870 1 Cor.13.8-13 The Enduring Nature of Love
Notes
Transcript
- Spiritual gifts has been a hot topic of debate in the church
Q. Is God still dispensing the same gifts at the same level as He gave them in the Apostle’s generation or have things changed somewhat?
- If you are looking to the question of whether certain gifts of the Spirit have stopped, you really won’t find it here in this passage
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- Now I happen to think that there is certainly a case to be made for the closing of some gifts of the Spirit & that can be made from other passages, but not this one
- Let me mention one that has definitely concluded
- The gift of apostle – as we talk about the original 12 plus Paul
- The credentials of an apostle of Jesus was that he has seen the resurrected Lord Jesus
- It was necessary for them to be witnesses of His resurrection & the miracles these apostles performed became the evidence the that resurrected Jesus was speaking through them
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- What today’s passage does tell us though is that the gifts are not permanent
- In other words, they are a temporary phenomena
- Clearly, they are a means to an end & not an end in itself
- If you possess love in the way you operate & converse with one another, then you are achieving what the gifts themselves are intending to produce
11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
- The spiritual gifts when used correctly, will help manifest the fruits of the Spirit
- The end result of the gifts is conformity to the Person of Jesus Christ – behaving & thinking like Him
1. Love Continues into Resurrected Life
1. Love Continues into Resurrected Life
- Here we start at v.8 with “Love never ends/fails”
- This verse has the sense that love never collapses
17 “But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one stroke of a letter of the Law to fail.
- Or “collapse”
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- I think that most people think of their life & most people, I think, want their life to count
- Whether that be for God, for family or for self-respect
- Most people want their life to count
- We often, however, get caught up in the non-essential
- What I mean by non-essential are those things that, in the end, don’t count for much
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- Some people have sacrificed so much in wanting to achieve a dream or a goal, but it has destroyed the people & the ones they love around them
- Their relationships have disintegrated because they prioritised the non-essential over the essential
- Now it may nice to earn your fortune; to have your name up in lights; to be able to boast about what you have achieved, but we all know that unless it was for the Lord, we can’t take it with us when we die
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- I’m not dismissing the fact that you have to live & that you can even make your fortune
- What I’m latching on to here is the person who invests or puts all their eggs in that enterprise to only ignore or neglect those other matters that you just cannot do without
- Like marriage, family, love, loyalty, faithfulness
- These are the things we don’t & won’t want to miss out on
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- Sure, we all make mistakes & I’m not trying to blame anyone for their situation
- But I’m pointing out the reality – that a person could sit with their millions all on their own – on their lonesome - & be miserable & all for what? Something they can’t take with them
- So my point is that there are some especially important aspects in life that should take the priority before those less important aspects
- We have to determine what those are
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- In the passage today, this same analogy is being made
- Here is a church that was more concerned with the prestige of the gifts over the intended purpose of the gifts
- We can say that they put the cart before the horse
- There was a sense of power & prestige that a person had when it came to those types of gifts that distinguished one person above another
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- Paul mentions 3 of those gifts here
- Prophecy, Knowledge & tongues
- These were prize winning gifts & the Corinthians, in seeking to be someone, coveted these types of gifts to the exclusion of what they thought were the more mundane
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- I hope you remember the fetish the Greeks had for spiritual things & loathing they had for the material
- The spirit & spiritual is pure, undefiled but the flesh is corrupt, evil & base
- Of course, those spirit empowered gifts of say, helps, were naturally of a lesser value because it engaged with the material world
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- But ah, speaking in tongues, knowledge or prophecy was “spiritual” & of a higher order
- We may scoff at this, but we still have the Greek dichotomy (Greek dualism) with us
- The whole faith/works controversy in the church sits right upon the altar of Greek dualism
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- Here in v.8 Paul says that prophecy & knowledge will pass away & tongues will cease
- It might be that his use of different words – pass away & cease - to show how these gifts will disappear is only his writing style
- But I’m not so sure
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- Tongues were a particular issue in this church as chp.14 will make clear so I think he gives it a bit more prominence here by using the word “cease” on the word “tongues”
- It seems to me to have more of a “closure” sense to it which will jolt or probably trigger the tongue-speakers into taking notice!
