All You Really Need is Love (1 Corinthians 13:8–14:1a)

After our last study in 1 Corinthians 13, someone sent me a meme in which a person is pushing a large trolly, filled with boxes, each with a label indicating, “new car,” “exotic holiday,” “new clothes,” “shiny new thing,” “Big TV,” “latest craze,” “stuff,” and “more stuff.” He pushes his trolly past a guy carrying one box labelled “love.” The guy with the trolly says, “Is that all you need?” and the guy responds, “Yes.” Whether the Beatles understood the nature of true love is highly questionable, but they weren’t far off the mark when they sang, “All you need is love.” The church at Corinth needed to learn this. And perhaps so do we.

Having pointed out the priority of love (vv. 1–3), having described the personification of love (vv. 4–7), Paul writes about the permanence of love (vv. 8–13). We touched on this when we ended our study with v. 8a, but today we will dig deeper into this as we finish our study of this great and convicting chapter.

13. T. Wright has written, “Love is not merely the Christian duty; it is the Christian destiny.” This thought helpfully sums up what Paul is saying in these final words of 1 Corinthians 13. Love is the Christian’s destiny because God is love (1 John 4:8, 16) and being in his perfectly loving presence is our guaranteed hope to which we cling by faith.

Since love is our destiny, love is to be our disposition as we await that “day of destiny” (John 13:35). We can say that love is the Christian’s priority: that is, love for God, and therefore love for our neighbour, especially love for the body of Christ. This love produces holiness.

We will unpack these final six verses under three main headings:

1. The Permanence of Love (13:8–12)
2. The Preeminence of Love (13:13)
3. The Pursuit of Love (14:1a)

We concluded our last study with the words “love never ends” and we pick up this study with these same words.

This chapter confronts us with a tall order. Paul’s inspired description of love looms as an impossibility, at least for those who live in the flesh. But because we have the Spirit (see 12:13), such love is our responsibility before God and man. It is not a peripheral responsibility but rather a preeminent one. And a permanent one. This is Paul’s point. He wants the Corinthian church to appreciate the permanence and hence prominence and priority of the graces of the Spirit over the gifts of the Spirit.

Paul’s dogmatic declaration—“love never ends” (v. 8)—follows on the heels of “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (v. 7), which is a bold statement implying that love never gives up. Love never dies.

But Paul’s dogmatic declaration instructs us that the grace of love is persistent, persevering, and therefore permanent and hence here to stay. It will never go away.

The word “ends” is important. It means, “to descend from a higher place to a lower,” and hence some translate it as “fails”: “Love never fails or falls.” That is a good translation. But, in the context, the meaning of the word is fuller than this. Consider.

The Corinthian church was exalting various spiritual gifts, such as tongues and other revelatory gifts. Paul is going to show them that these gifts will one day descend to redundancy, whereas God’s love will continue. The gifts will become redundant, whereas this grace will remain. The gifts in the church will not remain, but the grace of love will remain. It is permanent. Godly love (vv. 4–7) will never lose its place; it will never lose its power. How could it? After all, God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Therefore, as Paul will argue, it (and he!) must never cease to be our pursuit.

But, of course, first we must understand the love that Paul is speaking about. It is not the world’s idea of love (which is fading and often fragile if not fraudulent) but rather godly love; it is gospel-driven love. This gospel-driven love was sacrificial, it was substitutionary, and hence it was salvific. The love of God that motivated God sending his Son into the world to save sinners (John 3:16) is the highest expression of and experience of love on earth. And this love will never pass away. This love was not for a certain period of history but rather it was and is forever. It is therefore the shaping influence in the Christian and the church’s life. It is not the last word about the Christian life but everything else in the Christian life, including holiness, is grounded in this love. After all, holy living expresses our love for God and for one another. We can say that this love, which never ends, is not sentimental but rather sanctifying.

Dan Fogelberg famously sang about love:

That is a nice sentiment, but biblical love says, “I will persevere when you mistreat me; I will not be irritable when you brush your teeth; I won’t be resentful when you speak harshly; I will do all I can to help you to love the good and the true and to hate the evil and the lies. And I will do so until death parts us. And after death, well, then I will really love you.”

In the church, it looks like the same kind of thing.

Paul next writes some words, whose meaning is hotly contested.

