1 Corinthians Episode 19: The Excellence of Love – Part 2

In one of the greatest chapters in the Bible, Paul instructs us on the supremacy of love as the greatest virtue in every aspect of the Christian life.

- Podcast Transcript - 

Wes

Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This podcast is just one of the many resources available to you for free from Two Journeys Ministry. If you're interested in learning more, just head over to twojourneys.org.

Now, on to today's episode. This is Episode 19 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. This episode is entitled The Excellence of Love Part 2, where we'll discuss 1 Corinthians 13:8-13. I'm Wes Treadway, and I'm here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we're looking at today?

Andy

What a stunning chapter this really is, what an amazing chapter 1 Corinthians 13 is. As great as the first half is, the second half soars infinitely above it, because it begins to describe in some very provocative terms what our experience in heaven is going to be like, how small and insignificant almost is our knowledge of God based on spiritual gifts in this life, and what a quantum leap we're going to make when at last we are in the presence of God, seeing him face to face, and knowing him perfectly and eternally. But the point that Paul's making here is that the knowledge that we get through spiritual gifts, it being so small, what really matters is love.

In the end, the saving work of God is to produce in us the perfect fulfillment of the two great commandments, to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, which is really not in view directly in this chapter, but the second command that we would love each other as we love ourselves is in view here. And both our love for God and our knowledge of God and our love for each other and knowledge of each other will be perfected in heaven. Jonathan Edwards wrote a great message on this based on this, the end of this chapter of 1 Corinthians 13, Heaven is a World of Love. So, we're going to get to touch on that very lightly. But brother, this is just a very brief podcast. This is just like a tidbit. This is like an hors d'oeuvre falling off a feast, a table of feasting.

So, I would offer the full sermons that I did. I did, I think, 10 sermons on 1 Corinthians 13 on this, and that's on the Two Journey's website. But in the meantime, we can give just a little sampler of the beauty of these verses.

Wes

Well, let me go ahead and read verses 8-13 that we'll be looking at in the time we have today.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 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. 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. So now, faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Andy, verse 8 says that love never ends or fails. What does the strength and unbreakability of love teach us?

Andy

Well, I think what he means here is true Christian love doesn't fail. If you really are a Christian, and you're in a love relationship with other Christians, it's not going to fail. We're not going to give up on each other. Remember how we had those four statements, "always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:7). There are other translations as well, but I like that. Those are for hard situations when love relationships are strained, when a person's going through a difficult time, but then he caps it all off with that beginning statement in verse 8. He says, "It doesn't fail. Love never fails." We're not going to give up on each other. We're going to keep loving each other.

Wes

Well, continuing in verse 8, why is it vital to understand the temporary nature of all spiritual gift ministries?

Andy

Right. Well, this great chapter, which just soars above the immediate topic of the proper use of tongues and prophecy, the proper use of spiritual gifts, it's easy to forget that it's in a development of a topic. 1 Corinthians 12-14 is the proper use of spiritual gifts. So, we have the broad description of gifts with the body analogy. There is one body with many members and the members don't all have the same function, and we get all of that- the hand, the eye, the foot, the mouth, that kind of thing. So, we have an array of spiritual gifts. In chapter 14, he's going to zero in on the showy gifts or the upfront gifts that it seems that the Corinthians were inappropriately elevating and focusing on, so the gift of tongues and prophecy.

We'll get to that, God willing, with the next podcast, but he begins this great chapter on love with the discussion of these spiritual gifts. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels but have not loved, et cetera, if I have the gift of prophecy, and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, again, tongues and prophecy. So, he's going to circle back here at the end on the issue of tongues and prophecy. What is he saying? They're temporary, and they're limited. Both of them are delivery systems for the word of God. They both deliver truth to the people of God, but he says, "Look, I'm telling you, when we get to heaven, we're going to realize it was like baby talk."

It was like we were basically talking and thinking like children when we are on earth. When we get to heaven, we're going to know God as fully as we have been known by him, and how perfect will that be? We're not using spiritual gifts up there, and so all of the teaching and preaching and writing and thinking that we do based on the written word of God is so much baby talk. It doesn't mean it's not true. It doesn't mean it's not essential to our salvation. We need it, but it says nothing compared to what we're going to get when we're in heaven. So, that's what he's saying. So, he says, "Spiritual gifts are temporary." Now, before we go too far, I do not believe this passage is teaching what's known as cessationism, the idea that we can prove from the New Testament that the spiritual gifts ended with the apostolic era.

