Happy New Years. Will 2025 be a year that brings out the love?
When we only exposed to the Bible from going to weddings, we often associate 1 Corinthians 13 as the passage on “love” and that somehow the descriptions therein define the noble characteristics of a couple committed to a lifelong relationship as a married couple.
While the passage does mentioned LOVE repeatedly, there is no specific mention of how a husband and wife should related to each other, at least in any specific way. Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, Titus, and 1 Peter 3 offer a lot of specific guidance regarding the relationships of husbands and wives, but its easier in the brief span of a portion of a wedding ceremony to digest a more generic understanding of how love is to be modeled by two people bound by a loving commitment before a holy God, the fount of all blessings
1 Corinthians 13 has other meaning.
I remember when before my father died in 1996, I had a growing knowledge of scripture and I made of point of explaining to my father some of the nuances of 1 Corinthians 13, specifically verse 12 which is For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
In the painful Spring of 1996, my intention was to give my father hope during a horrible two month stretch when pancreatic cancer devastated a once athletic and capable man. The future God hold for us is better than anything we can hope for in this life. What better thing that to see the Heavenly Father with a new and glorious new body designed for heaven. We can save ourselves only for so long in this life, a drop in the timeline of God’s plan for eternity with us. Yet building ourselves spiritually in Christ is a long term investment that spans beyond death.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. – Revelations 21:4
If this 1 Corinthians 13 has something to do with marriage, just what does this part mean? Who knows us now dimly and later, “face to face”? We need to connect that back to verse 8 how “Love Never Fails.”
It’s not because of you or me that love never fails. There’s only one person whose love never fails and the entire salvation of humanity depends on it. It is God through Jesus Christ.
What about all of these benchmarks mention earlier in the passage,
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Speaking in tongues, prophesying, understanding and knowledge, faith to move mountains, give all your wealth to the poor, sacrificing ones body — all these things, in the eyes of a holy and morally perfect and just God, are merely “show” and lip service if you do not have the Love of Christ a love for Christ.
Without this love, Christ warns people in Matthew 7:21-23:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
In other words, works (all the achievements we may have amassed for ourselves) without faith in Christ does not result in salvation (to be known by Christ, i.e. relationship offered by God) but is a form of idolatry, in service to some entity other than the one true living God.
We must be cognizant of the worship, is it in the form of diety that you have created rather than striving to know the one true and living God.
The only operative work that contributes to your salvation is the perfect work of Christ, the death of a sinless man who took your sins upon His soul while he suffered and died on the Roman cross about 2000 years ago. It’s His love for you, the love of God Himself, that He endured that humiliating and agonizing fate.
This is the love that deserves the gratitude of a fallen humanity. Being dead in our sins, only the grace of God can save, hence the famous line from John 3:3 which Jesus schooled a prominent Pharisee named Nicodemus, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
When you are spiritually dead, there is no work you can do to appease God who is holy, righteous, just and loving. To be loving one must also be just.
If you needed any confirmation that Love is of God, consider these verses from 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NKJV):
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things
Unless there is an objective standard that is not of humanely origins, these ideals of love can never be set as a standard that continues to drive us to repentance. For example, do you think it’s possible that you cannot think of evil? Do you think that you have never or can ever achieve not finding some devious satisfaction when your enemy suffers loss?
God is intended to be the Lord and Master of each believer and a heavenly standard worthy to be strived towards, especially in Christian marriage where the parents are to provide a role model for the children and for others to observe.
This leads us to verses 8-10:
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
LOVE NEVER FAILS is a statement of divine truth. Our lives and the lives of those around us are fraught with examples and daily realities that our love can and often does fail. Yet when we rely on God’s infinite love and trust in His goodness for our lives, we cannot fail to reap the ultimate rewards of His grace. We can trust in God’s love, we can put our faith in Him.
Human works are not only imperfect, they are finite, they will come to pass. Works can never be held up as a standard for eternal salvation before a holy and righteous God. But LOVE, God’s love, endures forever, specifically, accepting God’s love through His Son, and in return worshipping God in love, in gratitude, not a payment or currency to be redeemed. It is through our Creator’s love that we can best understand what love is and it is His love that believers seek to channel, while in this earthly life, though we struggle with the flesh and sin and our ever present reminders that our love alone is not perfect.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. – 1 Corinthians 13:11-12.
Not all qualities of a child are bad. The childlike innocent qualities that make faith and trust easy, are not guided by wisdom. As every parent understands, behind that cute facade is a little devil that if it weren’t for them being so cute and cuddly parents might more often succumb to sin. I believe the sentiment expressed by Paul (the writer of Corinthians) in this case marks a transition between fleshly understanding of the world and a divinely inspired understanding of God’s kingdom, and this could also apply to those who marry. We may go into a relationship filled with romantic selfish subterfuge but must ultimately succumb our ego and self-pride to the humility demanded by our obedience to the Lordship of Christ.
Verse 12 is one that spans this life into the next, the one hope I had tried to convey to my father who was dying of cancer. In This life, we can only know God imperfectly, but when we ascend into heaven we will be able to face God directly. Truth is, however, God now already knows us completely. There is no mystery to God and there is nothing that we can hide from Him and yet, when we accept and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God reconciles His relationship with us, despite our native enmity with God and people, and darkest sins, and accepts us into the heavenly family.
The final verse And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love, is a reemphasis of the greatest commandment:
‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ – Matthew 22:37
This love is a reflection of God’s love for us. Without God, the passage read in the popular love chapter is without the motive force that makes real love possible.
Have you benefitted from the love and blessings of God through you in your relationships and in your marriage? Will you recognize that God does work through the lives of unbelievers and sinners of which we were all in the beginning. There is none good but God. Humbling oneself to that realization and offering your worship to God for his blessings is an act of faith, that is, a divine work.
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
CKY
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