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Scripture Reading: 1 Cor. 13:1-13
First Corinthians 13 is the direct continuation of chapter twelve. In the last verse of chapter twelve, verse 31, Paul says, “But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And yet I show to you a way of excellence.” The way of excellence is love. Thus, chapter thirteen presents this excellent way.
In chapter twelve Paul emphasizes speaking, the Spirit, the Body, and God’s administration. Now in chapter thirteen we have love as the fifth emphasis. Speaking ushers us into the Spirit, the Spirit brings us into the Body, and the Body preserves us in the Spirit. Furthermore, the Body is for God’s administration. Paul’s fifth emphasis, the matter of love, is the way to use the gifts, the way to be in the Body, and the way to be for the Body.
Chapter thirteen is not an isolated section of 1 Corinthians. Rather, it comes between chapters twelve and fourteen and with them forms a portion in this Epistle dealing with the gifts. Therefore, we should never consider chapter thirteen as if it stood by itself. No, it is a continuation of chapter twelve and leads into chapter fourteen. The first verse of chapter fourteen indicates this: “Pursue love, and desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but rather that you may prophesy.” The last verse of chapter twelve brings us into chapter thirteen, and the first verse of chapter fourteen concludes chapter thirteen and brings us into chapter fourteen. In 12:31 Paul speaks of the excellent way to exercise the gifts, in chapter thirteen he presents love as this excellent way, and in 14:1 he advises us to pursue love and desire earnestly the spiritual gifts, especially that we may prophesy. Thus, these chapters make up one unit, with chapter thirteen continuing chapter twelve and chapter fourteen continuing chapter thirteen.
Is love only a way, or is it also a gift? According to Romans 12, there is ground to say that love is a gift. In Romans 12:6-8 Paul says that we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us and that we should exercise them accordingly. According to verse 8, even the showing of mercy is a gift. Then in verses 9 and 10 Paul goes on to say, “Let love be without hypocrisy.…Love one another warmly in brotherly love, vying with one another in showing honor.” Then in verses 12 and 13 he says, “Rejoicing in hope, enduring in tribulation, persevering in prayer, communicating to the needs of the saints, pursuing hospitality.” All these, along with love, are spoken of in a chapter concerned with gifts. Therefore, we may say that love is at least on the border of the gifts.
Paul’s word in 1 Corinthians 13:8 may also indicate that love is a gift and not merely a way: “Love never falls away; but whether prophecies, they shall be done away; or tongues, they shall cease; or knowledge, it shall be done away.” Here Paul lists love along with the gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge. There is no doubt that to prophesy, speak in tongues, and teach with the word of knowledge are gifts. Although prophecies will be done away, tongues will cease, and knowledge will be done away, love will never fall away.
I have pointed out that there are certain brothers and sisters who apparently do not have any gifts. However, they are absolutely for the Body. To be for the Body is a matter of love, and to care for the members of the Body requires love. If we do not have love, how can we care for others? Love is necessary to care for the members so that the Body may be built up. Thus, love is the greatest gift. Nothing edifies people as much as love does. Love is a spiritual antibiotic. If there is love in a local church, there will be no need to worry about spiritual diseases. Love is the best medicine to cure such diseases. Love is a gift, even the greatest gift.
It is not difficult to have the gift of love. There is no need to fast for love or pray to receive it. Furthermore, there is no need to imitate, pretend, or perform. Love is within us. As long as you have the divine life through regeneration, you also have love, for love is the expression of life, another form of life.
Paul takes a whole chapter to emphasize the crucial matter of love. His first emphasis, on speaking, occupies just three verses; his second emphasis, on the Spirit, occupies nine or ten verses; and the third and fourth matter he emphasizes, the Body and administration, occupy sixteen verses and three verses respectively. But when Paul comes to the crucial matter of love, he devotes an entire chapter to it. This shows how important love is.