In speaking about the permanence of love, Paul is saying, in contrast, that the gifts of tongues, prophecy, and knowledge will one day come to an end. Some argue that Paul may in fact be merely using these particular gifts as examples for the larger reality that, one day, all the gifts will pass away.

Regardless, when approaching this chapter, interpreters often do so polemically in order to prove either a continuationistor cessationist position. But to do so is to miss the point. Though an argument from this passage can be made that the revelatory spiritual gifts have ceased, this is not Paul’s main point. His main argument is that spiritual gifts (all of them, in fact) are temporary while love is permanent. The gifts are temporal while the graces are eternal. The graces Paul mentions (faith, hope, and love [v. 13]) will exceed this life and continue with us into the unending experience of eternal life.

It is tragic that so much heat, friction, broken relationships, and even slander arises in such discussions—in a chapter that emphasises love! In fact, such ugliness serves as a reminder of the importance of taking this chapter extremely seriously. But back to the point, Paul says that these particular gifts (at least) will come to an end. They will pass away. They will cease. They will cease to exist because they will cease to be necessary. They will cease because the something “perfect” will arrive. So we must ask, what is this something “perfect,” and when should the Corinthian church (and we?) expect it?

When will they cease? It should be noted that the phrase “for we know in part and we prophesy in part” (v. 9) indicates—whatever else it implies—that Paul has in mind revelation of truth. The spiritual gift of tongues, prophecy, and knowledge (see 12:8—“utterance of knowledge”) have to do with God’s revelation of truth. Paul is saying that there is coming a time when these will “pass away” or “cease.” The question is, when will this be? Paul’s answer: “When the perfect comes” (v. 10).

To begin, what does the word “perfect” mean? The Greek word translated “perfect” (v. 10) is found two other places in 1 Corinthians: first, in 2:6 and again in 14:20. In both cases, it is translated “mature” with reference to the church growing up and coming to a point of “completion” (see also Ephesians 4:13; Philippians 3:15; Colossians 1:28; 4:12; Hebrews 5:14). Further, James 1:4 and  3:2 contextually refer to maturity.

Perhaps Paul has a similar meaning in mind here. In fact, the illustration that he uses in the following verse would seem to confirm this. Paul is saying that, at some point of maturity—of completion—the revelatory gifts will cease. But again, what is this maturity? Let’s consider some possibilities.

“That which is perfect” could refer to the time when the global church has reached some stage of fullness, completeness, or maturity. Keep that in mind.

“That which is perfect” could refer to Jesus Christ, with the implication that, when he returns, these particular (and general?) gifts will pass away. An interpretive problem with this is that this would be a strange way to speak of the Lord Jesus.

“That which is perfect” could refer to the end of human history when all will be perfected; i.e. completed and hence glorified. This interpretation is very appealing.

“That which is perfect” could refer to the completed canon of Scripture with the completion of the New Testament. An interpretive problem is that there is nothing in the context—close or far—that would indicate to the Corinthians that this was Paul’s meaning. It seems a rather foreign concept to interpose here.

“That which is perfect” could refer to the time when the new covenant is fully inaugurated (i.e. with the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and thus of Judaism). This has some merit but an interpretive weakness is that, as above, the context of Paul’s words do not immediately bring such a meaning to mind. But we can ask, does the larger context of the letter suggest this? Perhaps (1 Corinthians 7:26; 10:11).

When the full inauguration of the new covenant arrives, these revelatory gifts will come to an end. They will pass away. They will cease. And they will cease because, once the pinnacle of redemptive history has arrived (Ephesians 3:11), God’s people will no longer require these spiritual training wheels. This is my view. And it ties up well with the concept of “fullness,” “completeness,” and “maturity.”

This does not mean that the church has reached full maturity, but it does refer to a time in history (in the past) when the church was fully grounded in the truth of the gospel. It was fully inaugurated.

If this is what Paul is teaching, then consider some related truths.

The purpose of the revelatory gifts was foundational; specifically, to lay the foundation of the new covenant church. This foundation was being laid by the apostles and prophets with Jesus Christ as chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:19–22). Once the foundation was laid, any attempt at relaying it would result in deconstruction. It would be a step backwards.

Jesus Christ is God’s final revelation (Hebrews 1:1–2). The New Testament contains that full revelation. Therefore the revelatory gifts have ceased.