"It was like we were basically talking and thinking like children when we are on earth. When we get to heaven, we're going to know God as fully as we have been known by him, and how perfect will that be?"

I actually think that they most likely did. I just don't think you can prove it from any text of scripture, certainly not this one, because Paul here is not talking about the temporary cessation of gifts or the cessation of gifts in time and space in which there was another couple of millennia of church history after. He's talking about heaven here. They will cease when we're done with this world. That's what he's saying, so we should not go too far on cessationism based on these verses.

Wes

So, if verse 8 teaches us about the temporary nature of these gifts, verse 9 teaches us about the present limitations of spiritual gifts. What are those, and why is it helpful for us to understand this?

Andy

"We know in part," what he's saying is there's always going to be more to know about God. God has only begun to reveal himself to us, and this was the essence of the book I wrote on heaven, which I would commend to all of our hearers. I would commend it. It's The Glory Now Revealed - what we will learn about God in heaven, and it was based on meditating on passages just like this. I believe that we will never be omniscient. I believe we will never get to the point where there's nothing more we can learn about anything, but especially about the only truly infinite topic there ever has been or ever will be, which is God himself. We will never be done learning God. There's always more to know about God.

I used to think earlier-most of my Christian life-that when you died and went to heaven based on this passage, we would get this quantum leap in our knowledge of God, and then we will know God completely and fully as God has completely and fully known us. But then I started to realize that cannot be. For then, we would be omniscient. Then we would be like God himself. Instead, I began to think of a dynamic heaven in which we would always have more to learn about God. But I think what Paul's saying here is, "Look, whatever we prophesy about, it's still just a partial knowledge of God." It is a true knowledge of God, but it's just partial. We know in part, and we prophesy in part.

Wes

What perfection does Paul have in mind in verse 10, and how might verse 12 help us to answer that question?

Andy

Well, again, the cessationists using this passage think that the perfection is the New Testament, the perfect canon of the New Testament. I don't think that's what it's talking about. However, I do believe that the New Testament, its original autographs was a perfect word from God. I don't think that's what he's talking about. I think he's talking about heaven. He's talking about that perfect and complete knowledge of God we'll have in heaven. So, we should just be humble as we minister here on earth in space and time. In our sin natures and in the spiritual gifts, our knowledge is limited. In heaven, it will be infinitely greater.

Wes

Now, you alluded to this a moment ago, but what analogy does Paul use in verse 11 to speak of the difference between how we are now and this massive upgrade that we will receive in heaven?

Andy

I also want to say something about the imperfect. I think the focus here in these three chapters is on the vehicle, on the means of communication of truth to the hearts and minds of the people. It is the imperfect thing that will pass away-that vehicle or conduit or pipeline of truth. There will be a better one in heaven that we can't really understand, a more direct communication of the nature of God to the hearts of the glorified saints in heaven. That's what the scripture says. They will all be taught by God. Again, in the new covenant prediction in Jeremiah, it says, "No longer will a man teach his neighbor a man, and his brother saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest'" (Jeremiah 31:34).

Again, Jesus said in John 17:3, "This is eternal life that they may know you the only true God." So, I believe in a direct communication of truths about God in serial form one after the other after the other after the other in heaven, in a much more efficient, more direct, I don't know, hardwired way. I don't know what language to use because any language I use is imperfect. But when we get to heaven, we will more perfectly be taught God than we ever were here on earth. So, the analogy he uses is that of moving from childhood to full manhood. When I was a child, I thought like a child, talked like a child, reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I didn't do that anymore.

So, you and I both have children. Your son, Oliver, is quite young, but he's beginning to talk. When you start to listen to how they talk when they're little, their talk is really simple and a bit foolish. Then as they get older, they say a little more complex things, and you think about that. It's like, "Look, mommy, there's a birdie in the tree, or look, mommy, there's a cat." You're like, "Is that what you got, dude?" I mean, yeah, that's what he's got.

Wes

It's profound right now. That is profound stuff right there.

Andy

That's us. That's us talking about God compared to what it will be. It'd be like all of our theology, even the greatest theologians. It was like, "Look, daddy, there's a bird flying in the sky." That's what it's going to be like. Our knowledge of God is rudimentary, but in heaven, it will be much more expansive and more perfect.

Wes

How does verse 12 help to reiterate that point that Paul makes in verse 11?

