First Letter to the Corinthians -- Chapter 13
Having shown us how our gifts, talents, and abilities are to be applied to proclaim Christ crucified and to aide our fellow man in the Body of Christ, Paul continues on to address what he wants us to all strive after, the greater and greatest gifts of the Spirit. It is here in these words, of the most famous chapter to the Corinthians (the “love chapter” that is used at so many weddings), that Paul means to destroy all the false doctrines, lies, and beliefs of the Corinthians (and of us) in regards to what truly matters. We need to forget and put aside all our worldly perspective and lusts, this is what really matters: Love.
But what is love? Is it a feeling? Is it a thought? Is it a word? Is it an action? From the Scriptures we know that love is the fulfillment of the law, “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10), and within the whole context of Scripture that means far more than what anyone could first imagine. To put it as simply and plainly as Scripture does: “God is love” (1 John 4:16). Those of us who have been Christians for awhile have all heard “God is love” many, many times but we continually miss the depth of what the Bible is telling us in that. It is very easy to write that statement off and say, “Oh, that’s great, God is love, makes perfect sense…” then turn around and ignore the implications of such an awesome and profound statement. Is love God? No. Is God love? Yes. So to know love we must know God. However, we cannot know God without Him revealing Himself to us; we can never come to know Him simply on the power of our own reasoning or searching. Therefore we must be known by God. So the question becomes this: has God revealed Himself to us and sought us out? And if this is so, then we must look there, for that will be where we find love as the Bible teaches, the love which we need to seek daily with all our hearts, the very love that we are nothing without. What do the Scriptures tell us about God’s revelation of love to us? “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him…We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:10, 15-16, 19). “We know what real love is because Christ gave up his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Jesus Christ is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Law. Jesus Christ is love revealed to mankind. Jesus Christ is therefore the only true definition of love. It is here, and only here, that we can come to understand all the Scriptures that speak on “love.” If we read the Scriptures without the recognition of this truth about love then we will miss the entirety of its Message. Therefore let us proceed with a thorough acknowledgement of this truth: Jesus Christ = Love.
Paul begins by addressing a topic that we will come to see was much abused by the church at Corinth (and in our world today): speaking in tongues. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1). Without hesitating Paul tells us very plainly that all the tongue speaking in the world is empty nothingness when it lacks the direct proclamation of Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ as its center it is nothing but noise and clamoring, a meaningless blabbering. But how devastating are these words to our self-righteousness and all the lofty ideals, standards, and values of this world? Speaking in tongues in this context also represents far more than just speaking in languages, it represents the vain desires and seeking of this world. So often we in the Church get caught up in our “perfect” words and all our charming and charismatic ways and facades; we get caught up in talking the talk and completely lose the walk and substance. Our discipleship is lost for the sake of upholding an image to the world, to our fellow man. What good is our idle talk and chatter if we are living as hypocrites? What good are our words if we are not obeying and following? As Scripture tells us, if our words are not backed up by discipleship we are nothing more than a clanging cymbal that is making a meaningless racket. Our words are certainly something we should pay attention to as they can be a powerful witness and a powerful destructor, but we must remember that we are first and foremost followers of Christ; not talkers about Christ, not theorizers about Christ, not philosophers about Christ, but followers of Christ, men and women of action. Without Jesus Christ living in our hearts and having possession of our very being thru the Cross we are hollow and empty, we are simply nothing at all. Our words only have meaning and carry true weight when Christ is living a life of love thru our bodies. As the saying goes, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who talk about doing things, and those that actually do them.” We need God’s love in Jesus Christ to burst into our lives and lead us to be children of action and love, bearing witness to Christ with the entirety of our lives. “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Let us stop talking about following Jesus Christ and by His grace actually do it.
Moving on Paul compares love to a topic that strikes to the heart of Greek culture: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge…but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). To have the knowledge and understanding of all mysteries, to know the ways of God and to be able to see and interpret them, and to be able to discern God’s will in the paths of our life and of those around us, are all torn completely asunder without love. All the understanding, wisdom, and truth in the world becomes nothing more than lies if it is not upheld by love, that is, by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is Himself truth, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6), and is therefore the foundation of all wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Nothing is truth without Him and apart from Him. He is the beginning and the end of everything we are and rely on. To proclaim anything apart from Jesus Christ, as true as it may seem, is ultimately nothing more than a lie. Jesus Christ is the key and foundation that holds all truth together and unites it all; without that key all our knowledge, wisdom, and understanding become empty in the strictest and realest sense. “What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open” (Isaiah 22:22). For instance, the Ten Commandments apart from Jesus Christ bring death, judgment, and condemnation on us all, but combined with the truth of Christ, the Ten Commandments become the living and active will of God that we live for in freedom under the Cross. Everything in the realm of truth and knowledge is only held together in love, in Jesus Christ.
Paul continues on to even compare love to the heart of his own message: faith. “And if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). This line of Scripture may bother us more than any other, especially in this day and age. Since the Reformation, faith has become the focal point of the majority of churches in Christendom. However, even Paul, the one who preached faith so vigorously, saw the dangers that lurked in the dark recesses of this teaching that are waiting to devour us. We must not become obsessed with faith as an independent entity. A faith that can move mountains is nothing, absolutely nothing without love, without Jesus Christ. Faith in and of itself is worthless and empty, or as Paul says, it is nothing. The faith that seeks itself and believes in itself and its own merit is a very dangerous foe in our lives. It readily deceives thousands upon thousands into believing they stand with God when in fact they are fully entrenched in slavery to themselves and trust in the merits of their own idea of faith. Saving faith (faith which clings to Jesus Christ for all things) is always the gift of God thru the Holy Spirit’s work and it cannot be objectified, as it is merely a passive receptor to the gifts of salvation that are poured out to us in Christ Jesus. We must never lose sight of Jesus Christ and become focused on a faith that attempts to exist without love and apart from Him. Faith always looks to what it trusts, whether it is Jesus Christ, money, humanity, or faith itself, and it is only as “good” as what it trusts and relies on. Saving faith therefore looks solely to Jesus Christ, being unaware of its own existence as it is so completely and totally consumed with Christ and His work and His merit and His righteousness. The faith that the devil tries to trick the Church with looks to itself as the source and location of salvation, always focused inward and consumed with its own self-existence; the devil’s faith believes that faith itself is the reason for salvation, slowly pushing Jesus Christ out of the picture. Faith itself however does not and cannot save; faith in Christ Jesus saves only by means of the grace of His vicarious suffering, death, and resurrection. Therefore with Martin Luther we say, “In my heart reigns this one article, faith in my dear Lord Christ, the beginning, middle and end of whatever spiritual and divine thoughts I may have, whether by day or by night.”
The final words of Paul’s opening section on the centrality of love, looks at the actual deeds of love themselves. “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). Here we truly see how love is far more than anything we thought it ever was in the past; that it is in fact Jesus Christ Himself. In our ignorance did we not used to believe that love was an action, an immeasurable sacrifice that one made? Love is certainly manifested in such ways, but at its core, thru Scripture, we see that it is so much more. No deed in and of itself is love and nor will it ever be. God Himself is love and this is revealed to us in its pure and unadulterated form only in Jesus Christ. No deed that resembles our human notion of love, whether it is enormous charity or even sacrificing our very life for another, is of any gain or worth apart from love, that is, apart from Jesus Himself. Apart from Christ these deeds are selfish and vain, even if we cannot see that fact. Their vanity lies in the fact that they are corrupted by a heart that is consumed with itself and does these deeds for its own selfish glory, honor, dignity, and sake. We are slaves to this selfish prideful nature until Christ makes us born again by His grace, and we are incapable of escaping it on our own or thru any action of our own. Therefore love is not even the greatest deeds and actions in the world; it is always complete adherence to the person of Jesus Christ. Love is not an offer we can make to God in word and deed, but it is always the gracious work that Christ has done for us in the cross.
Thru these powerful words from Paul everything we have worked to achieve and everything we have strived to build under the rule of our ego is crushed. Even our unwitting attempts to corrupt Christianity by polluting it with zealous fanaticism, moral piety, self-endowed faith, and self-righteous rigor fall by the wayside before this proclamation of Scripture. No man can stand on his own religion, piety, morality, self-righteousness, or even his own faith before these words. “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things” (Philippians 3:7-8). Paul purposefully leaves no wiggle room, wanting us to see that everything in the world is meaningless apart from the Cross. We are completely and utterly bankrupt, we are nothing (nothing at all!) without love, that is, without Christ. Without love, without Jesus Christ, “I am nothing.”
Having showed us that we are absolutely nothing apart from love, Paul continues on to give us the characteristics and features of the true love that is found only in Jesus Christ. Before we begin however it is important to clearly distinguish this love that Paul speaks of from the concept of “love” that pollutes the world around us.
Everyone has love. For so many people it is the very reason for living and even the staunchest atheist often comes to the conclusion that “love” is the meaning of life. But is this the love that the Bible speaks of? No, the world’s love, the love that every man has from birth, is a love turned completely inward, a me-first love, a self-love. This love is the most dangerous delusion and false god that plagues every man from the womb (honest observation will show that for small infants their whole world is “all about them”). “How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?” (Psalms 4:2). In reality this self-love is complete enmity towards God. On the other hand, the love that the Bible speaks of is entirely different in nature than what the world proclaims and what the world teaches. Self-love is a mere dirty, selfish, and distorted reflection of what Biblical love is. In fact this self-love is such a lost image of true love that we are incapable of reconstructing what true love is on our own; it is simply too amazing, too magnificent, and too outside of ourselves for our puny intellects and inwardly pointed selves to grasp. The real danger with self-love is its hidden and sneaky nature. Self-love is an actor that wears many faces and masks in an effort to remain unknown to those around it, even to the one it inhabits. It works and schemes behind the scenes trying to keep itself hidden behind a flood of facades and illusions. This self-love will even go out of its way to “help” others in an effort to fulfill its own motives and bring its own plans to fruition. Looking closely we will find that oftentimes the fiercest and most disgusting self-love is buried deep beneath philanthropy, altruism, and sacrificial charity. Paul strongly warned Timothy and us all of this false love: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). This self-love parades as a “form of godliness” yet in the end it denies Jesus Christ in favor of itself. This is what the world calls “love.”
Biblical love however is far different than this self-love. As we have seen previously, Biblical love is understood only thru Jesus Christ, and therefore as Paul continues on to list the characteristics of love he is in reality listing the characteristics of Christ. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud” (1 Corinthians 13:4). The true love of God is the very opposite of the self-love that consumes sinful man. What we often peg as “love” in this life usually turns out to be impatient, angry, jealous, arrogant, and prideful, while on the other hand Christ’s love is always willing to wait, gentle, meek, and humble. How often in our relationships have we found ourselves possessive and jealous, unwilling to wait, and most especially proud? This is once again our self-love and ultimately it is nothing other than pride, the great enemy and sin of the world. It is an arrogant love of oneself that exalts oneself to the center of the universe in complete and utter selfishness, pushing mankind and God out of its life even as its tries to give lip service to them in order to keep our consciences quiet. Therefore it is extremely important for us to note that true love is not proud but modest and long-suffering. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to be patient and humble.
“It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5). One of the most embittering things in all of life is unreturned love. Why is that though? What is love at all if we only expect something back in return for it? A “love” that must be returned and reciprocated is truly not love at all but is a corrupted and warped charade of love. Love does not seek its own and is truly unconcerned with itself; it only looks to and is concerned with what it is loving. It is for this reason that love never holds a grudge and never keeps an account of wrongs. If our love is crushed, snuffed out, or turns bitter when it is unreturned, rejected, hated, ignored, or abused then what we had was never love at all; what we had was nothing more than a selfish, controlling obsession. Scripture tells us plainly that love stands firm in the face of all of this and exists and perseveres despite any abuse it may encounter. Our culture tries to convince us this is weak and ridiculous and that we will only set ourselves up for constant abuse if we love like this. However, we must look to Christ alone and His example. I urge us all to watch the Passion of the Christ movie, see all that Jesus endures for His love, and then truly appreciate that as He hangs bloodied on the cross He utters the honest and sincere words of “Father forgive them” (Luke 23:34). That is what love is all about and that is the example that we must follow. Love is therefore in its truest and most real form only and always unconditional. We throw around the words “unconditional love” without truly understanding the consequences of what that means. It means that even in the face of persecution and death like Christ’s that we continue to uphold the forgiveness and good of even our worst enemies. It means there is no condition or stipulations for our love, thru any and every single possible condition true love remains constant and unchanged. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to forgive and seek the wellbeing of others.
