied in part. Paul had cautioned the Corinthians that “If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know” (1 Cor. 8:2). “Knowing Christ Jesus” better was Paul’s supreme purpose and joy in life, yet even near the end of his life he insisted, “Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:8, 12).

Zophar asked Job, “Can you discover the depths of God? Can you discover the limits of the Almighty? They are high as the heavens, what can you do? Deeper than Sheol, what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea” (Job 11:7-9). Sometime later Job himself declares, “Behold, these are the fringes of His ways; and how faint a word we hear of Him! But His mighty thunder, who can understand?” (26:14). David sang in awe, “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts toward us; there is none to compare with Thee; if I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count” (Ps. 40:5). God knows us perfectly, but we can know Him now only imperfectly.

To the Romans Paul wrote, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?” (Rom. 11:33-34).

Through God’s Word and the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, we can have “a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself,” but even our true knowledge is still imperfect knowledge, because only in Him “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:2-3). God has provided all the truth we need to know “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, in order that we might know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 5:20). God’s “divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence” (2 Pet. 1:3). The Lord has provided all the knowledge we need in order to know and serve Him—more, in fact, than any man could ever comprehend. Yet God’s written Word does not exhaust truth about Him.

For several reasons infinite revelation about the infinite God would be ridiculous and useless. In the first place, finite minds could not encompass or comprehend infinite truth. In the second place, man’s mind not only is finite but depraved. Not until our minds are perfected will we be able “to know fully just as [we] also have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). So we wait for the time and experience of perfection.

When the perfect comes we will have no more need of knowledge or wisdom, preaching or teaching, prophecy or interpretation. We will not even have need of the Bible. We will no longer need the written Word because we will be eternally in the presence and full comprehension of the living Word.

THE PERFECT IS NOT THE COMPLETION OF SCRIPTURE

What, precisely, is the perfect thing that is to come? Some Christians believe the perfect has already come in the completion of Scripture. But that idea would have been meaningless to the Corinthians. Nowhere in this letter does he mention or allude to such a scriptural completion. The Corinthian believers would have taken Paul’s meaning in the plainest and simplest way: as a reference to spiritual and moral perfection, the perfection to which the Lord calls all of His people: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). Paul was speaking of completed holiness, of our one day actually becoming what God now counts, or reckons, us to be.

If the perfect refers to the completion of Scripture, then prophecy and knowledge have already been stopped, and all believers since that time would have been without benefit of two of the most important gifts for proclaiming, interpreting, and understanding Scripture. The gift of prophecy was only partly used for revelation. In most cases it was used for proclaiming and interpreting what already had been revealed. The church would be in dire straits if the gifts of knowledge and prophecy had ceased with the completion of the New Testament.

We know, furthermore, that prophecy will be active in the Kingdom age. At that time the Lord says, “I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions” (Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17). Prior to the kingdom, during the Tribulation, God will raise up two great prophetic witnesses who “will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth” (Rev 11:3).

Still another reason the perfect cannot refer to the completion of Scripture is found in Paul’s statement that we will see “face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12). Scripture gives a wonderful and reliable picture of God, but it does not allow us to see Him “face to face.” Peter speaks of the many believers even of his own day who “have not seen Him” (1 Pet. 1:8). The Bible does not give a “face to face” vision of God. No Christian, before or after the completion of the New Testament, has known the Lord as he has “been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). We love One whom we have not seen.

Nor is it possible that prophecy stopped after completion of the New Testament and will resume during the Tribulation and the Kingdom. In the first place the verb katargeō means to be abolished completely and finally, not temporarily. In the second place, an interruption of prophecy would not fit Paul’s point here, which is to show the permanency of love over the temporariness of gifts.

THE PERFECT IS NOT THE RAPTURE

Many interpreters hold the coming of the perfect to be the rapture of the church. But if knowledge and prophecy have been permanently done away, they could no more be resumed after the rapture and during the Tribulation or the Kingdom. Paul makes it clear that once those gifts end, they will end permanently. But they appear to be operative in both the Tribulation and the millennial Kingdom.