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- He uses pass away for prophecy & knowledge but cease for tongues
11 For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory.
- The glory is fading or passing away from Moses but increases for those in Christ
24 They came to Jesus and woke Him up, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And He got up and rebuked the wind and the surging waves, and they stopped, and it became calm.
- The wind & the waves “ceased” at His command
- The differences between “pass away” & “cease” are minor, but I don’t think insignificant in this case
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- On the one hand you have these super cherished gifts said to disappear, cease, perish, pass away
- On the other hand, you have “love” which is permanent & never passes away; never ceases
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- Love is the character of God – God is love – “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life”
- Love is the jewel in the crown
- It is like a diamond to be found
- It is the “modus operanti” - the mode of operating, the way of living of the Christian
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- If this is the case, then love is what ought to take centre stage
- It is what needs to be prioritised
2. The Gifts Are Shadows, Not Realities
2. The Gifts Are Shadows, Not Realities
- When I was about 12-13 yrs old, I would go out camping and having adventures in the bush lands behind our home with a mate of mine from across the road
- In those days, you could own a slug gun and we would go out and have a ball - cooking, camping, riding motor bikes
- Being kids, we would do some stupid & immature things
- One of those things was putting a loaded slug gun 2 inches from my foot and shooting it
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- It was fortunate that I had thick shoes on at the time because it might have gone through my foot
- I remember that it really hurt & my mate did it as a joke
- Well, of course, it was utterly thoughtless because it could have penetrated into my foot
- People do thoughtless things when they are immature & act in rather unloving ways
- He didn’t have in mind the full picture of what might be the result of doing what he did
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- The apostle in vs. 9-12 sets up an analogy between an immature child in contrast with the mature adult
- My story might be funny & interesting, but as an analogy it is not the best because it suggests a foolish motive of a young person & that is not what Paul is pointing out here
- The point I will draw out is the ignorance of my mate as to what might happen had that slug gone through my foot - what would happen then - I might have strangled him!!!
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- The gifts of the Spirit are akin to the immature child
- Like a child, who doesn’t think nor can know adequately, the gifts of the Spirit are not at a level that would perfectly inform us of what our God is like
- In this sense, they are inadequate & imperfect
We know that God is everywhere, but we do not know how. We know that he created the world from nothing, but we do not know how he did so. We know that [Christ] was born of a virgin, but we do not know how. In the future we will know about these things more completely and with more certainty. -- John Chrysostom
- So it is fair to say that the gifts of the Spirit are expressing shadows of the reality
- When glory is reached to prophesy then in glory, for example, will be like switching on a torch in the full light of the midday sun
- So too when we enter resurrection life, we will come face to face with the reality
- As v. 9-10 express
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.
- The passage is not saying that the gifts aren’t valuable – even a child has a level of ability in reading, writing & arithmetic
- But the point is that in this present age, the spiritual gifts are helpful in our growth towards Christ if they are exercised by that virtue of permanence, which is love
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Q. However, what is this perfect that comes?