“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). Love rejoices in the truth. It does not rejoice in facades, illusions, or dreams, but simply in the reality of truth. Love does not just look at the bright side of things but instead gladly welcomes the sorrows, sufferings, and injustices that come with the truth. Love finds nothing more disgusting, perverse, or ugly than a false amiable mask that attempts to cover up the truth. Ignorance is not bliss to love, for love only rejoices in the truth no matter how dark or dismal it may be. Love cannot survive and live amidst lies, masks, and deceptions. We often deceive ourselves into “living a lie” in order that we can go on “loving” someone, but in reality this “loving” is not love at all, for true love welcomes the truth in all its brazen and caustic harshness. What is love at all if we are attempting to love some self-conceived notion of who someone is and not their real self (love will always take someone “as they are”)? Why is it easier to “love” someone in ignorance when we don’t see how they are betraying us and stabbing us in the back? Well because we aren’t loving them at all in the first place. If I can only love my child when I lie to myself about how “good” they are then I am not loving them at all. If I can only love my spouse by telling myself that they are not cheating on me or that they aren’t abusing my children then what I have is not love at all. This does not mean that love approves of sin and depravity, but it simply means that love refuses to live behind a mask of lies. Love rejoices in the truth because it is only then that love can truly be love. As we have seen, love is unconditional by very nature and it will welcome someone no matter the baggage, hatred, animosity, and betrayal that they bring into my life. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love clings to the truth and continues to rejoice in it.
“Believes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Why on earth would love believe all things? Simply because love doesn’t doubt. Then we must ask: Is love ignorant and naïve? No, love doesn’t believe falsities and lies but it believes the truth completely and fully no matter how foolish and nonsensical it may seem. It believes that all people are created by God and are in dire need of love, of a Savior, of Jesus Christ. It believes in the complete sufficiency of grace and that by the love of Christ men can and will be overcome. Love unconditionally stakes everything in the cross and the promises that God has given us in Christ Jesus; love never questions the promises of God. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to believe.
“Hopes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Love hopes all things so that thru our “foolish” and unconditional hope we will bring strength to those around us. It is with joyful assurance and unshakeable confidence in the love and atoning work of Jesus Christ that our hope is set. This incomparable and unmatchable hope and confidence is a breath of fresh air to a world that despairs and is without any real hope. In a world that searches endlessly for “purpose” and for “meaning” there is only one answer, the Answer Himself, Jesus Christ; and this, our hope and belief, points all men to the cross even as we suffer and endure for this very hope and belief. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to hope.
“Bears all thing…endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Love willingly bears all things and nothing can bring it down. Love recognizes that no matter how often it is spit on, betrayed, rejected, hurt, laughed at, mocked, or ignored that it is greater than sin and it will overcome all things in the end. Love gladly bears the responsibilities around it, taking on the burdens of those it loves and those that hate it in return. Selfishness and love cannot coexist for this very reason, because a selfish person will never willingly bear all things simply for the sake of love. Only when our “self” is taken out of the equation will we be freed to love in a Christ-like manner, therefore by grace we need to die daily to self so that Christ will empower us by His love to unconditionally love all people, willingly accepting all the burdens that come with that. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to bear and to endure.
Having concluded Paul’s list of qualities about love, we should now be able to see even more clearly how Jesus Christ is the only one to whom this chapter points. Even though Paul never mentions Christ explicitly in this chapter, the presence of Christ throughout it is very real. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about this chapter: “Who is this love if not the One who bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, and even had to endure all things all the way to the cross? The One who did not insist on His own way nor seek Himself, the One who did not allow Himself to become bitter, and who did not keep a record of the evil deeds perpetuated on Him and thus was overwhelmed by evil? The One who even prayed on the cross for His enemies and in this act of love utterly overcame evil. Who is this love Paul spoke of in these verses if not Jesus Christ Himself? Who is meant here if not Jesus? What is the mark of this whole chapter if not the cross?” It is with Jesus Christ as the center that this chapter should be read. No wedding vows can do these words of Paul justice and they can only point us away from the love that he truly desired to point us towards: the love of the Cross. Let us read and meditate on the first words of this chapter with a new focus, in light of Jesus Christ crucified: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not Jesus Christ, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not Jesus Christ, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not Jesus Christ, I gain nothing. Jesus Christ is patient, Jesus Christ is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. He is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus Christ does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8).
Having given us a list of characteristics of love Paul continues on to give us the crowning and pinnacle quality thereof: “Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8). The quality that separates the rubbish of this world from the love of God is the fact that the love of the cross will never, ever fail, it will never end or cease. Paul contrasts this love to the things of this world: “But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away” (1 Corinthians 13:8). Prophesies will cease, tongues will be stilled, and knowledge will pass away. The things that so many esteem so highly in this life are nothing but flowers and grasses of the field which are here today and gone tomorrow. “As tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust” (Isaiah 5:24). “The grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire” (Luke 12:28). Therefore Paul wants us to look away from prophecy, tongues, and knowledge to the greatest gift of the Spirit: Love. It is easy enough for us to see that tongues are a passing and imperfect thing, but it is much harder to see how knowledge and prophecy also fall into this category. Doesn’t God highly esteem prophecy and knowledge when it is applied to Him? Therefore Paul goes on to explain this by means of an analogy: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:9-12). We only know in part and we only prophesy in part. These qualities are only in an immature state, they are a poor reflection of the true knowledge and prophecy of God. In the renewal of the next life we can look forward to the maturation of these qualities and their subsequent perfection. The imperfect version that we know in this life will be gone and it will be replaced with the completed and perfect heavenly version.
Because we only see but a poor reflection our faith plays a very critical role in our relationship to God; if we already understood everything perfectly and saw it all clearly there would be no need for faith, but because we don’t see face to face yet we must trust God’s Word in Jesus Christ. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). With this in mind Paul continues on to express the three things that remain firm and strong thru fleeting and changing nature of this life: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). In these words Paul is telling us that the “greater gifts” of the Spirit are the faith, hope, and love that He grants to us thru Jesus Christ. These should be our focus and desire in Jesus Christ. All the other gifts of the Spirit completely pale in comparison to the steadfast beauty of faith, hope, and love. Faith, hope, and love remain where all else fails and where all else withers like the flowers of the field. Wisdom, knowledge, power, prophecy, wealth, honor, and reputation all pass away or can be ripped away from us, but thru it all faith, hope, and love endure, with love being the greatest of all.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Faith is not head knowledge of Christ, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that-and shudder” (James 2:19), and it is not just calling Jesus our Lord; faith is instead the gift of God, the transformation of the heart of man, the dying of the old man and being born again in Christ. By faith we live on the hidden and invisible works of God. We do not live by the visible and therefore we stake nothing in worldly success and feats. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). What we see with our eyes is in complete contradiction with the promises we have in Christ Jesus. We don’t see the cross, but we stake our lives on it. We don’t see our sanctification and new righteousness from Christ but we trust that the Holy Spirit is working behind the scenes to daily make us new creations in Christ’s blood and that when this life is over this will be completed. We see suffering and misery and trust in the relief that we have in the resurrection. We see the heresies and false gospels that abound and trust that grace is sufficient and that God will work where He has promised in His Word and sacraments. We can be nothing more than humble sinners who rely on the grace and Word of God despite all the discouraging visible signs of this fallen world. Therefore it is faith that remains and it is only by faith that we can live, for it is this gift of faith that we have from God that grasps, clings, and receives the blessings and righteousness that we have in the work of Christ Jesus. “In the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last” (Romans 1:17).