Andy

He uses the image of a looking glass or a mirror or some reflection. You could imagine back then, I don't think they had the kind of mirrors we have now, which is I think its metal attached to glass. So, you get shiny like silver or some very, very bright metal that's adhering to glass. That's what we know is a mirror, and so it's a more precise image that we have a more accurate image. I think the best mirrors ever used were used for telescopes, for refracting telescopes and all that. Those are just as flawless as the optometrical science can make them. But you could imagine, let's say, a polished piece of metal like a bronze or brass mirror back then, and it would be polished to a high sheen, but it still gave an imperfect reflection.

So, the idea is that we're looking in something like that, and we're seeing something that's indistinct, something that it's basically right, but it's rippling. It's off a bit. That's what we're seeing about God. The image we have of God is narrow; it's limited and somewhat imperfect. I think that's what it means. I think that this is one of the great themes that I've gotten as I've been preaching through the Gospel of Mark. And Mark 1:1 gives us the theme of the entire gospel, "The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God," but what we've learned as we've walked through is that no one on earth really understands what that means. Jesus is the Son of God or God the Son.

"The image we have of God is narrow; it's limited and somewhat imperfect."

So, the disciples themselves were progressing and evolving in their understanding of it. Peter made the great confession on Caesarea Philippi's mountain saying, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). But then mere moments later, he was rebuking him because he said he would go to the cross. So, he didn't really understand what it meant. Paul wrote in Colossians that "in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). So, what do we really know on earth of the greatness of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit? So, we have a limited knowledge, and so it is with this analogy, when I was a child that talk like a child, thought like a child, reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Now, we see an imperfect image as in a mirror then more perfectly than we shall see as face-to-face.

Wes

How does that idea of seeing face-to-face temper or shape our expectations of this life, and what will that be like to see face to face?

Andy

Well, I think the backdrop of this must be Moses' demand to see God's glory on the mount of glory, on the mount of fire, Mount Sinai. He was up there on the mountain, and he said, "Now, show me your glory" (Exodus 33:18). God said, "I'll put you in a cleft of the rock, and you can see my trailing quarters (or my hindquarters), but you cannot see my face for no one can see me and live" (Exodus 33:20,23 paraphrase). So, the idea is the full glory of God would destroy us, would incinerate us. I think we have a sense of that when we literally look at the sun now. I remember when there was an eclipse a few years ago, and we were told, "Do not under any circumstances think you can look at the sun. You can't. You haven't. You're not used to it. You can't handle it, et cetera."

So, they would give you, NASA was selling special glasses that would enable you to see the eclipse. But I, not believing what I was told, foolishly snuck a couple of glimpses, and then I realized it's true. We don't. We think we do from time to time. We actually never look at the sun. It's just too bright, and God made the sun. It's a creature. He holds it in the palm of his hand. It's like us nothing compared to him. We cannot look at the full glory of God, but it says in Revelation 22 that the servants of God will be around his throne, and they will see his face. So, we are going to see God face to face.

So, how does it temper us now? Now, we cannot handle it. We cannot see it fully. We should not expect it. We see just a small part of God's glory, but then in some mysterious way, we'll be able to handle a full revelation of God's glory.

Wes

Andy, it strikes me that this probably helps to temper some of our disenchantment with this world, but also to heighten some of our gratefulness for the good things. So, when we do experience a foretaste of that, it makes us long all the more for that time when we will see him face to face.

Andy

This is what this is all about. Now, Jonathan Edwards wrote this great sermon, Heaven is a World of Love. He goes just far beyond the language here in 1 Corinthians 13, and I preached a whole... I actually preached two sermons based on his insights. So, I would commend that work. Edwards is just brilliant. What Edwards does is he takes what we all have and works with it in a way that seems a little pedantic. That's obvious, but he doesn't stop, and he goes on for 30, 40 pages. When he's done, you're in a whole new place. You're in a different place than you ever thought you would be.

What he's saying is that heaven is a world of love. Heaven is a perfection of love. That's where we're heading. It's a love chapter, and Paul ends up in heaven, so therefore the logic of heaven is a world of love. That's where I've come to the conclusion that the point of our salvation, the point of everything is that we would know God and love him. And knowing God is loving him. That's the whole point. Paul says, "We're going to know God more perfectly in heaven, and we're going to love him more perfectly." Not only that, we're going to know and love each other more perfectly, so it's all about love. It's all about having the perfection of love, and that's where Paul ends up.

"I've come to the conclusion that the point of our salvation, the point of everything is that we would know God and love him. And knowing God is loving him."

Love is going to remain when all the other things are done. So, when we get to heaven, all aspects of love will be perfected. Let me take a little detail that I remember from Edward's work which really struck me. He was talking about the limits of love now and especially horizontal, the love we have for each other. Our love for each other is very imperfect. There is such a thing, for example, as unrequited love, and I remember meditating on that in one sermon for a while. One of the greatest pains there is in this world is unrequited love. It's when person A loves person B, and they don't love them back. How many love songs are there about that anguish?

