1 Corinthians 13:13

From a question on Quora:

What does 1 Corinthians 13:13 mean?

Three things abide

[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7).

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. (verses 8–10)

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

Chapter 13 compares the fruits of the Spirit such as faith, hope, and love, to verbal, revelatory gifts of the Spirit, prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. From the perspective of the early 50’s AD, when the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, spiritual gifts of prophecy and knowledge would be done away with (passive voice), and the spiritual gift of speaking in unlearned foreign languages would do itself away (middle voice).

This, in fact, happened before the end of the first century. The bit-by-bit Word of God revealed through knowledge (of the existing, incomplete scriptures) and prophecy was completed with the apostle John’s writing of Revelation. Chapter 14 explains that tongues was a sign to educated Jews that Jerusalem was about to be destroyed and the Roman diaspora of the Jews was about to happen. (Chapter 14 does this by invoking prophetic Old Testament passages.) The prophecy was fulfilled in 67–70 AD.

So the Spirit stopped endowing people with the spiritual gifts or prophecy, tongues, and knowledge within less than 50 years of when the passage was written. In contrast, the fruits of the Spirit would continue.

The Corinthians had been emphasizing the wrong things. They went for the showy, the novel, the impressive, the ego-boosting gifts of the Spirit and missed the greater things, holiness and the fruits of the Spirit.

If you miss this contrast, you miss why Paul was correcting their priorities.

The greatest of these

Verses 4–6 describe characteristics of love. For example, contrast “Love… does not seek its own” against 14:4, The one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prophesies edifies the church. Each phrase in verses 4–6 describes a characteristic of behavior that flows from love.

Specifically, in verse 6, love “believes all things, hopes all things….” The word translated believes is the verb form of the word translated faith in verse 13. So we can see that love not only has many characteristics, but believing/faith and hoping/hope are two of those characteristics. In a hierarchy (an ontology), love is expressed or enacted through faith and hope. Hierarchically, then, love is greater than faith and hope.

Tangent

I’m surprised how some people link passing away (verse 10) to faith and hope (verse 13). Doing so, they break up the sentence that defines passing away’s context:

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

The partial is prophesy and knowledge. The partial, prophesy and knowledge, will be done away.

True, when prophesy is fulfilled and knowledge is based on first-hand, entire observation, faith and hope will become moot. But the topic is types of verbal revelation. Don’t miss what was to be done away: prophesy, tongues, and knowledge.

The looking-glass in verse 12 is a mirror (compare the same word in James 1:23, For anyone who hears the word but does not carry it out is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror. The mirror in which they saw themselves dimly was the Old Testament scriptures, discerned through knowledge, plus prophecy. The thing to be completed was the scriptures, at which time the partial, prophesy and knowledge, became superfluous.

The passive verb for prophesy and knowledge is not the same as the middle-voice verb for tongues. The meaning of tongues is explained in chapter 14 and in Old Testament scriptures that chapter 14 refers to: It was a sign to educated Jews of coming judgment, which was fulfilled by the destruction of Jerusalem and the diaspora in the first century.

So within 50 years of Paul writing 1 Corinthians, the Holy Spirit stopped distributing spiritual gifts that revealed new truths. The fruits of the Spirit, however, will continue throughout this age. 

Copyright 2020, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, but please give credit where credit is due.