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Faith and love get a lot of attention these days but rarely do we ponder hope. However, Scripture has many things to say on the importance and greatness of hope. The dictionary defines hope as “a wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.” The key word in the definition of hope is “confident.” For hope to be real we need a confident expectation of its fulfillment. This makes our faith and hope very closely intertwined, and as Scripture says: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:18, 21). How alive can our faith be if it is not being sure of the hope we have in Christ Jesus? What is our faith if we aren’t confidently hoping in our eternal home that we have in Christ Jesus? “A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time” (Titus 1:2). A faith that doesn’t hope in the promises of God is truly a dead faith, for if we believed God’s promises with true trust and faith we would be full of confident expectation. However there will indeed be times when we are down and depressed and our faith will be going thru a time of trial, and in that time we will sound just like Job: “What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?...Do I have any power to help myself?” (Job 6:11, 13). But because of God, who does not lie, our faith can remain full of hope and by Christ’s grace we will persevere thru these trials to the end. In these times it will seem absolutely silly and insane that we have hope in this world. In fact most people in the world believe hope is unrealistic and is only naivety and ignorance. Some would say that the more you know, learn, and discover about life and the world the more hope becomes ridiculous and absurd. A simple observation of people shows this to be very true. Are not children full of eager hope and expectation in almost all things while those who have lived long lives often end up very dark and cynical? When we lose our “innocence” in the world we see how futile hope can be and truly is from a worldly perspective. Hope in this world becomes something for the immature, and those who are filled with hope need to “grow up.” If we simply lived on sight we would indeed have no reason to hope. However, in Christ everything is turned upside down; where we should be cynics we do indeed hope, where we should be grown adults we are like eager children. We will find that when Christ comes again that we will be ashamed of how little hope we had. When the true glory of eternal life and righteousness is revealed in Christ Jesus we will marvel at the doubt and cynicism that we bore in our life. The all-powerful God of the universe, who is Himself love, has made us promises, has given His Word and yet as sinners we often live in fearful and doubting hopelessness. But we need not be hopeless for we have the power and unshakeable faithfulness of God’s Word, the very Word that spoke the entire universe into existence. We must never underestimate the shear power of God’s Word; His words are never empty and hollow but carry all authority and power. When God speaks mountains jump and stars are snuffed out, man is humbled and galaxies obey. Scripture says it best: “He moves mountains without their knowing it and overturns them in his anger. He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble. He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars. He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea” (Job 9:5-8). This is the very reason why we must cling to the Word of God in Scripture so fiercely. When God speaks the universe obeys, if He says the sky is pink, the sky is pink, regardless of how silly or absurd it may seem to us. Every word was written to give us hope and therefore we must willingly stake our lives on every Word that comes from the mouth of God: “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). This hope that we have because of Christ Jesus also empowers us to live bold lives without fear: “Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold” (2 Corinthians 3:12). No matter the circumstances of life and no matter the dangers and trials that we face, we know with full assurance that we are protected and secure in God because of what Christ Jesus has done on our behalf. Let us then be bold in our lives for Christ for we have nothing to doubt and nothing to fear anymore; God is on our side, for Jesus Christ has walked the road in our stead that we were incapable of traversing. It is on this anchor that always remains and is always steadfast that we place our hope. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf” (Hebrews 6:19-20). “Those who hope in Yahweh will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Thru these words Paul wants us to understand that love is the culmination of our faith and hope that are given us in Christ Jesus. A true faith and hope is an absolute trust in Christ as Savior and Lord for all things, meaning that obedience and love will follow without question. “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezekiel 11:19-20). Saving faith cannot truly believe Christ as Lord and then proceed to ignore His commands; human, self-endowed, non-saving faith on the other hand can and will do this. We must ask ourselves: Do I acknowledge Christ as “Lord and Savior” but then in turn put my trust in other things? Do I trust the problems of this world to Christ or do I bear them myself believing that I need to fix them or that my money and hard work will take care of it? Do I truly believe that my sins have been paid for and that all atoning work has already been accomplished and I don’t even need to “pay Him back”? Do I pick and choose which commands and words from Christ I want to listen to? Do I realize that the phrase “No, Lord” is a complete contradiction that a follower of Christ can never say or live out? We will never be able to answer all these questions the way we wish we could, and therefore we must rely even more on Christ to carry us thru it all. Faith and hope is His gift that He works in our hearts and so is the love that is born from this work. “Everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Therefore the end of the journey is the grace and love of God. Our journey of sanctification in the Holy Spirit has its final goal in love; it is this that we strive for and it is this which the Spirit has taken a hold of us for. “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:14). However, we cannot get there without going by the way of faith and hope, by the way of the cross. This is the only place and only way we know love in this life, and it will remain this way until the last day. The cross is our only view of salvation. The cross is our only view of love. The cross is our only view of God. We cannot know any truth apart from Christ crucified and so with Paul we say: “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Faith is the start of the journey as we are baptized into Christ and into the one true faith. This faith is what “seizes hold” of Christ and brings Him into our lives, crucifying the old man and replacing him with Christ. Our faith then leads to hope which keeps our eye on the goal and which gives us continual joy in God’s promises. This faith and hope is then perfected in our life by love, by Jesus Christ Himself. Now that we no longer live and Christ lives in us, our life becomes one marked by love: “We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). Therefore we boldly step out and live for Christ, realizing that He has empowered us with a faith that enables us to do this. We don’t dwell on whether we have this “elusive faith”, we instead simply trust that thru His Word and thru our Baptism He has given us this gift of faith and has enabled us to nurture it by putting it to use with lives of action and obedience. Paul clearly tells us that what counts and what matters is that our faith is producing a fruitful bounty of love: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6). Therefore love is the greatest of these because it is the manifestation of the Cross in our lives. Jesus Christ breaks into our life thru the cross and seizes hold of our lives thru His call to discipleship. This call doesn’t lead us to questions, speculations, or reflection, but it leads us to lives of simple obedience. “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John 2:3-6). Therefore let us pray that we see that the three greater gifts of the Spirit are the faith, hope, and love we have been given in the cross of Jesus Christ. It is thru these gifts that we are transformed into the disciples of Jesus Christ who cling to Him for all life and follow Him in humble obedience. These three gifts are the culmination of the Christian life, for thru their connection to Christ they bear fruit in our lives to the glory of God: “Your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:3). “Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart” (1 Peter 1:21-22).