I mean, there are so many. I could list popular songs now, which are what I would call almost a primal scream of agony as this individual has realized this person used to love me and doesn't anymore, and is leaving me for another person, or doesn't love me at all, or it's not going to work out between us, et cetera. It's extremely painful, but what Edward says is person A to person B, that's never going to happen. We are going to love each other with a full, complete and perfect love, and there won't be any pride involved. There won't be any reticence, any holding back. We will have a total and complete delight in each other.

But then I went beyond even what Edward said in the sermon at that point, and I said, "The greatest and the most painful unrequited love is God and man." God has loved us, and we don't love him back. God has loved us and poured out his love for us, and we love others. We love idols; we are idolaters. We are promiscuous, and we are spiritually adulterous. James calls us adulterous people. We go after others and not God. The beauty of this meditation is we're going to be healed of that. We are going to love the lover of our soul perfectly and completely as he has loved us, and that's what I'm looking forward to.

Wes

Andy, I love that you have talked about this process of learning more and more throughout all eternity of the greatness, the majesty of this God that we know only in part now. Is there anymore that we should say about that before we turn to verse 13? In our conclusion, you talked about it already, but as we've said, we've got only so much time to reflect on an infinite subject now.

Andy

Right. Well, it's one of the most exciting, provocative, interesting topics I've ever studied. When I meditate, the entry port for me into the meditation is we will never be omniscient. What that means is we will always be able to learn new things about God. So, then I began to think about heaven as a form of education. What was the topic? Not just God, but the glory of God, the radiant display of the attributes of God. Then I kept going. I was like, "How would God teach it to us?" Then I started realizing that for the most part, God cannot teach us his nature apart from his works. So, so much of what God reveals of himself, he has revealed in his works.

So, then I kept going. I said, "Well, what percentage of the works of God do you think that we know?" Think about redemptive history. My PhD's in church history. I studied one tiny aspect of it, all right? I studied John Calvin's eschatology. A little more broadly, I studied Calvin in context, and more broadly than that Luther and the Reformation and all that. That's where it ended. Then I got my PhD and went on in a pastoral ministry. I've read a lot of church history since then, but I know how much I don't know, or at least I am educated enough to know I don't know much.

So, I would say I know .000000000001% of the works God has ever done, and so there's a lot to learn. I mean, Wes, how much of what God's done in and through you, just you, do you think you know? I mean, how many ways has God protected you, filtered your temptations, kept demons away from you, shaped and molded your providence, done things that answered your prayers? It's staggering, and you're just one person. Imagine a multitude greater than anyone can count from every tribe, language, people, and nation. We have 100 million, hundreds and hundreds of millions of redeemed brothers and sisters we've never met. We couldn't have met them. They died before we were born, or they lived in other countries, and we're going to get to know them in heaven.

If we're never going to be on mission, that means we have things to learn about them. We're going to learn how God saved them, and then how God used them and wove their lives together in a vast network of complex providence that we're only beginning to study. Don't get me started. So, on we go. I remember I got a book contract from my publisher, Baker, and they gave me a limit of 55,000 words. The manuscript I took to Cardiff when I was editing it was 165,000 words. It was a trilogy, triple book.

Wes

They didn't ask for a trilogy though.

Andy

They weren't wanting it.

Wes

It's a bummer.

Andy

But I was like, "Look, this topic is so huge, and no, I don't have to put it all in a book that people will read." In heaven, we are going to have so many things revealed to us, obscure people we never even knew. We're going to find out what God did, and it's going to be awesome. So, we have a lot to learn, and the center of all of it will be love for God and love for one another.

Wes

At the end of this chapter, Paul singles out faith, hope and love. How are faith and hope different than love, and why does Paul single these out here?

Andy

Well, faith and hope are temporary. Love isn't. That's the whole point. He doesn't say that. He actually says they remain. All three of them remain. They abide, but we know better. We know in Romans 8, he says that hope itself is temporary. He says, "Who hopes for what he already has?" When you get what you're hoping for, you're done with hope. Then when you realize that faith has an essential forward-looking aspect where we're trusting God for things, and he's invisible, faith is the assurance of things. Hope for the conviction of things, what, not seen. When at last we see God face to face, we won't need faith in him anymore, so faith and hope are temporary. They're essential for this world, but we will not need them in the next. But guess what's left. Love.