Love is a matter of life. Certain gifts are also related to life, for they are developed from the initial gifts: the Holy Spirit and the divine life. However, other gifts, especially miraculous gifts such as speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues, works of power or miracles, and healings, are not developed out of life. For this reason, Paul opens chapter thirteen by saying, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” Sounding brass and clanging cymbals give sounds without life. This is a genuine illustration of tongue-speaking. In chapters twelve and fourteen Paul places tongues and interpretation of tongues last. But here he mentions tongue-speaking first, but in a negative way that indicates that it is not a matter of life.
In the same principle, divine healing may not be a matter of life. There is a healing which comes by gift and a healing which comes by grace. This latter kind is of life, even of resurrection life. During my Christian life I have experienced the gift of healing. But I wish to testify that many times I have enjoyed healing by grace. For two and a half years, from September, 1943, until the spring of 1946, I was seriously ill with tuberculosis. For many months I was confined to bed. Every day I prayed to the Lord and was dealt with by Him. I did not pray for the church or for the work, but for my own situation. Eventually what mattered most was not that I would be healed, but that I would be thoroughly cleansed and purified. I can testify that during that period of time, my motives, intentions, and every part of my inner being were dealt with. Then the Lord healed me not by a gift in power, but by grace in life. That healing was thorough and absolute. I draw on my experience to point out that to receive healing by means of a gift has nothing to do with life. However, there is a healing by grace in life.
I appreciate the gifts in life much more than the miraculous gifts. I have seen some believers who genuinely received certain miraculous gifts only to later turn from the Lord in unbelief. What we need is life and love, the best gift, which ministers life to others.
As those who love the Lord, who are absolute with Him, and who are seeking the building of His Body so that He may have the instrument to carry out God’s administration on earth for the accomplishment of God’s eternal purpose, we must pursue love. Elders and co-workers, you need love. Brothers and sisters, you all need love. Only love builds up the Body. Moreover, according to chapter thirteen, the gift of love is everlasting, for it is constituted of the divine life and is the expression of God, the expression of eternal life. Therefore, we all should pursue love.
In 13:2 and 3 Paul says, “And if I have prophecy and know all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I dole out all my goods, and if I deliver up my body that I may boast, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” To deliver up the body in verse 3 is to die as a martyr. Instead of “that I may boast,” some manuscripts read “that I may be burned.”
In 13:4-7 Paul gives us the definition of love. This definition includes fifteen virtues of love: suffering long, being kind, not being jealous, not bragging, not puffed up, not behaving unbecomingly, not seeking its own things, not provoked, not taking account of evil, not rejoicing over unrighteousness, rejoicing with the truth, covering all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things.
In verse 4 Paul says, “Love suffers long, and is kind.” Love is the expression of life, which is the element of God. Hence, God is love (1 John 4:16). God as life is expressed in love. All the fifteen virtues of love listed in verses 4 through 7 are the divine virtues of God’s life. Such a life differs from the outward gifts listed in chapter twelve. The Corinthians were after the outward gifts, but they neglected love, the expression of life. Thus, they were still fleshy, fleshly, or soulish (3:1, 3; 2:14). They needed to grow in life, expressed by love, by pursuing love, not the outward gifts, so that they might be spiritual (2:14).
In verse 4 Paul says that love does not brag. Bragging is somewhat different from boasting. To brag is to boast of one’s self in a way to damage others. It is a kind of boasting which depreciates others and puts them down. Love certainly does not brag.
In verse 5 Paul points out that love “does not take account of evil.” The Greek word here indicates that love does not keep a record like a bookkeeper. This means that if you love others, you will not keep a record of their mistakes.
Verse 6 says, “Does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.” The totality of unrighteousness is Satan, and the totality of truth is God. Love as the expression of the divine life does not rejoice over Satan’s unrighteousness, but rejoices with God’s truth. Love does not rejoice over anyone’s unrighteousness; instead, it rejoices with the truth.