But what is love? Is it a feeling? Is it a thought? Is it a word? Is it an action? From the Scriptures we know that love is the fulfillment of the law, “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10), and within the whole context of Scripture that means far more than what anyone could first imagine. To put it as simply and plainly as Scripture does: “God is love” (1 John 4:16). Those of us who have been Christians for awhile have all heard “God is love” many, many times but we continually miss the depth of what the Bible is telling us in that. It is very easy to write that statement off and say, “Oh, that’s great, God is love, makes perfect sense…” then turn around and ignore the implications of such an awesome and profound statement. Is love God? No. Is God love? Yes. So to know love we must know God. However, we cannot know God without Him revealing Himself to us; we can never come to know Him simply on the power of our own reasoning or searching. Therefore we must be known by God. So the question becomes this: has God revealed Himself to us and sought us out? And if this is so, then we must look there, for that will be where we find love as the Bible teaches, the love which we need to seek daily with all our hearts, the very love that we are nothing without. What do the Scriptures tell us about God’s revelation of love to us? “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him…We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:10, 15-16, 19). “We know what real love is because Christ gave up his life for us” (1 John 3:16). Jesus Christ is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind. Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Law. Jesus Christ is love revealed to mankind. Jesus Christ is therefore the only true definition of love. It is here, and only here, that we can come to understand all the Scriptures that speak on “love.” If we read the Scriptures without the recognition of this truth about love then we will miss the entirety of its Message. Therefore let us proceed with a thorough acknowledgement of this truth: Jesus Christ = Love.
Paul begins by addressing a topic that we will come to see was much abused by the church at Corinth (and in our world today): speaking in tongues. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1). Without hesitating Paul tells us very plainly that all the tongue speaking in the world is empty nothingness when it lacks the direct proclamation of Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ as its center it is nothing but noise and clamoring, a meaningless blabbering. But how devastating are these words to our self-righteousness and all the lofty ideals, standards, and values of this world? Speaking in tongues in this context also represents far more than just speaking in languages, it represents the vain desires and seeking of this world. So often we in the Church get caught up in our “perfect” words and all our charming and charismatic ways and facades; we get caught up in talking the talk and completely lose the walk and substance. Our discipleship is lost for the sake of upholding an image to the world, to our fellow man. What good is our idle talk and chatter if we are living as hypocrites? What good are our words if we are not obeying and following? As Scripture tells us, if our words are not backed up by discipleship we are nothing more than a clanging cymbal that is making a meaningless racket. Our words are certainly something we should pay attention to as they can be a powerful witness and a powerful destructor, but we must remember that we are first and foremost followers of Christ; not talkers about Christ, not theorizers about Christ, not philosophers about Christ, but followers of Christ, men and women of action. Without Jesus Christ living in our hearts and having possession of our very being thru the Cross we are hollow and empty, we are simply nothing at all. Our words only have meaning and carry true weight when Christ is living a life of love thru our bodies. As the saying goes, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who talk about doing things, and those that actually do them.” We need God’s love in Jesus Christ to burst into our lives and lead us to be children of action and love, bearing witness to Christ with the entirety of our lives. “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Let us stop talking about following Jesus Christ and by His grace actually do it.
Moving on Paul compares love to a topic that strikes to the heart of Greek culture: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge…but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). To have the knowledge and understanding of all mysteries, to know the ways of God and to be able to see and interpret them, and to be able to discern God’s will in the paths of our life and of those around us, are all torn completely asunder without love. All the understanding, wisdom, and truth in the world becomes nothing more than lies if it is not upheld by love, that is, by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is Himself truth, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6), and is therefore the foundation of all wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. Nothing is truth without Him and apart from Him. He is the beginning and the end of everything we are and rely on. To proclaim anything apart from Jesus Christ, as true as it may seem, is ultimately nothing more than a lie. Jesus Christ is the key and foundation that holds all truth together and unites it all; without that key all our knowledge, wisdom, and understanding become empty in the strictest and realest sense. “What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open” (Isaiah 22:22). For instance, the Ten Commandments apart from Jesus Christ bring death, judgment, and condemnation on us all, but combined with the truth of Christ, the Ten Commandments become the living and active will of God that we live for in freedom under the Cross. Everything in the realm of truth and knowledge is only held together in love, in Jesus Christ.
Paul continues on to even compare love to the heart of his own message: faith. “And if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). This line of Scripture may bother us more than any other, especially in this day and age. Since the Reformation, faith has become the focal point of the majority of churches in Christendom. However, even Paul, the one who preached faith so vigorously, saw the dangers that lurked in the dark recesses of this teaching that are waiting to devour us. We must not become obsessed with faith as an independent entity. A faith that can move mountains is nothing, absolutely nothing without love, without Jesus Christ. Faith in and of itself is worthless and empty, or as Paul says, it is nothing. The faith that seeks itself and believes in itself and its own merit is a very dangerous foe in our lives. It readily deceives thousands upon thousands into believing they stand with God when in fact they are fully entrenched in slavery to themselves and trust in the merits of their own idea of faith. Saving faith (faith which clings to Jesus Christ for all things) is always the gift of God thru the Holy Spirit’s work and it cannot be objectified, as it is merely a passive receptor to the gifts of salvation that are poured out to us in Christ Jesus. We must never lose sight of Jesus Christ and become focused on a faith that attempts to exist without love and apart from Him. Faith always looks to what it trusts, whether it is Jesus Christ, money, humanity, or faith itself, and it is only as “good” as what it trusts and relies on. Saving faith therefore looks solely to Jesus Christ, being unaware of its own existence as it is so completely and totally consumed with Christ and His work and His merit and His righteousness. The faith that the devil tries to trick the Church with looks to itself as the source and location of salvation, always focused inward and consumed with its own self-existence; the devil’s faith believes that faith itself is the reason for salvation, slowly pushing Jesus Christ out of the picture. Faith itself however does not and cannot save; faith in Christ Jesus saves only by means of the grace of His vicarious suffering, death, and resurrection. Therefore with Martin Luther we say, “In my heart reigns this one article, faith in my dear Lord Christ, the beginning, middle and end of whatever spiritual and divine thoughts I may have, whether by day or by night.”