The whole point then is love. Faith and hope serve love. They serve the perfection of love. So, that's how great love is. So, even within the way Paul's written, we could go beyond what he wrote and said, "Now, these three abide or remain, faith, hope and love, parentheses." Of the three, only one of them is eternal, love. The love is the greatest of them all. So, that's why he singles it out. He says, "The greatest of these is love, and the only eternal of them is love." That's where we're heading.

Wes

Andy, I'd love to wrap up a little bit differently than we do usually. We've talked a lot about Jonathan Edwards and his work on this topic. I'd love to read a brief excerpt, and then hear just your final thoughts on this passage that we've been looking at over the last two episodes, anything you'd like to say about this excerpt, and then we will wrap up for today.

Andy

Sure. That's exciting. I can't wait to find out what it is.

Wes

Jonathan Edwards finished his extended treatment of 1 Corinthians 13: Charity and Its Fruits with that marvelous chapter entitled Heaven is a World of Love. So, I'm going to read this, and then we'll have you comment. "In heaven, there shall be no remaining enmity or distaste or coldness or deadness of heart towards God and Christ. Not the least remainder of any principle of envy shall exist to be exercised toward angels or other beings who are superior in glory. Nor shall there be aught like contempt or slighting of those who are inferiors. Those that have a lower station in glory than others suffer no diminution of their own happiness by seeing others above them in glory.

"On the contrary, all the members of that blessed society rejoice in each other's happiness for the love of benevolence is perfect in them all. Everyone has not only a sincere but a perfect goodwill to every other. There is undoubtedly an inconceivably pure, sweet, and fervent love between the saints and glory. And that love is in proportion to the perfection and amiableness of the objects beloved. And therefore it must necessarily cause delight in them when they see that the happiness and glory of others are in proportion to their amiableness, and so in proportion to their love to them. Those that are highest in glory are those that are highest in holiness, and therefore are those that are most beloved by all the saints, for they most love those that are most holy."

"So, they with all rejoice in their being the most happy, and it will not be a grief to any of the saints to see those that are higher than themselves in holiness and likeness to God more loved also than themselves, for all shall have as much love as they desire and as great manifestations of love as they can bear. And so all shall be fully satisfied. Where there is perfect satisfaction, there can be no reason for envy. There will be no temptation for any to envy those that are above them in glory on account of the latter being lifted up with pride, for there will be no pride in heaven. We're not to conceive that those who are more holy and happy than others in heaven will be elated and lifted up in their spirit above others, for those who are above others in holiness will be superior to them in humility."

"The saints that are highest in glory will be the lowest in humbleness of mind for their superior humility is part of their superior holiness. Though all are perfectly free from pride, yet as some will have greater degrees of divine knowledge than others, and larger capacities to see more of the divine perfections so they will see more of their own comparative littleness and nothingness, and therefore will be lowest and most abased in humility."

Andy, what final thoughts do you have for us on this passage that we've been looking at these last two times?

Andy

Oh my goodness, every sentence, he's dropping bombs. I remember reading that, and having my mind blown, just the differing in glory, the fact that we're not all be equally glorious. We'll not all have equal capacity to understand God comes from those statements. The fact that there'll be no jealousy, and I tied it back to 1 Corinthians 12:26, "When one part of the body is honored, the whole body is honored with it." No jealousy. We actually will think those greater than us in glory deserve it, and we'll think it's right. God did it, and so therefore we think it's right, and what... The more you meditate on this, the more free from envy you become now, the more you really are in it for everybody.

You want everybody to do well in the Christian life. It helps me as a pastor, helps me not to be jealous of other pastors whose ministries are more blessed than mine or more fruitful than mine. Praise God. It motivates me to want to be more blessed and fruitful myself, but not in competition. There's just so much power that comes from this. So, this is Edwards at his best, and behind all of these meditations, it's four steps removed from scripture, but it's all true, I believe. That's what this Ed... This is theologizing at its best, but more than anything, it's just a glimpse into a world that I want to be in. In the meantime, the more you meditate on heaven, the more heavenly you act here on earth, and that's what's good for us.

So, heaven is a world of love, and the more you meditate on it, the more that earth becomes more a world of love too. That's why Paul wrote the chapter. He wrote it for here and now that we would read it now, and that we would be loving to each other now. So, that's what I get out of it.

Wes

Well, this has been Episode 19 in our 1 Corinthians Bible Study Podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 20 entitled Prophecy, Tongues, and Order in Worship, where we'll discuss 1 Corinthians 14:1-40. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.