Love Is Forever (Part 1 of 2)

As Christians we realize we'll never reach perfection here on planet Earth, but we still ought to be growing in spiritual maturity. That's the evidence that God is in fact at work in our lives. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg uncovers the signs of genuine Christian growth, or in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. who, having written his comments on 1 Corinthians 13—commenting on the totality of the chapter—he then concludes his very, very helpful comments by saying that he feels as though, in his case, quote, "...clumsy hands have touched a thing of exquisite beauty and holiness. Here, what is true of all Scripture is true in special measure, that no comment can be adequate enough for such a great theme." It's an expression of his own humility, because as I say, his commentary is profoundly useful, and yet I think we can all identify with that, both in trying to teach it and certainly in listening to it.

We sense as though we've held in our hands something of exquisite beauty which we seem somehow or another to muck up just by the holding of. I certainly feel as though we would be well served by having another go at chapter 13. I think I could study it better. I think I could probably teach it more usefully.

I want you to know for your encouragement that I'm not going to do that, but nevertheless, that is a genuine expression of how I feel. Now, as we noted at the outset of our study of the chapter, the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians suffers from, on the one hand, an over-familiarity, and on the other hand, a form of virtual cluelessness. So that we're tempted to believe that because 1 Corinthians 13 pops up on wedding invitations and on doilies and on little plaques that people give to their granny, that somehow or another we all know 1 Corinthians 13.

Or, on the other hand, that we come to it with an approach which, in the way in which we apply it, shows that we really have very little idea at all. I hope that all of us who have gone through these course of studies are in no doubt whatsoever about the essential place which chapter 13 has in the development of Paul's argument in the totality of the book of 1 Corinthians. I hope none of us have any notion of the idea that Paul has essentially had a fairly tough section in chapter 12. He knows that he's gonna have a really tough one in chapter 14, and so he paused for a moment or two and he said to himself, Now, what's a nice thing that I could stick into the middle of this? And then he said, Oh, I know that thing I preached over in the Colossae Valley. Where did I put that? And he went and found it and slotted it in between 12 and 14 so that the people would get a break between the rigors of 12 and the challenges of 14.

Not so. Indeed, it is only set where it is that it can be understood and carefully applied. And we need to realize that chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians is as applicable to the peculiar circumstances of the church in Corinth as is the rest of the letter. Now, we spend a considerable time in verses 4–7, all of these characteristics of Christian love as we refer to them, and I'd like to summarize them for you. I listened to a tape by my good friend Dick Lucas, and Dick summarized 1 Corinthians 4–7.

Unfortunately, I only heard the tape. Too late for it to be of help to me or of help to you, because he managed to preach these four verses in the space of 32 minutes, whereas I never managed to complete them in a tremendous number of minutes—probably far too many. But this is his summary of verses 4–7, which is helpful to those of you who weren't here, and will perhaps also be an encouragement to those who were.

He gives these four summary statements. He says in verses 4–7, first of all, Paul has in mind the bad features of the Corinthian Christians. When he writes these verses, he is writing them in such a way as to point out by contrast what Corinth is really like. Their problem is that they're lacking in patience, they're lacking in kindness, they're lacking in expressions of humility and contentedness, and so in describing the nature of love, he actually hits on these bad features in the Corinthian church. And that's why we ought not to be unduly squirming in our seats as we've gone through these characteristics, because they had their first and most direct application to a real problem church in Corinth. Secondly, he said that Paul, in writing these verses, had in mind the characteristic hallmarks of immaturity.

And there's a sense in which that's just saying the same thing. The bad features in Corinth were due to immaturity, and therefore he addresses the issue of immaturity. Corinth was a sizzling church. It was a dynamic church. It was a lively church.

It was a singing church, a praying church, but it was full of show-offs and full of babies. Thirdly, he pointed out that Paul had in mind the kind of qualities that build up the church, these tremendous characteristics, are the kind of things that we would all like to discover and we would certainly like to see increasingly displayed at Parkside Church. And fourthly, in summary, he said Paul is thinking about the qualities which are unconquerable. For example, verse 7, love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, never fails.

These, he said, are unconquerable characteristics. Now, that was just his little summary. I thought you might appreciate that.

I certainly found it helpful. Now, the characteristics that we have just been studying together take us out of the realm of what are merely human qualities. Rather, what we have been discovering and what we trustfully finalized this evening are divine evidences of an increasing spiritual maturity. This is the very heart of this final paragraph. Paul is establishing here the fact that the real evidences of God being at work in somebody's life or in the life of a church are actually to be found in the divine triad which he introduces in verse 13 and, God willing, which we will reach in a moment or two from now.

I want to ask you the question, do you think it is sufficient to assume that all that is being said here in this final paragraph is this? The gifts of the Spirit are in use for this age, but love is in use for eternity. Virtually everything that I read, that's all it says. It says that verses 8–13 say one thing.

The gifts of the Spirit are in use now, and love goes on forever. I said to myself, I don't know if it's just that straightforward. I don't know if it's that simple. Because from this viewpoint, look at what they do with verse 11. From this viewpoint, what they do with verse 11 is they say that what Paul is saying is that childhood equals this world, and eternity equals maturity.