The final words of Paul’s opening section on the centrality of love, looks at the actual deeds of love themselves. “If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). Here we truly see how love is far more than anything we thought it ever was in the past; that it is in fact Jesus Christ Himself. In our ignorance did we not used to believe that love was an action, an immeasurable sacrifice that one made? Love is certainly manifested in such ways, but at its core, thru Scripture, we see that it is so much more. No deed in and of itself is love and nor will it ever be. God Himself is love and this is revealed to us in its pure and unadulterated form only in Jesus Christ. No deed that resembles our human notion of love, whether it is enormous charity or even sacrificing our very life for another, is of any gain or worth apart from love, that is, apart from Jesus Himself. Apart from Christ these deeds are selfish and vain, even if we cannot see that fact. Their vanity lies in the fact that they are corrupted by a heart that is consumed with itself and does these deeds for its own selfish glory, honor, dignity, and sake. We are slaves to this selfish prideful nature until Christ makes us born again by His grace, and we are incapable of escaping it on our own or thru any action of our own. Therefore love is not even the greatest deeds and actions in the world; it is always complete adherence to the person of Jesus Christ. Love is not an offer we can make to God in word and deed, but it is always the gracious work that Christ has done for us in the cross.
Thru these powerful words from Paul everything we have worked to achieve and everything we have strived to build under the rule of our ego is crushed. Even our unwitting attempts to corrupt Christianity by polluting it with zealous fanaticism, moral piety, self-endowed faith, and self-righteous rigor fall by the wayside before this proclamation of Scripture. No man can stand on his own religion, piety, morality, self-righteousness, or even his own faith before these words. “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things” (Philippians 3:7-8). Paul purposefully leaves no wiggle room, wanting us to see that everything in the world is meaningless apart from the Cross. We are completely and utterly bankrupt, we are nothing (nothing at all!) without love, that is, without Christ. Without love, without Jesus Christ, “I am nothing.”
Having showed us that we are absolutely nothing apart from love, Paul continues on to give us the characteristics and features of the true love that is found only in Jesus Christ. Before we begin however it is important to clearly distinguish this love that Paul speaks of from the concept of “love” that pollutes the world around us.
Everyone has love. For so many people it is the very reason for living and even the staunchest atheist often comes to the conclusion that “love” is the meaning of life. But is this the love that the Bible speaks of? No, the world’s love, the love that every man has from birth, is a love turned completely inward, a me-first love, a self-love. This love is the most dangerous delusion and false god that plagues every man from the womb (honest observation will show that for small infants their whole world is “all about them”). “How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?” (Psalms 4:2). In reality this self-love is complete enmity towards God. On the other hand, the love that the Bible speaks of is entirely different in nature than what the world proclaims and what the world teaches. Self-love is a mere dirty, selfish, and distorted reflection of what Biblical love is. In fact this self-love is such a lost image of true love that we are incapable of reconstructing what true love is on our own; it is simply too amazing, too magnificent, and too outside of ourselves for our puny intellects and inwardly pointed selves to grasp. The real danger with self-love is its hidden and sneaky nature. Self-love is an actor that wears many faces and masks in an effort to remain unknown to those around it, even to the one it inhabits. It works and schemes behind the scenes trying to keep itself hidden behind a flood of facades and illusions. This self-love will even go out of its way to “help” others in an effort to fulfill its own motives and bring its own plans to fruition. Looking closely we will find that oftentimes the fiercest and most disgusting self-love is buried deep beneath philanthropy, altruism, and sacrificial charity. Paul strongly warned Timothy and us all of this false love: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them” (2 Timothy 3:1-5). This self-love parades as a “form of godliness” yet in the end it denies Jesus Christ in favor of itself. This is what the world calls “love.”
Biblical love however is far different than this self-love. As we have seen previously, Biblical love is understood only thru Jesus Christ, and therefore as Paul continues on to list the characteristics of love he is in reality listing the characteristics of Christ. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud” (1 Corinthians 13:4). The true love of God is the very opposite of the self-love that consumes sinful man. What we often peg as “love” in this life usually turns out to be impatient, angry, jealous, arrogant, and prideful, while on the other hand Christ’s love is always willing to wait, gentle, meek, and humble. How often in our relationships have we found ourselves possessive and jealous, unwilling to wait, and most especially proud? This is once again our self-love and ultimately it is nothing other than pride, the great enemy and sin of the world. It is an arrogant love of oneself that exalts oneself to the center of the universe in complete and utter selfishness, pushing mankind and God out of its life even as its tries to give lip service to them in order to keep our consciences quiet. Therefore it is extremely important for us to note that true love is not proud but modest and long-suffering. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to be patient and humble.
“It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5). One of the most embittering things in all of life is unreturned love. Why is that though? What is love at all if we only expect something back in return for it? A “love” that must be returned and reciprocated is truly not love at all but is a corrupted and warped charade of love. Love does not seek its own and is truly unconcerned with itself; it only looks to and is concerned with what it is loving. It is for this reason that love never holds a grudge and never keeps an account of wrongs. If our love is crushed, snuffed out, or turns bitter when it is unreturned, rejected, hated, ignored, or abused then what we had was never love at all; what we had was nothing more than a selfish, controlling obsession. Scripture tells us plainly that love stands firm in the face of all of this and exists and perseveres despite any abuse it may encounter. Our culture tries to convince us this is weak and ridiculous and that we will only set ourselves up for constant abuse if we love like this. However, we must look to Christ alone and His example. I urge us all to watch the Passion of the Christ movie, see all that Jesus endures for His love, and then truly appreciate that as He hangs bloodied on the cross He utters the honest and sincere words of “Father forgive them” (Luke 23:34). That is what love is all about and that is the example that we must follow. Love is therefore in its truest and most real form only and always unconditional. We throw around the words “unconditional love” without truly understanding the consequences of what that means. It means that even in the face of persecution and death like Christ’s that we continue to uphold the forgiveness and good of even our worst enemies. It means there is no condition or stipulations for our love, thru any and every single possible condition true love remains constant and unchanged. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to forgive and seek the wellbeing of others.
“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:6). Love rejoices in the truth. It does not rejoice in facades, illusions, or dreams, but simply in the reality of truth. Love does not just look at the bright side of things but instead gladly welcomes the sorrows, sufferings, and injustices that come with the truth. Love finds nothing more disgusting, perverse, or ugly than a false amiable mask that attempts to cover up the truth. Ignorance is not bliss to love, for love only rejoices in the truth no matter how dark or dismal it may be. Love cannot survive and live amidst lies, masks, and deceptions. We often deceive ourselves into “living a lie” in order that we can go on “loving” someone, but in reality this “loving” is not love at all, for true love welcomes the truth in all its brazen and caustic harshness. What is love at all if we are attempting to love some self-conceived notion of who someone is and not their real self (love will always take someone “as they are”)? Why is it easier to “love” someone in ignorance when we don’t see how they are betraying us and stabbing us in the back? Well because we aren’t loving them at all in the first place. If I can only love my child when I lie to myself about how “good” they are then I am not loving them at all. If I can only love my spouse by telling myself that they are not cheating on me or that they aren’t abusing my children then what I have is not love at all. This does not mean that love approves of sin and depravity, but it simply means that love refuses to live behind a mask of lies. Love rejoices in the truth because it is only then that love can truly be love. As we have seen, love is unconditional by very nature and it will welcome someone no matter the baggage, hatred, animosity, and betrayal that they bring into my life. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love clings to the truth and continues to rejoice in it.