- The word can mean perfect or complete/completion
- There has been plenty of comment on this
- Some have maintained that it is the Scriptures – that is, the close of the NT canon of Scripture
- It is suggested that it refers to the completion of the OC
- In the prophecy of Jesus, the temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed – as it was in AD 70, in which case, it brought an end to the OC since no animal sacrifices could then be carried out
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- This then becomes an expression of the kingly rule & judgement of Jesus against the Jewish nation who rejected Him - now only leaving the Christian church
- I think there is a lot of merit to this last point, but Paul is probably referring in 1 Corinthians to the future age, when Christ literally comes in His glory & resurrected life begins
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- What we have at the moment then are gifts that are inferior to what we will witness in the end
- Knowledge is now only partial
- Prophecy is now only incomplete
- Tongues is now only rudimentary
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- I was looking at the back of our car this week after the rain of last weekend
- What a mess – you can usually see a reflection of yourself on the glass or on the back door – but barely no chance of that at the moment
- When you look into a mirror that has lost it’s reflection – its dull & if the material behind it has degraded, you only see a poor image of yourself
- Sometimes that can be a benefit, especially when you’d like to avoid the wrinkles & blemishes
- Paul says here that what we know & understand now is blurry or incomplete, partial - we really cannot know the fullness & greatness of our God - “who is this that darkens My counsel with words without knowledge”
- Job is confronted with a God who is so intelligent & so vast & so great that he stutters towards repentance
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- The gifts of the Spirit are a means to an end – they have a benefit, but what they give you is only a glimmer – they are a shadow, not the reality
Q. If the gifts are in the scale of incomplete, partial, imperfect, then shouldn’t they be viewed & regarded with less appeal than the likes of that which is permanent & what will remain a part of our resurrected life – that of love?
- That is the point here – love endures forever, so keep your focus on love
- Don’t use the gifts & add love
- Use love & add the gifts – that order – one is permanent, one is temporary
3. Life’s Foundations in the Present Age
3. Life’s Foundations in the Present Age
- I want to come back to the remarks I made at the start of this message
- Life is full of hurdles, decisions, complications & outcomes
- Those outcomes can be very different depending on the course you take in life
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- We can major on the minors & bankrupt our lives or, we can keep the main thing the main thing
- I do like the way Jesus puts this in perspective
23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. 24 “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
- So the religious leaders have invested much time & energy into matters that don’t count as much as the main thing
- They are splitting hairs with tithing – must be a tenth of everything & not a penny more – even an accurate tithe of minuscule stuff of mint, dill & cummin
- Then you have them straining out a gnat – a midge or insect from what they drank
- In the law, a midge is the smallest of unclean creatures & a Jew would separate himself from anything unclean
- A camel, however, is the largest of unclean animals
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- These Pharisees were majoring on the minors by making sure they strained out the smallest of insignificant creatures only to swallow in its place the largest of unclean animals, the camel
- Jesus is not being literal here, I hope you know that
- His point is that in the process of straining out the minor, they have lost sight of what was more important which was justice, mercy & faithfulness
- These are the things which truly belong to God
- In focusing only on the minor they lost sight of what mattered more to God – in doing so, Jesus said, they may as well have swallowed the whole camel
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- Coming back to our passage, we find that the Corinthians have done the same evaluation with the spiritual gifts
- Like the Pharisees, who saw nothing in it for them with being just, or merciful or faithful
- They did the minimum while they went about pleasing their flesh, like standing on the street corners praying where everyone could see them & say how wonderfully spiritual they were
- Where they ruled that if you swear by the altar, your promise is not binding – but oh, if you swear by the gold on the altar, it is binding
- To which Jesus says, what has more valuable – the gold or the altar?
- Of course, to the selfish man, the gold is what appeals
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- The Corinthians had gold in their eyes too
- The gold of showing off with speaking in tongues or in visions they have seen
18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind,
- This is how the flesh can turn what God considered good for this present age, into an avenue for the ego
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- Paul now brings this section to a conclusion
- Abide these 3 – these are what is truly important & should be prioritised in the life & ministry of the church
- Faith, Hope & Love
- Brunner puts it well...
Faith has to do with the basis, the ground on which we stand. Hope is reaching out for something to come. Love is just being there and acting.
-- E. Brunner
- The greatest of these is love since it is love that will endure forever
- The gifts will pass away & cease
- Faith will give way to sight & hope will go because who hopes for what they already have
- But love is that which we will always have & share
- For the church, love is what is most important
- If we get this right, then not only will we be on the right track, we will be well-pleasing to God
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