According to verse 7, love covers all things. The Greek word, also used in 9:12, can be rendered “bears.” Literally, it means to contain (as a vessel), to conceal; hence, to cover (as a roof). This word is used in the Gospels regarding the incident where some people broke up a roof in order to bring a certain sick man to the Lord Jesus. They made a hole in the roof and then lowered the man to the place where the Lord was (Mark 2:4). This Greek word means to make a hole in someone’s roof. We may do this by gossiping about others. As we talk about them, we make a hole in the roof over them; that is, we uncover them. However, love covers all things; it does not make a hole in anyone’s roof.
If we consider the fifteen virtues of love listed in these verses, we shall realize that love is nothing other than God Himself. Who other than God could have all these virtues? We cannot endure all things or believe all things. Neither can we truly have longsuffering. Only God has all these virtues. Hence, the love described here is God Himself. Furthermore, the Bible elsewhere says clearly that God is love (1 John 4:16). God is also life. Life is God’s essence, and love is God’s expression. In Himself God is life, but God expressed is love. The love which is God Himself with His divine essence as life has these fifteen virtues. This is the reason that in 1 Corinthians Paul charges the believers to grow in life. They were short of life, short of love. In other words, they were short of God and needed to grow in life.
In 13:8-13 Paul speaks concerning the excelling of love. In verse 8 he declares, “Love never falls away; but whether prophecies, they shall be done away; or tongues, they shall cease; or knowledge, it shall be done away.” For love never to fall away means that it survives everything, holds its place forever. Love never fails, never fades out or comes to an end. It is like the eternal life of God. All the gifts, whether prophecies, or tongues, or knowledge, are means for God’s operation; they are not life to express God. Hence, they shall cease and be done away. They are all dispensational. Only life, which love expresses, is eternal. According to the following verses, all gifts are for the immature child in this age. They will all be done away in the next age. Only love is of a mature man and will last for eternity. When we live and act by love, we have a foretaste of the next age and of eternity.
Nothing can shake love or remove it. All the other gifts, including prophecy, will eventually be done away with, but love remains. It never falls away. In the coming age there will be love, but there will be no tongues, interpretation, or prophecy. Both tongues, the most childish of the gifts, and prophecy, a more mature gift, will be done away.
In verses 9 and 10 Paul continues, “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is complete comes, that which is in part shall be done away.” In this age we know and prophesy only in part, not in full. The word “when” in verse 10 refers to the next age, the kingdom age. The word “complete” also means mature, in contrast with childish in the following verse. Furthermore, “that which is in part” refers to such things as prophecies and knowledge, as mentioned in verse 8.
Verse 11 says, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.” In this age the believers are children, having the childish gifts. The word “child” here means an immature one. To reason as a child is to take account of things as a child. In the next age the mature believers will become men, and all the childish gifts, especially the least ones, tongue-speaking and its interpretation, will be done away. However, we can have a foretaste of the next age by living a life of love in this age. Love matures us in life; gifts keep us in childhood.
In verse 12 Paul goes on to say, “For now we see by means of a mirror obscurely, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall fully know as also I was fully known.” The word “now” refers to this age. Concerning the expression “by means of a mirror obscurely,” J. N. Darby says in his New Translation, “That is, through some medium which, in degree, hinders vision. The word means also ‘a mirror,’ but it is used for window, made, not of clear transparent glass, as now, but of semi-transparent materials.”
The word “then” in verse 12 refers to the next age.
In verse 13 Paul concludes, “But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” The word “but” here indicates a contrast between verse 13 and the preceding verses.
Faith receives the divine things (John 1:12) and realizes the spiritual and unseen things (Heb. 11:1). Hope reaps and partakes of the things realized by faith (Rom. 8:24-25). Love enjoys the things received and realized by faith and partaken of by hope for nourishing ourselves, building up others (1 Cor. 8:1), and expressing God, thus fulfilling the entire law (Rom. 13:8-10). Such a love causes us to grow in life for the development and use of the spiritual gifts, and is the excellent way to have the greater gifts. Hence, it is the greatest of the three abiding virtues. So we must pursue it (1 Cor. 14:1).
Love cares for the Body and builds up the Body. First love unites the Body and then builds it up. Therefore, we focus our attention on the love which builds up the Body. We should pursue love and remain in the Body to enjoy the Spirit.