“Believes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Why on earth would love believe all things? Simply because love doesn’t doubt. Then we must ask: Is love ignorant and naïve? No, love doesn’t believe falsities and lies but it believes the truth completely and fully no matter how foolish and nonsensical it may seem. It believes that all people are created by God and are in dire need of love, of a Savior, of Jesus Christ. It believes in the complete sufficiency of grace and that by the love of Christ men can and will be overcome. Love unconditionally stakes everything in the cross and the promises that God has given us in Christ Jesus; love never questions the promises of God. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to believe.
“Hopes all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Love hopes all things so that thru our “foolish” and unconditional hope we will bring strength to those around us. It is with joyful assurance and unshakeable confidence in the love and atoning work of Jesus Christ that our hope is set. This incomparable and unmatchable hope and confidence is a breath of fresh air to a world that despairs and is without any real hope. In a world that searches endlessly for “purpose” and for “meaning” there is only one answer, the Answer Himself, Jesus Christ; and this, our hope and belief, points all men to the cross even as we suffer and endure for this very hope and belief. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to hope.
“Bears all thing…endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7). Love willingly bears all things and nothing can bring it down. Love recognizes that no matter how often it is spit on, betrayed, rejected, hurt, laughed at, mocked, or ignored that it is greater than sin and it will overcome all things in the end. Love gladly bears the responsibilities around it, taking on the burdens of those it loves and those that hate it in return. Selfishness and love cannot coexist for this very reason, because a selfish person will never willingly bear all things simply for the sake of love. Only when our “self” is taken out of the equation will we be freed to love in a Christ-like manner, therefore by grace we need to die daily to self so that Christ will empower us by His love to unconditionally love all people, willingly accepting all the burdens that come with that. In the face of all the trials, tribulations, and temptations of this life, love continues to bear and to endure.
Having concluded Paul’s list of qualities about love, we should now be able to see even more clearly how Jesus Christ is the only one to whom this chapter points. Even though Paul never mentions Christ explicitly in this chapter, the presence of Christ throughout it is very real. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about this chapter: “Who is this love if not the One who bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, and even had to endure all things all the way to the cross? The One who did not insist on His own way nor seek Himself, the One who did not allow Himself to become bitter, and who did not keep a record of the evil deeds perpetuated on Him and thus was overwhelmed by evil? The One who even prayed on the cross for His enemies and in this act of love utterly overcame evil. Who is this love Paul spoke of in these verses if not Jesus Christ Himself? Who is meant here if not Jesus? What is the mark of this whole chapter if not the cross?” It is with Jesus Christ as the center that this chapter should be read. No wedding vows can do these words of Paul justice and they can only point us away from the love that he truly desired to point us towards: the love of the Cross. Let us read and meditate on the first words of this chapter with a new focus, in light of Jesus Christ crucified: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not Jesus Christ, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not Jesus Christ, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not Jesus Christ, I gain nothing. Jesus Christ is patient, Jesus Christ is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. He is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. Jesus Christ does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8).
Having given us a list of characteristics of love Paul continues on to give us the crowning and pinnacle quality thereof: “Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8). The quality that separates the rubbish of this world from the love of God is the fact that the love of the cross will never, ever fail, it will never end or cease. Paul contrasts this love to the things of this world: “But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away” (1 Corinthians 13:8). Prophesies will cease, tongues will be stilled, and knowledge will pass away. The things that so many esteem so highly in this life are nothing but flowers and grasses of the field which are here today and gone tomorrow. “As tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust” (Isaiah 5:24). “The grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire” (Luke 12:28). Therefore Paul wants us to look away from prophecy, tongues, and knowledge to the greatest gift of the Spirit: Love. It is easy enough for us to see that tongues are a passing and imperfect thing, but it is much harder to see how knowledge and prophecy also fall into this category. Doesn’t God highly esteem prophecy and knowledge when it is applied to Him? Therefore Paul goes on to explain this by means of an analogy: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:9-12). We only know in part and we only prophesy in part. These qualities are only in an immature state, they are a poor reflection of the true knowledge and prophecy of God. In the renewal of the next life we can look forward to the maturation of these qualities and their subsequent perfection. The imperfect version that we know in this life will be gone and it will be replaced with the completed and perfect heavenly version.
Because we only see but a poor reflection our faith plays a very critical role in our relationship to God; if we already understood everything perfectly and saw it all clearly there would be no need for faith, but because we don’t see face to face yet we must trust God’s Word in Jesus Christ. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). With this in mind Paul continues on to express the three things that remain firm and strong thru fleeting and changing nature of this life: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). In these words Paul is telling us that the “greater gifts” of the Spirit are the faith, hope, and love that He grants to us thru Jesus Christ. These should be our focus and desire in Jesus Christ. All the other gifts of the Spirit completely pale in comparison to the steadfast beauty of faith, hope, and love. Faith, hope, and love remain where all else fails and where all else withers like the flowers of the field. Wisdom, knowledge, power, prophecy, wealth, honor, and reputation all pass away or can be ripped away from us, but thru it all faith, hope, and love endure, with love being the greatest of all.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Faith is not head knowledge of Christ, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that-and shudder” (James 2:19), and it is not just calling Jesus our Lord; faith is instead the gift of God, the transformation of the heart of man, the dying of the old man and being born again in Christ. By faith we live on the hidden and invisible works of God. We do not live by the visible and therefore we stake nothing in worldly success and feats. “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). What we see with our eyes is in complete contradiction with the promises we have in Christ Jesus. We don’t see the cross, but we stake our lives on it. We don’t see our sanctification and new righteousness from Christ but we trust that the Holy Spirit is working behind the scenes to daily make us new creations in Christ’s blood and that when this life is over this will be completed. We see suffering and misery and trust in the relief that we have in the resurrection. We see the heresies and false gospels that abound and trust that grace is sufficient and that God will work where He has promised in His Word and sacraments. We can be nothing more than humble sinners who rely on the grace and Word of God despite all the discouraging visible signs of this fallen world. Therefore it is faith that remains and it is only by faith that we can live, for it is this gift of faith that we have from God that grasps, clings, and receives the blessings and righteousness that we have in the work of Christ Jesus. “In the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last” (Romans 1:17).