The gift of tongues had a unique function, as it was primarily related to Jewish people and was connected to a message of judgement. Hence, when the curtain fell on Jerusalem (and hence Judaism) in AD 70, the gift of tongues literally ceased there and then.

Further, with the completion of the canon of Scripture, the gifts of prophecy, along with the revelatory gift of “knowledge,” would be redundant.

Interestingly, since there is every reason to believe that the canon of the New Testament was completed prior to AD 70, these gifts would have been completed with the full inauguration of the new covenant. That is, at the completion of the inauguration of the new covenant—when that which was “perfect” had come—these gifts ceased.

Taking all of this together, we see that a combination of interpretations are conflated and help us to make sense of what is otherwise an enigmatic passage. The “what” of what is “perfect” is the full inauguration of the new covenant, and the “when” is no later than AD 70. This means that revelatory gifts are no longer being given and have not been since before the end of the first century. They were certainly present in the days of this epistle to the Corinthians, and hence were relevant to the church there and then. But they are not relevant for us in our day. I will explain this more fully in the weeks ahead as we unpack chapter 14.

Again, I don’t believe this is the main emphasis of the passage; however, it is a corollary implication.

Paul uses two illustrations in vv. 11–12 to clarify what he has just said.

First, he employs the illustration of maturity: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways” (v. 11).

By using this illustration or metaphor, Paul is not critiquing spiritual gifts as being childish; rather, he is saying that they serve as a stage of Christian and congregational development. As Garland observes, “There is an age appropriate to certain activities, but there comes a time when those activities are no longer appropriate.” That time is the time of maturation. The child puts away her dolls and moves on to nurturing the mind and, though she may still play, the games she plays are very different. This is expected. It is a frequent occurrence in some with Alzheimer to revert to playing with dolls and behaving like an infant. This is disturbing and to be lamented. Likewise when Christians and congregations revert to replaying the events of Pentecost, this is no sign of maturity. It is in fact a step backward.

The church, of course, continues to struggle with sin and often displays immature attitudes and actions (see chapter 3!). But Paul’s point, it seems, is that, in God’s chronological economy, in his redemptive timetable, after AD 70 AD, the new covenant had “fully come” and the time was then “perfect” for the church to march forward in the new age which with the Holy Spirit’s arrival has been inaugurated.

In v. 12, Paul uses the illustration of a mirror: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

It would seem that Paul has Numbers 12:6–8 in mind as he writes, as well perhaps as a contemporary understanding that Corinth was well-known for highly polished brass “mirrors” at the time. Paul combines these two ideas to make the point that the best of mirrors still do not provide fullness of clarity. One can look into a polished brass mirror and have a partial understanding of what one looks like, yet someone looking you dead on will be able to point out details you might have missed with the opaque mirror. It seems that Paul is saying that, with the completion of all that is needed for the full inauguration of the new covenant, our knowledge of truth will be far clearer than when we had to rely on revelatory gifts—revelation that always had to be tested as to its authenticity (see the reference to interpretation in chapter 14).

The reference to Numbers points to the same truth. Though God spoke to Aaron and Miriam and others through visions and dreams, these had to be interpreted, separating wheat from the chaff. Conversely, with Moses, the Lord spoke plainly, “face to face.” And what Moses then recorded was plain for all who would see (see Deuteronomy 30:11–20). In fact, in the light of the emphasis upon love in our passage, the passage in Deuteronomy is exceptionally relevant and enlightening.

I don’t believe Paul is suggesting that Christians and local churches would achieve a point of absolute knowledge of the truth with the full inauguration of the new covenant. Rather, he indicates that, with the full inauguration (which we now know included the completion of the canon), things about God’s redemptive plan would be much clearer. As the word epiginosko (“know fully”) is used in the New Testament, Paul was saying that, with this full inauguration—with the move from the infancy of the church to its march towards maturity (Ephesians 4:11–16)—things would be more certain (Luke 1:4), more perceptive (Luke 5:22), more learned (Luke 23:7), and the church would recognise truth more clearly (Luke 24:16, 31).

In summary, Paul envisioned the day when (revelatory) gifts would pass away because their function would be redundant since these were preparatory for something clearer. The Corinthian church therefore must beware of being obsessed with that which is merely temporary.

We need to beware of the same danger. We need to beware of missing the permanent in that which is perfect. We must beware of neglecting the point of the passage: the love of and love for God.

