4. Three Things That Last Forever
Some things will always remain …
As we begin our study of the three great qualities of faith, hope and love, we should pause for a quick fact check. 1 Corinthians 13:13 is a monumental Bible verse that many know so well it has tended to take on a life of its own outside of the setting in which it was originally written. As a result, despite the apparent simplicity of what Paul wrote, a great many people miss the meaning of this verse.
It's easy to read what Paul says earlier in 1 Corinthians 13 about various gifts of the Spirit – prophecy, languages, knowledge, etc. – that will all eventually fail, and then to misunderstand verse 13. When the apostle says "… now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love," many Bible readers (and even some biblical commentaries) understand this to mean that at the present time we have faith, hope and love, but love will continue. In other words, when Paul says "Now …" we may think he means "for the present time," just as in the previous verse we find "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully…" (1 Corinthians 13:12). But this is not what Paul meant. The "now" is what biblical scholars call a "sequential" now. This just means that Paul doesn't mean "now as opposed to then," he means now in the sense of "now, in conclusion …" We can see this clear meaning if we look at the context of the whole section of his letter to the Corinthians.
If we go back to verse 8, we find that Paul says "Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away." The following verses then discuss why this is so, and in verse 13 Paul concludes his argument by saying "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
In this chapter, then, Paul contrasts two groups of three things. The first group – examples of things that will fail – consists of prophecies, tongues, and knowledge; the second group – examples of things that will never fail – consists of faith, hope and love.
Why will these three things always remain – in the future life, and for eternity? Many think that because faith is the "evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1), we will no longer need faith in the future life when we see God. In a similar way, many think that because "hope that is seen is not hope" (Romans 8:24), hope, too, will become a thing of the past when what we hope for arrives. Viewed this way, love is the only thing that would seem to be required forever.
But faith, at its core, is trust in God – it is something that will never be replaced. At what point in eternity would we not continue to apply our trust in God? And hope, even when it is fulfilled, still exists in our desire for the continuation of what is hoped for. Imagine that you hope there will be sunny weather on a day you plan to go to the beach. If you get up that day and the sun is shining, don't you continue to hope the weather will stay good throughout the day? This is not to say that we will have to hope our future life will continue when we receive it, but that there will always be things to look forward to in that life – as C.S. Lewis wrote – opportunities to continually grow closer to God.
Love, as Paul makes amply clear, is the condition of our oneness with God and with one another, and that certainly will always remain – and will always remain of primary importance.
So (or "Now…" as Paul wrote!), the three great spiritual qualities of 1 Corinthians 13:13 are equal in their eternal necessity. Love, as we will see, is certainly the greatest of the three. But all are vital – and the following chapters will show just how important they all are in our Christian lives, how we should apply them, how they function alone and how they interact, and how they ultimately all lie at the very core of the life to which we are called.
PART TWO: