1 Corinthians 13:8 Commentary and Bible Study

Here is the supremacy of love. Most other gifts will come to an end; they will be surpassed. Prophecies were beginning to end, even as the apostle wrote. As the Scripture was completed so the gift of prophecy was drawing to a close. The gift of apostleship would be withdrawn when the last of the apostles went to glory. Of course, the substance of the prophecies and the substance of the teaching of the apostles lived on; it became the word of God, and it continues. But even that in a sense shall cease. Will the Bible go on into eternity? Is it the eternal word, or will it fall? Well, of course it will go on. The Bible will be treasured in eternity. It is the eternal word, but in a sense it will be a kind of relic. We shall have the Bible. We shall love it. We will say, ‘God so used this when I was on earth, in life, for my salvation and my soul.’ But you see, it will fall in this sense – it will be superseded, because, then, I will intuitively know so much more than is in the Bible. Where the Bible drew a full stop, and told me as much as I needed to know on earth, in eternity I shall know more. So, in every sense prophets will cease, and they have ceased already; and the apostles will cease, and they have ceased already. Even their teaching, their knowledge will cease at the end of life, in that sense will be eclipsed; it will be completely overwhelmed by far greater knowledge, which will be intuitive and always known and remembered by us. ‘Love never faileth.’ Love goes on into eternity. It may fail within us; there may be times when our love fails. How terrible! How awful! Through our sinfulness and our selfishness and our weakness, it can rise, it can fall; and it can sometimes seem to fail. This is not a statement that love, once possessed, will always be there, growing stronger and stronger within us. It means that love does not end. It goes on beyond the end of this present life. It goes on in glory. The Greek actually has ‘falls’: our translators go for ‘fails’; yes, that is good, but love never falls. The intention of the original is that unlike some things, love is never withdrawn. The apostle says that prophets are being withdrawn; apostles are being withdrawn; the gift of tongues will be withdrawn, but love will never be withdrawn. That is why this is ‘the more excellent way’. This is why love is far more important. Some of those Corinthians wanted the showy gifts. ‘But why do you want things like that?’ says the apostle. ‘Love is not only greater and more important, it goes on; whereas those temporary gifts do not.’ When would these things cease? The apostle Paul in the later verses of this chapter is talking about the coming of Christ, and the end of the world. Some people argue that he is talking about the giving of the complete Scripture, the completion of the canon of Scripture in the first century A.D. but the old tradition is much more likely that such exalted language refers to the coming of Christ. At the coming of Christ, all our present knowledge will be vastly overtaken and surpassed by the brilliant light of truth when we, as it were, know all things. Probably we will never know all things; it would take all eternity to learn them, but by comparison with the present we shall know all things. Certainly anything that came by the exercise of human gifts will be surpassed. What liberty and freedom we shall have in eternity! We shall all have all the gifts in abundance. That is coming; that is in the future; and love will be the chief among them. Once we cross the threshold of eternity, there love will be, full and eternal. Prophecies will have passed away. Tongues will have ceased. That doesn't necessarily mean that tongues last all the way until Christ comes; Paul is speaking within his present context. Knowledge will pass away, vanish away, and be eclipsed. ‘Whether there be tongues, they shall cease.’ Some look to this verse as a proof text for the cessation of tongues, but Paul is looking at the big picture and talking about the relative insignificance of all of the gifts compared to love. The same word that is used for the gift of tongues is used for languages in general, and the bigger point is that not only the charismatic gift of tongues will cease, but languages in general will cease. The Scripture tells us the origin of languages at the tower of Babel. They were introduced as a judgment of God on a rebellious world, but before Babel, ‘the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech’ (Genesis 11:1). Clearly heaven will not have any such impediment to free communication, therefore languages will cease, and if so then the temporary gift of tongues will be irrelevant. But love endures forever. ‘Whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away [be superseded].’ All earthly knowledge – even the knowledge of God that comes through Scripture – will be superseded by the knowledge that the saints have in eternity. John says, ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is’ (1 John 3:2). There are many things hidden from us at present which we will be given then.