We should understand that Paul’s expectation was that, when the “fullness,” the “perfect,” the “mature” arrived in God’s redemptive plan, we who live in that time will be better equipped—not to argue, not to polemicise, not to create our theological camps but rather to love. If we are truly maturing, love will be increasingly present. Since love is permanent, since it never fails or falls, we can expect that that which fuels this love (revelation) will drive us to love in a greater way.

Paul reminds us of the preeminence or prominence of love in v. 13: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” He drives home his main point that the graces are to be more prominent in the life of the Christian and in the life of the church than the gifts.

This lesson is just as relevant in our day as it was in Paul’s. We tend to focus on gifts when choosing a church: a gifted preacher, gifted musicians, gifted children’s ministers; gifted coffee brewers!; etc. I think you get the point. These may all be important things (except the coffee!), but without the spiritual graces of hope, faith, and the greatest grace of love, none of the other matters (see vv. 1–3). And may I add that a churches doctrinal position matters—a lot—but a churches devotional disposition matters equally if not more so.

The word “now” is not used chronologically but rather conclusively. It is used logically not temporally. That is, Paul is not saying, “Now in the meantime, before the ‘perfect’ comes, these graces abide.” No, he is saying, “Now, in light of all that I have said, remember these three graces as you exercise your gifts. And remember that the greatest, the highest, the most prominent grace is that of love.” These graces are more prominent, and love the most prominent, because, unlike the gifts, they will forever remain.

Paul’s burden is for the Corinthian church to prioritise what God prioritises, to focus one’s passionate attention upon what will outlive this age. And, of course, that is love. The spiritual gifts are indeed needed for the building up of the body of Christ, but the energy behind these gifts is the infinite love of God.

Spiritual gifts are not to be minimised, but neither are they to be maximised. However, the Spirit’s grace of love is to be maximised. Rightly understood, God’s love is to be preeminent in the life of the Christian and in the life of the church.

Perhaps one of the best illustrations of this is when Jesus washed the feet of the disciples on the last Passover night. While the disciples were obsessed with positional prominence, Jesus assumed the position of a servant, grabbing a towel and a basin of water, and washed their filthy, self–promoting feet.

Jesus washed the feet of disciple whom he knew was going to forsake him in his hour of greatest need. The same feet that he lovingly washed would run from him when he was most hated by the world. This kind of love serves. It sacrifices. It sanctifies. It stays.

Jesus loved his to the end. Through thick and thin, he loved them. He would not abandon them though they would abandon him. This “staying love” is seen further when Jesus restored them to ministry (Matthew 28:16–20; John 21). Why? Because love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and therefore endures all things.

When your spouse wrongs you, will you pout or will you persevere? Will you resent and give up or will you forgive and fight for the future? When your parent wounds you with their words, will you bitterly distance yourself or will you persevere in the relationship? When you sin against another, will you fob it off or will you seek forgiveness? When you are hurt in a church, will you stay or will you run? When you fail in a ministry, will you quit or will you get up and try again? When another wrongs you, will you avoid them or will you rather grab a towel and wash their filthy feet? When they cause you immense pain, will you reject them or will you reach out hoping for the best?

I realise there are justifiable caveats to all the above. However, let us not run first to these but rather let us seek to do the mature, supernatural thing. That is, let us believe God, hope in God, and love God and others. This is more important than anything else.

The love of God is to be such a present and persistent priority and practice that potential conflicts arising from the exercise of the Spirit’s gifts will be constructively handled and resolved. Because love never ends, because love never fails, because God’s love never quits, relationships within the body of Christ should be restored and reconciled and revived and rejuvenated.

In light of all his has written, Paul urges, “Pursue love” (14:1). Very simply, in the light of the permanence and preeminence of love, we are to pursue it. As Hoffman writes,

Or as Tom Schreiner summarises, “The true measure of spiritual maturity is love…. All the gifts are given to believers so that they will love God and enjoy him forever.” Since this is our destiny, let us join in its pursuit.

May God give us the grace of the Spirit along with the gifts of his Spirit. Without the former, we know the futility of the latter. In fact, without the former, the latter may prove dangerous. We need the right motivation.

May God deliver us from a polemical spirit. May his love be our greatest desire, our greatest pursuit, and our greatest characteristic. May we so love that there will be no doubt that we are his disciples, which means that others will need to know his character. May the fame of his name spread.

AMEN