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Faith and love get a lot of attention these days but rarely do we ponder hope. However, Scripture has many things to say on the importance and greatness of hope. The dictionary defines hope as “a wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment.” The key word in the definition of hope is “confident.” For hope to be real we need a confident expectation of its fulfillment. This makes our faith and hope very closely intertwined, and as Scripture says: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:18, 21). How alive can our faith be if it is not being sure of the hope we have in Christ Jesus? What is our faith if we aren’t confidently hoping in our eternal home that we have in Christ Jesus? “A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time” (Titus 1:2). A faith that doesn’t hope in the promises of God is truly a dead faith, for if we believed God’s promises with true trust and faith we would be full of confident expectation. However there will indeed be times when we are down and depressed and our faith will be going thru a time of trial, and in that time we will sound just like Job: “What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?...Do I have any power to help myself?” (Job 6:11, 13). But because of God, who does not lie, our faith can remain full of hope and by Christ’s grace we will persevere thru these trials to the end. In these times it will seem absolutely silly and insane that we have hope in this world. In fact most people in the world believe hope is unrealistic and is only naivety and ignorance. Some would say that the more you know, learn, and discover about life and the world the more hope becomes ridiculous and absurd. A simple observation of people shows this to be very true. Are not children full of eager hope and expectation in almost all things while those who have lived long lives often end up very dark and cynical? When we lose our “innocence” in the world we see how futile hope can be and truly is from a worldly perspective. Hope in this world becomes something for the immature, and those who are filled with hope need to “grow up.” If we simply lived on sight we would indeed have no reason to hope. However, in Christ everything is turned upside down; where we should be cynics we do indeed hope, where we should be grown adults we are like eager children. We will find that when Christ comes again that we will be ashamed of how little hope we had. When the true glory of eternal life and righteousness is revealed in Christ Jesus we will marvel at the doubt and cynicism that we bore in our life. The all-powerful God of the universe, who is Himself love, has made us promises, has given His Word and yet as sinners we often live in fearful and doubting hopelessness. But we need not be hopeless for we have the power and unshakeable faithfulness of God’s Word, the very Word that spoke the entire universe into existence. We must never underestimate the shear power of God’s Word; His words are never empty and hollow but carry all authority and power. When God speaks mountains jump and stars are snuffed out, man is humbled and galaxies obey. Scripture says it best: “He moves mountains without their knowing it and overturns them in his anger. He shakes the earth from its place and makes its pillars tremble. He speaks to the sun and it does not shine; he seals off the light of the stars. He alone stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea” (Job 9:5-8). This is the very reason why we must cling to the Word of God in Scripture so fiercely. When God speaks the universe obeys, if He says the sky is pink, the sky is pink, regardless of how silly or absurd it may seem to us. Every word was written to give us hope and therefore we must willingly stake our lives on every Word that comes from the mouth of God: “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). This hope that we have because of Christ Jesus also empowers us to live bold lives without fear: “Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold” (2 Corinthians 3:12). No matter the circumstances of life and no matter the dangers and trials that we face, we know with full assurance that we are protected and secure in God because of what Christ Jesus has done on our behalf. Let us then be bold in our lives for Christ for we have nothing to doubt and nothing to fear anymore; God is on our side, for Jesus Christ has walked the road in our stead that we were incapable of traversing. It is on this anchor that always remains and is always steadfast that we place our hope. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf” (Hebrews 6:19-20). “Those who hope in Yahweh will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Thru these words Paul wants us to understand that love is the culmination of our faith and hope that are given us in Christ Jesus. A true faith and hope is an absolute trust in Christ as Savior and Lord for all things, meaning that obedience and love will follow without question. “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ezekiel 11:19-20). Saving faith cannot truly believe Christ as Lord and then proceed to ignore His commands; human, self-endowed, non-saving faith on the other hand can and will do this. We must ask ourselves: Do I acknowledge Christ as “Lord and Savior” but then in turn put my trust in other things? Do I trust the problems of this world to Christ or do I bear them myself believing that I need to fix them or that my money and hard work will take care of it? Do I truly believe that my sins have been paid for and that all atoning work has already been accomplished and I don’t even need to “pay Him back”? Do I pick and choose which commands and words from Christ I want to listen to? Do I realize that the phrase “No, Lord” is a complete contradiction that a follower of Christ can never say or live out? We will never be able to answer all these questions the way we wish we could, and therefore we must rely even more on Christ to carry us thru it all. Faith and hope is His gift that He works in our hearts and so is the love that is born from this work. “Everything that does not come from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). Therefore the end of the journey is the grace and love of God. Our journey of sanctification in the Holy Spirit has its final goal in love; it is this that we strive for and it is this which the Spirit has taken a hold of us for. “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:14). However, we cannot get there without going by the way of faith and hope, by the way of the cross. This is the only place and only way we know love in this life, and it will remain this way until the last day. The cross is our only view of salvation. The cross is our only view of love. The cross is our only view of God. We cannot know any truth apart from Christ crucified and so with Paul we say: “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). Faith is the start of the journey as we are baptized into Christ and into the one true faith. This faith is what “seizes hold” of Christ and brings Him into our lives, crucifying the old man and replacing him with Christ. Our faith then leads to hope which keeps our eye on the goal and which gives us continual joy in God’s promises. This faith and hope is then perfected in our life by love, by Jesus Christ Himself. Now that we no longer live and Christ lives in us, our life becomes one marked by love: “We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10). Therefore we boldly step out and live for Christ, realizing that He has empowered us with a faith that enables us to do this. We don’t dwell on whether we have this “elusive faith”, we instead simply trust that thru His Word and thru our Baptism He has given us this gift of faith and has enabled us to nurture it by putting it to use with lives of action and obedience. Paul clearly tells us that what counts and what matters is that our faith is producing a fruitful bounty of love: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6). Therefore love is the greatest of these because it is the manifestation of the Cross in our lives. Jesus Christ breaks into our life thru the cross and seizes hold of our lives thru His call to discipleship. This call doesn’t lead us to questions, speculations, or reflection, but it leads us to lives of simple obedience. “We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John 2:3-6). Therefore let us pray that we see that the three greater gifts of the Spirit are the faith, hope, and love we have been given in the cross of Jesus Christ. It is thru these gifts that we are transformed into the disciples of Jesus Christ who cling to Him for all life and follow Him in humble obedience. These three gifts are the culmination of the Christian life, for thru their connection to Christ they bear fruit in our lives to the glory of God: “Your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 1:3). “Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart” (1 Peter 1:21-22).
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