Transcript

A minister, a Boy Scout, and a computer expert were the only passengers on a small plane. The pilot came back to the cabin and said that the plane was going down but there were only three parachutes and four people.

The pilot added, “I should have one of the parachutes because I have a wife and three small children.” So he took one and jumped.

The computer whiz said, “I should have one of the parachutes because I am the smartest man in the world and everyone needs me.” So he took one and jumped.

The minister turned to the Boy Scout and with a sad smile said, “You are young and I have lived a rich life and I know where I’m going, so you take the remaining parachute, and I’ll go down with the plane.”

The boy Scout said, “Relax, Reverend, the smartest man in the world just picked up my backpack and jumped out!” Sometimes knowledge is incomplete and partial.

The full knowledge and revelation of the Word of God for this program was still partial and incomplete when Paul wrote the Corinthians. That’s what he was referring to when he wrote that “we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”

We’ll examine what Paul is teaching here as it relates to the miraculous sign gifts.

1 Corinthians 13:8: “Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.”

Paul wrote that “Charity never faileth.” God’s agape love is ever-abiding, never-terminating. It is constant, permanent, and continues forever.

The word “faileth” carries the picture of a fading flower with falling petals. But God’s love never withers, never falls to the ground, never corrupts, never fades.

Love never ends, it will never fail to exist, and this is so because “God is love” and love is as eternal as God is. That love which is true of God is eternal and it never fails.

What follows this statement is a commentary on this great truth that God’s agape love never fails. And we are taught that while charity never fails, the gift of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will fail and cease to exist.

They are only temporary. They were a fading flower with falling petals, fading away.

This does not mean that these gifts were unimportant at that time. These spiritual gifts were essential for the foundation of the church and for the revealing of God’s will, His Word, and His gospel of grace to the Church and to the world.

These gifts of the Spirit had a purpose in establishing of the truth of the revelation of the mystery, God’s message of grace for today, and establishing “the one new man” as Paul calls it, or the Church, the Body of Christ.

The Corinthian church, however, were exalting the gifts themselves over love. They were enamored by their spiritual gifts. But those gifts needed to be carried out with love and selfless care for others.

Paul wrote them in the next chapter, “Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying of the church” (14:12). And the church would be edified by serving the Lord by their gifts with love.

The Corinthian church needed to be brought to a new appreciation for love in the believer’s life and service; they needed a new concentration on God’s love.

They were focusing on something temporary: the miraculous sign gifts, when they needed to focus on what lasts forever: love.

Pastor Cornelius R. Stam has rightly pointed out that Paul deals with three subjects in these verses: (1) that which was to be done away; (2) that which was to take its place, and (3) that which was to abide. We’ll look at these verses in this light.

First, that which was to be done away. Paul points out that charity will never fail or be done away. Then he chooses three gifts prominent to the Corinthians for a specific reason, and each one is introduced by the same expression, “Whether there be.”

We find a comparison by Paul of three things with three things. He writes of THREE gifts that will cease: prophecies, tongues, and knowledge, but then the chapter ends reminding the church of THREE virtues that will abide: faith, hope, and love.

First, Paul writes that “whether there be prophecies, they shall fail.” Of course, Paul is not saying that God’s prophecies that He has given will ever fail or not come to pass exactly as He said. God is faithful to His Word, and His Word cannot fail.

Paul is referring to the gift of prophecy here. He is saying that gift will stop and fail.

The gift of prophecy was a revelatory gift. God would give His Word through the prophet. They literally spoke the Word of God.

Prophets could speak for God by inspiration of the Spirit, speaking verbally with the same inspired authority that Paul experienced when he wrote his epistles.

Paul could not be everywhere at once, and so God used people in the church with the gift of prophecy to speak the authoritative Word of God to the church in all different places.

This gift at the beginning of the dispensation of grace was needed to reveal Christ in His office as the Head of the Church, the Cross of Christ and all its glorious accomplishments, and the truths of the revelation of the mystery for the Church, the Body of Christ.

Next Paul says, “whether there be tongues, they shall cease.” For the early church, the gift of tongues was the means through which prophecy and the divine truths of grace revealed to them were communicated in oral form in different languages to the nations.

An art thief once stole some very expensive painting from the Louvre in Paris. He took two Van Goghs, a couple Monets, a DeGasse, and some other paintings.

Everything went perfectly, except he was captured sitting in his van with the paintings only 2 blocks from the museum, because his van had run out of fuel!

When asked by the police how he could plan such a successful robbery and then be foiled by such a simple error, he replied: “I had no MONET to buy DEGASSE to make the VAN GOGH!” That’s the best I got to speak in another tongue, another language.