THE PERFECT IS NOT THE MATURING CHURCH

A relatively new interpretation is that the perfect refers to the maturing, or completion, of the church. It is true that perfect often has the meaning of maturity or completion. But such a completion would amount to the rapture, which this view eliminates. When the Lord’s work with His church is completed, He will rapture it; and we are still left with the question of prophecy during the Tribulation and Kingdom.

THE PERFECT IS NOT THE SECOND COMING

Some believe the perfect refers to Christ’s second coming. But perfect is neuter in the Greek (teleion), eliminating the possibility that it relates to a person. In addition, that view also has the problem of the reappearance of prophecy, and the widespread preaching and teaching of the Word, during the Kingdom period. “For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9) and “on that day the deaf shall hear words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see” (29:18; cf. 32:3-4). Jeremiah tells us of the shepherds whom the Lord will raise up to tend His people in that day.” ‘They will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing,’ declares the Lord” (Jer. 23:4). The Kingdom will have an abundance of preachers and teachers.

THE PERFECT IS THE ETERNAL STATE

By process of elimination, the only possibility for the perfect is the eternal, heavenly state of believers. Paul is saying that spiritual gifts are only for time, but that love will last for all eternity. The point is simple, not obscure.

The eternal state allows for the neuter form of the perfect and allows for the continuation of knowledge and prophecy during the church age, the Tribulation, and the Kingdom. It fits the context of Paul’s emphasis on the permanence of love. It also fits his mention of our then seeing “face to face,” which will come about only with our glorification, when we will be illumined by the very glory of God Himself (Rev 21:23). Finally, only in heaven will we “know fully just as [we] also have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12).

The eternal state begins for Old Testament believers at the first resurrection, when they will be raised to be with Him forever (Dan. 12:2). For Christians the eternal state begins either at death, when they go to be with the Lord, or at the rapture, when the Lord takes His own to be with Himself. For Tribulation and Kingdom saints it will occur at death or glorification.

GIFTS ARE ELEMENTARY

When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. (13:11-12)

Paul is here illustrating what happens when “the perfect comes.” In their earthly lives all Christians are children compared to what they will be when they are perfected in heaven.

Perhaps Paul was comparing His present spiritual state to his boyhood, as a child. A Jewish male was considered a boy until his bar mitzvah (“son of the law”), after which he was considered a man. One moment he was a boy; the next he was a man. Our perfection in Christ will be a type of spiritual bar mitzvah, a coming into immediate, complete, and eternal spiritual adulthood and maturity. At that moment everything childish will be done away with. All immaturity, all childishness, all imperfection, and all limitations of knowledge and understanding will be forever gone.

In this present life, even with God’s Word completed and the illumination of His Spirit, we see in a mirror dimly. In our present state we are not capable of seeing more. But when we enter into the Lord’s presence, we then will see Him face to face. Now we can only know in part, but then [we] shall know fully just as [we] also have been fully known.

LOVE IS ETERNAL

But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (13:13)

Returning to the temporal, to the Christian’s earthly life, Paul mentions the three greatest spiritual virtues: faith, hope, and love. Actually faith and hope are encompassed by love, which “believes all things,” and “hopes all things” (v 7). Because faith and hope will have no purpose in heaven, where everything true will be known and everything good will be possessed, they are not equal to love.

Love is the greatest of these not only because it is eternal, but because, even in this temporal life, where we now live, love is supreme. Love already is the greatest, not only because it will outlast the other virtues, beautiful and necessary as they are, but because it is inherently greater by being the most God-like. God does not have faith or hope, but “God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Gifts, ministries, faith, hope, patience, all one day will cease to exist because they will cease to have purpose or meaning. But in that perfect day, when we see our Lord “face to face,” love will for us be just beginning. But our showing love, practicing love, living love now are of utmost importance, more important than having any of the other virtues or gifts, because love is the link God gives us with His eternal Self.