But I said to myself, No! Paul has so much to say about maturity now. Everybody knows that you will finally be complete in heaven, but I think he must be saying something else. Now, how then do you try meaningfully to come to a reasonable interpretation and application of verses like these? Well, what you have to keep doing—and what I tried to do—was to step back from it and put the whole thing, the paragraph in the chapter, the chapter in the surrounding chapters, the surrounding chapter in the whole book, and the whole book going back to basics to try and remind myself of what Paul was dealing with. You have to be a little bit of a sleuth if you're going to interpret the Bible properly.

You've got to have the spirit of the sort of Agatha Christie in you to be searching out to see who done it. And if you go back to chapter 1, which I invite you to do for just a moment, let me remind you that Paul was writing to a church that was really blessed. In verse 7, he writes to them of chapter 1, and he says, You do not like any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. This is quite a church! All the gifts are operative in the church. And as they are in operation in the church, they are eagerly awaiting the return of the gift-giver, even Jesus himself. But after those opening commendatory paragraphs, you will perhaps also recall that when Paul goes on to develop his letter, he recognizes and addresses the fact that although this is a church that is really blessed and is manifesting all of these gifts, it's also a group of people that have a problem with pride. It's a group of people who have begun to claim that whatever may be true of other churches, they, the Corinthian church, have entered into a kind of spiritual fullness which they believe is almost unique to them—a spiritual dimension that others do not know. And especially, it would seem, their focus is, as a result of all of these gifts that are being manifested.

And so they had made the equation something like this. Jesus is present. We know because we have all these gifts. Because we have all these gifts, we are living in fullness, because these gifts are the evidence of spiritual totality—and in particular, the preoccupation which they had with the gift of tongues. Now, what they were talking about, as though they had this spiritual totality, was something which will actually only be ours in heaven. Because when Paul—and you need to stay with me for a moment here, we will get to this—in 1 Corinthians 4, addressing this problem of pride and the fact that they've got it all now, he says to them sarcastically in verse 8 of chapter 4, Already you have all you want?

Already you have become rich? he says. You have become kings, and that without us? You see, they were saying to one another, We're really the church. After all, it couldn't possibly be that we could have all of this going on without that it wasn't an evidence of the kind of spiritual fullness and totality that God intends. And so Paul, in writing the letter, makes it clear to them that they cannot claim to have a perfection which will only be theirs in heaven. And indeed, they must face the fact of their immaturity, and they must understand—and to this he comes now—what are the genuine marks of true Christian experience.

I think this may be quite a surprise to some of us tonight. Let me try then and summarize the paragraph under three simple headings. First of all, Paul says in this final paragraph—you check this for yourselves, you're sensible people—the gifts of the Spirit are not signs of final perfection. The gifts of the Spirit are not signs of final perfection. Now, as I'm suggesting to you, the Corinthians had fallen into the trap of believing that these gifts were the indication of the fact that they had truly arrived.

And they had probably begun to say to one another, Because we have these gifts, perfection must surely have come. No, says Paul in this paragraph, when perfection comes, these things that you equate with perfection are going out the door. The things that you are using as the touchstones for the spiritual totality are actually going to disappear. Whether they are tongues, he says, or whether they are the abilities to speak the Word of God with boldness, whether it is the ability to understand mysteries, to express knowledge in all of its fullness—all of this will disappear.

The gifts are for now, and they are imperfect. Where there are prophecies, they're going to cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away. Because now we know only in part our best is a grasping.

Now we prophesy only in part. And when perfection comes heaven, then all that is imperfect will disappear. Now, you just think this out in relationship to spiritual gifts.

It makes perfect sense. Take, for example, the claims that are made for the gifts of healing, even in the circumstance of the Corinthian church. It is at best imperfect. When we recognize and allow that God may sovereignly choose to heal, to intervene at certain times in people's lives, at best it is imperfect—certainly against the standard established by Jesus himself. When Jesus healed people, the healing was instantaneous, it was effective, and it was radically life-transforming. The man with a shriveled hand put forth his hand, it was healed, everybody knew it was healed, he didn't then have to go for tests to find out about it, he didn't need to go to a plastic surgeon, he didn't have to fiddle around at all—shriveled, no longer shriveled. But when we think in terms of healing in any measure, either in the Corinthian context or today, we have to recognize that whatever we may describe as healing may in time prove to be remission but has never in all of time proved to be transformation.

And all who are gained, if you like, a stay of execution still die. Because the very exercise of such sovereign prerogatives of God is limited by the context in which it is exercised. That is why it is only when the perfect comes that there will be no tears, no pain, no sighing, and no dying.

But in the present context, all will be touched by those features. So any church, whether the Corinthian church or a church today, that says of itself, The gifts of the Spirit are signs of final perfection, knows itself to be wrong. Incidentally, let me just say that those who believe that we should always be fit and healthy are thereby suggesting that the perfect is now when Paul clearly says that the perfect is then. And to all who try and teach us that if ever we endure sickness or if ever we face pain, we somehow or another must be living in sin or missing the dimensions of faith that God intends, what those individuals are doing is importing then to now. And when you bring then to now, you can't live now in light of then.

