At the center of Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12-14 is a magnificent, poem-like reflection on the highest virtue and most Christlike characteristic imaginable: love. But 1 Corinthians 13 is not a disjointed digression from the topic of spiritual gifts. Rather, Paul understands gospel-driven love as central to what it truly means to be “spiritual” and the antidote to the Corinthians’ problem of looking more like Corinth than Christ, which is the problem he spends his entire letter addressing. Their fascination with spiritual gifts had turned their worship into a self-centered circus. Love was trampled like a shopper at Walmart on Black Friday in the mad dash for the flashy, more prominent gifts, but Paul wants to show them “a more excellent way” (12:31).
In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul begins by explaining the necessity of love (1 Cor. 13:1-3). Without it, even the most impressive spiritual gifts and people will turn out to be of no value at all, suggesting that the true indication of spiritual maturity is not the gifts but the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). This is followed by a description of the character of love (1 Cor. 13:4-7), which is, as Kyle Strobel puts it, “a description of how we are loved by God before it is a plumb line for our own loving.”1Kyle Strobel, “The Sight of Love: Biblical and Theological Reflections on the Beatific Vision”, Credo Magazine 12, no. 3 (2022) Finally, Paul emphasizes the permanence of love in contrast to the transient spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 13: 8-13). When Christ returns, spiritual gifts will pass away, but love will remain into the new creation because “love never ends” (13:8).
Several implications can be drawn from Paul’s hymn to love which we would do well to ponder as new creations in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17)—those who have come to Mt. Zion, who belong the city of the living God, whose citizenship is in heaven (Heb. 12:22-24).
Heaven Is a World of Love
Jonathan Edwards, preaching from 1 Corinthians 13 on love’s permanence, argued that “heaven is a world of love” because God himself is an overflowing and inexhaustible fountain of love (1 John 4:9; 2 Cor. 13:11). His comments are worth our contemplation:
There…in heaven, dwells the God from whom every stream of holy love, yea, every drop that is, or ever was, proceeds. There dwells God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, united as one, in infinitely dear, and incomprehensible, and mutual, and eternal love… There, in heaven, this infinite fountain of love — this eternal Three in One — is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it, as it flows forever. There this glorious God is manifested, and shines forth, in full glory, in beams of love. And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts, as it were, be deluged with love.2Jonathan Edwards, “Heaven, a World of Love” in Charity and its Fruits, https://www.monergism.com/charity-and-its-fruits-ebook
Paul says that when the “perfect” comes, we will see this God “face to face” and know him fully (1 Cor. 13:10, 12; cf. Ps. 17:15; 1 John 3:2; Rev. 22:3-5). This vision of God in heaven is our blessed hope (Tit. 2:13), the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise (Matt. 5:8), and what the church has rightly called the beatific vision. If God is love, and heaven is indeed a world of love, then Strobel is right to conclude that “the beatific vision is the vision of love, and as such, it is both knowing and being known in love.”3Strobel, “The Sight of Love,” emphasis original. If God’s love has already been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given to us (Rom. 5:1), how much more splendid will it be when we see him face to face!
There is so much to say about the beatific vision that goes beyond the scope of this short reflection on 1 Corinthians 13. For starters, check out the Credo Magazine issue dedicated to the beatific vision.
A Foretaste of the Future
Spiritual gifts are provisional and will “pass away” (1 Cor. 13:8-10), which is a verb often used in Scripture of things that do not survive the transition between the old world and the new.4Through the cross, God “brings to nothing” the wisdom of this world (1 Cor. 1:26) The wisdom and rulers of this age are doomed to “pass away” (1 Cor. 2:6). Jesus brought the law of commandments expressed in ordinances “to nothing” (Eph. 2:15). The old covenant was passing away (2 Cor. 3:13). Jesus “destroys” every rule, authority and power and “destroys” death (1 Cor. 15:24-26). Each of these verses uses the same verb found in 1 Corinthians 13:8. In other words, spiritual gifts will not be a feature of the new creation. When Christ returns, they will no longer be needed. In light of this, NT Wright makes a helpful distinction between spiritual gifts as signposts of the future and love being a foretaste of the future. He writes, “[Spiritual gifts] are merely signposts to the future; when you arrive, you no longer need signposts. Love, however, is not just a signpost. It is a foretaste of the ultimate reality. Love is not merely the Christian duty; it is the Christian destiny.”5N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2003), 296.
This means that spiritual gifts are not the primary indicator that the kingdom of heaven has broken into the present age. Yes, they manifest the power of God and point to the reality that God is among us (1 Cor. 14:24-25), but spiritual gifts are not and cannot be an actual foretaste of the future, heavenly kingdom because they are not a part of the future. Furthermore, if those gifts are not fueled by and fused with love in this age, they are not indicators of anything; they are as useless as a screen door on a submarine (1 Cor. 13:1-3).
What then, is the primary proof that God’s future kingdom has broken into this world already? D. A. Carson rightly answers, “The greatest evidence that heaven has invaded our sphere, that the Spirit has been poured out upon us, that we are citizens of a kingdom not yet consummated, is Christian love”6D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit: A Theological Exposition of 1 Corinthians 12–14 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1987), 75–76. And where is that love found today? In the fellowship of the church. It is gospel-driven love that makes the church like heaven today. The church is the garden-city of God that exists today as among the cities of men; it is the embassy and outpost of the kingdom of heaven. But the church is not just a group of people; it a kind of people, a people who have received God’s love through the Spirit, who are filled with and fueled by the fruit of God’s own Spirit, and who follow the example of Christ’s sacrificial love in all they do.
Walk in Love
If heaven is a world of love, and love is a foretaste of the future; if we are new creations who belong to God’s future kingdom which has already broken into this present age, then “the church must be working in the present on the things that will last into God’s future.”7Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 296, emphasis original. That is what 1 Corinthians 13 is all about. Paul is reordering their values so that love is the primary motivation for everything they do, just like it is for the God who is love and gave his only-begotten Son, and whose Son lived a perfect life of selfless, sacrificial love.
This is a theme woven all throughout the New Testament. How will all people know that we are disciples of Jesus? If we have love for one another (John 13:35). How do we know that we have passed out of death into the life of the age to come? “Because we love the brothers” (1 John. 3:14). How do we know we belong to the day of the new creation, which has dawned with the resurrection of Christ? Because we have put on the breastplate of faith and love (1 Thess. 5:8). As new creations in Christ, who belong to the heavenly city even now, the Jerusalem above (Gal. 4:26), love must be the controlling reality of the Christian life. It must be the the flavor of every activity, the key of every song, the track on which the Christian train must ride.
Wright’s concluding remarks on 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 are a fitting summary: “Love is God’s river, flowing on into the future, across the border into the country where there is no pride, no jostling for position, no contention among God’s people. We are invited to step into that river here and now, and let it take us where it’s going.”8Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 177.
Mitch Bedzyk serves as a pastor Emmanuel Community Church, overseeing music and Sunday Classes. He received his Master of Theological Studies from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and works in IT for the NY Office of Mental Health. He and his wife, Sarah, have five children: Kya, Khalli, Oliver, Amelia, and Micah. In his spare time he enjoys reading, coffee, guitar, playing fantasy soccer and fanatically following Major League Soccer and the German Bundesliga
