When the Perfect Comes? (1 Corinthians 13)

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.

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Today we are going to be looking at 1st Corinthians 13.

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There have probably been more sermons written about 1st Corinthians 13 than possibly any other whole chapter of the Bible.

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1st Corinthians 13 is on the subject of love and that subject is something that has inspired countless songs, countless books, countless essays, countless poems.

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It seems as if you just cannot exhaust the subject of love.

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And that's a good thing because the Bible says God is love.

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And so when we talk about something as important and as valuable as love, it's good that we would know that this is something that's worth spending a lot of time thinking about.

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In fact, the very last verse of chapter 13 reminds us that of the three great things that we've been given, faith, hope, and love, the greatest of these is love.

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But there's two things I want to point out about the passage today.

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Of course, when you're going through and looking at it, you're going to notice the first part of the chapter is about the the preeminence of love.

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It says that, you know, if we have all the faith, if we can move mountains, if we can speak with wonderful vocabulary, but we do not love, then we are nothing.

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And so that tells us that love is is very important.

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But also, there is the second part that tells us that what love looks like.

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Love is patient.

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Love is kind.

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Love does not envy.

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Love does not boast.

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And this reminds us that love is ultimately the the fruit of the Spirit, which if you go to Galatians chapter 5 and cross-reference, the apostle Paul tells us the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.

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These are all the the fruit of the Spirit, which some have looked at that and said, well, fruit there is in the singular, and therefore the fruit really is love, and love works itself out in these different ways.

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And so that's an important little cross-reference you can make and look at the passage.

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But there's another section that I want to point out today for the sake of study, and one that is often confusing to people.

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And that's right after the text says love never fails.

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It begins to talk about things that do fail, and it says that prophecy will fail, and that tongues will cease.

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This has often been used by people who do not believe in the modern gift of tongues as a defense for what's called cessationism.

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Cessationism is the doctrine that says that the miraculous sign gifts that were given to the early apostles ceased after the first generation church had passed away.

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And those miraculous sign gifts were usually enumerated as the gifts of miraculous healing, the gifts of speaking in other languages or other tongues, and the gift of prophetic announcements, such as to the point of speaking the things that would ultimately end up being able to be defined as God's word and written down as God's word, basically speaking prophetic utterances.

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And so those miraculous sign gifts, today, we know there are people who claim to have those gifts, and usually there's two groups.

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You have what are called the charismatics, and charismatic comes from charis, the greek word for gift, and charismata, the gifts.

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And so they believe that as charismatics, they maintain those gifts, and then there are those who call themselves continuationists.

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Normally, they don't want to be identified with charismatics as much, because charismatics tend to be a wide spectrum, and there tend to be some extremes in charismaticism.

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Continuationists would simply say that the gifts have continued in different ways and in different degrees around the world.

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And so that is how you would define a continuationist.

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And then you have what's known as a cessationist.

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A cessationist is a person who says, no, those gifts have not continued, those gifts have ceased.

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And typically, the cessationist will make his argument from history.

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He'll say, history shows that there has been a ceasing in these gifts.

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In fact, that's often the argument that I would make as I would identify myself as a cautious cessationist.

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I would say that I wouldn't say God cannot gift someone today with a certain gift, but I would say that history shows us certainly a distinction and a difference between what was happening in the early church and what happened in the centuries following the early church.

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And therefore, I would say certain things did cease after the apostolic era.

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But be that as it may, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because oftentimes the argument is made from history, not necessarily from scripture, even though there are scriptural arguments.

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But one of the arguments that sometimes is made is the argument from 1 Corinthians 13, where the scripture says prophecies will fail and tongues will cease.

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Some people use that to say, see here, this is referring to the time of the ceasing of the apostolic or the miraculous gifts.

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And I don't agree with that interpretation, and I don't agree with that interpretation because of what is stated directly prior to or directly after that.

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Because what it says is when that which is perfect has come, that which is partial will be done away with.

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And so the question becomes, how do we interpret that which is perfect? What is it when it talks about that which is perfect? Some people believe that's the coming of the scriptures.

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The scriptures are the inerrant word of God.

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Therefore, they are perfect.

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Therefore, when they came, there's no more need for the miraculous sign gifts.

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And while I can appreciate that argument, and a part of me maybe even wishes that were the proper interpretation, I do not believe that fits with the whole interpretation of the text.

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Because as you go further, it later indicates that what Paul's talking about with the perfect comes is not the perfect written word of God, but the perfect revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ himself in his second coming.

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When Jesus Christ returns, there's going to be no more need for any of the gifts that have been given to the church for the propagation of the gospel.

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And so I believe that's what he's referring to when he says when that which is perfect has come.

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But you may think differently.

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You may see it differently.

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And at this point, I'm simply giving you my understanding of the text.

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I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to preach through the text last year.

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So I've had an opportunity to really think about this.

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And that's where I land on this.

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But again, I would encourage you to look at the text, do your exegetical study, observation, interpretation, and application.

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That's the way that we do that.

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And if you come up with a question about the text and you'd like to send me an email, I would appreciate it.

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I'd look forward to anything that you'd like to ask.

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I would also ask that you would please take the time to like, comment, and subscribe on this video.

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That helps us to reach a wider audience.

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And ultimately that's what we want to do anytime we proclaim the word of God.

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So again, I hope this has been an encouragement to you.

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I hope you've had a good time in the word today.

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I hope you've enjoyed your coffee and I look forward to seeing you next time on Coffee with a Calvinist.

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My name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist.

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May God bless you.