That's the first thing. Spiritual gifts are not the indication of final perfection. Secondly, I think that what is being said here, especially in verse 11, is this. While then we will experience perfection in terms of being absolutely free from the implications of sin, now we do not simply sit in babyhood but now, says Paul, is about maturity—a maturity which is not perfection.

Okay? Now, this is where we gotta be able to understand English and discriminate between words. When the Bible uses this notion of perfection for heaven, and when Paul speaks about maturity, we're talking about two different things. Heaven is heaven, and spiritual maturity is now. And the fact that the Corinthians were suggesting that heaven was now displayed in spiritual gifts was pointing up the fact that they had a problem with spiritual maturity.

They were babies in their understanding of things. And so Paul says to them, What we need to be looking for is the kind of spiritual fullness which is expressed in maturity. Now, if you doubt that they had a problem with maturity, turn back to 1 Corinthians 3 and verse 1. What did Paul say on that occasion? He said, Brothers, I couldn't address you as spiritual but as worldly, mere infants or babies in Christ. He says to the Corinthians, You're babies.

When you get into chapter 14, which we will in these coming weeks, we're going to find the same kind of emphasis. Look at verse 20 of 1 Corinthians 14. Brothers, stop thinking like children. You see, Paul's great urgency for them was that they might come to maturity. The problem for the Corinthians was that they were elevating this junior gift—namely, the gift of tongues—they were bringing it to such a place that it was for them a mark of superiority.

Paul says, It is not a mark of superiority, but your overemphasis on it is a mark of your spiritual childishness. Quit the baby talk! Because, he says, we only see in a mirror. One day we'll see face to face. Heaven is then, this is now. We live now. We let the Lord down now. We stumble now. We fall. We're not at our best.

The good we want to do we don't do. You can't have then now. We live now in anticipation of then. That's what he's saying here, you see, when he says, Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even now as I am fully known. Just in passing, one of the keys to understanding your Christian life is working out the difference between now and then. We never grow to maturity in our Christian living until we understand what's now and what's then. Because if we start thinking that then is now, we won't be able to live now now.

You understand? And we'll be telling people that what's then is now and confusing them, because they can't get that now, and they ain't supposed to get it now, because it's only coming then. Right now we're known. We're fully known right now. That is a wonderful phrase.

You ought to underline that. I am fully known. By whom?

By God. Some of us are here tonight and we're downright lonely. We may even be lonely in a big crowd. We may be away from our families, away from home, at university.

We may have had changes in the circumstances of our lives, and they are buffeting us, and they are beating us. And here's a wonderful statement for your encouragement. I am fully known. One of the angels in heaven turns around to God, and he says, God, do you know John Smith? And God says, do I know John Smith?

Let me tell you about John Smith. The angel says, do you know Mary Evans? Ha! I can tell you all about Mary Evans! She is mine! She belongs to me!

I know her! Now, none of us know God like that. The whole quest for spiritual maturity in Paul's mind is that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, but he knows that even at his best knowing it will be an imperfect knowing. But one day we shall know even as we are known.

All of the dumb questions that we've asked this past week will be answered in an instant when we gaze into his face. All of our uncertainties about pain and about illness and all of our heartache for our brethren will be answered in a moment when we know even as we are known. It calls for patience. It calls for trust. It calls for biblical realism.

One day we will see him, and we will be made like him. This is Truth for Life and Alistair Begg with a message called love is forever. It is so reassuring to know that we are fully known and that God wants to do a work in our hearts. The Puritans taught that heart work is hard work.

So where do we begin in that hard work? Well, we have a new book we're offering that can help you get started. It's called with all your heart, and it explores what the Bible means when it talks about the word heart. The author explains that the heart is at the very center of our spiritual being.

It's the source of our fears, our words, and our actions. We love the emphasis this book places on the heart because as the author says if you neglect the heart you've missed the most necessary thing. Request your copy of the book by clicking the image you see on the app or visit our website truthforlife.org slash donate or you can call us at 888-588-7884.

Again ask for the book with all your heart. Finally before we close here's a special invitation. Hello this is Alistair. You know I've been invited to be the Bible teacher on this Holland American cruise ship that is going to take a whole host of us up the coast of Alaska at the end of August. I'd love for you to come along, not just because of the beauty of the surroundings, not just because of the benefit of the luxury of it all, but actually mainly because we get to be in one another's company. One of the things about doing what I do is that I talk to people that I largely never see, and I'm looking forward to meeting many of you. I won't be alone, my wife will join me, Laura's story, Michael O'Brien will be leading us in our praise, and all in all I think it will be far more than justification. New friends and lasting memories as we cruise up the coastline.

So consider it and consider yourself welcome. Thank you Alistair. You can learn more book your ticket by visiting deeperfaithcruise.com or call 855-565-5519. I'm Bob Lapine. Join us tomorrow as Alistair concludes his message and our series. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.