This gift of tongues would be a missionary’s dream today. No language school was needed.

The gift of tongues was the gift of languages, the ability by the Spirit to speak languages they didn’t know miraculously, under divine power. This enabled the message of grace for today to spread rapidly around the world as the Church was being established.

Next Paul writes, “whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” This gift enabled the person to look at the Old Testament Scriptures, to listen to God’s revelation from the prophets and by the Holy Spirit they could draw proper and insightful conclusions concerning the truth of God and apply it appropriately.

This was spiritual knowledge disclosed by God. It was the immediate imparting of spiritual truth to the mind. It enabled the recipient to know the mind and will of God.

They supernaturally knew by the Spirit how to help the needs of people by God’s truth.

Paul selected these particular sign gifts from a long list of others for a reason. They all bear a direct connection to the revelation of the Word of God.

The gift of prophecy was the revelation of God’s Word by the Spirit by people who verbally spoke it. This has given way to the COMPLETED WRITTEN REVELATION.

In the past, through prophecy and the gift of tongues, the Word was made known supernaturally and in different languages. But God speaks to mankind today through His WRITTEN REVELATION.

The gift of tongues has ceased, but through the centuries, God has worked through His people, and translations of the Bible have been produced in many, many languages.

According to the International Bible Society, the New Testament is currently available in 1,521 languages. The complete Bible has been translated into 670 languages. And the Bible is consistently year in and year out the top selling Book in the world.

If the believer is seeking the mind and will and God it is no longer conveyed through the supernatural gift of knowledge but through the WRITTEN WORD OF GOD.

Now, the Spirit in us teaches us His Word, His truth is imparted by the enlightenment and illumination of the Spirit through our study, reading, learning, and growth.

Paul says that the gift of prophecy would “fail,” the gift of tongues would “cease,” and that the gift of knowledge would “vanish away.” The words “fail” and “vanish away” are translated from the exact same Greek word. It’s from “no” and “work” in the Greek. The gifts of prophecy and knowledge would at some point not work anymore.

With it meaning “no” and “work,” you could say that these gifts would be unemployed at a certain point and future time from when Paul originally wrote 1 Corinthians.

When that time would be we’ll examine as we go along here. But that time has come and gone and these gifts no longer work.

“Whether there be tongues, they shall cease.” “Cease” is translated from a different Greek word than “fail” and “vanish away.” And it simply means to cease, desist, quit, and refrain.

At a future time from when Paul originally wrote 1 Corinthians the gift of tongues would cease and desist. They would sputter out and quit.

The gift of tongues were driven and produced by divine power. They stopped when God withdrew the power to speak in other languages miraculously.

There is spiritual danger to be aware of here. There are people today who believe in new revelation in addition to God’s completed Word. People are taught and believe that there are prophets still who prophesy with direct revelation from God.

There are those who believe in supernatural knowledge, that you can learn how to listen for the voice of God and receive direct revelation from Him to know His mind and will apart from His Word. And of course, many, many believe that the gift of tongues can still be practiced by the Spirit.

But these sign gifts cannot be carried out today. God has made this impossible. Long ago, these supernatural gifts failed, ceased, and vanished away.

Prophecy, knowledge and tongues all had their brief moment in time before the Word was complete at the beginning of this age and then they were gone.

Anything that purports to be those gifts today is error and not the real thing. Scripture said they will cease, and they did. Therefore, the attempt to recover the supernatural sign gifts or try to perform them is not of God.

So when did these gifts stop working and cease? Verses 9-10 tell us when.

1 Corinthians 13:9-10: “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.”

As Paul proceeds to reveal the timing of the end of these sign gifts, he sets up a NOW time and a THEN time. This difference was between the time at which he wrote this letter to the Corinthians, and a time future to that day.

In verse 9, he wrote about NOW, when he was currently writing them, that NOW “we know in part, and” NOW “we prophesy in part.”

In verse 10, he gives the THEN time: “But when that which is perfect is come, THEN that which is in part shall be done away.”

In verse 12 you see both NOW and THEN: “for NOW we see through a glass, darkly, but THEN face to face: NOW I know in part, but THEN shall I know even as also I am known.”

These NOW and THEN contrasts show that the miraculous sign gifts were temporary and had no permanent place in God’s program of grace for the Body of Christ.

They only had a short-term ministry and purpose at the beginning of the dispensation of Grace.

“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part” is speaking of the incomplete knowledge of the revelation Christ was revealing to Paul concerning the mystery, the body of truth for the present program of grace.

Paul and those with the gifts of prophecy and knowledge only had partial revelation and partial knowledge from the Lord concerning the dispensation of grace. But that would be done away, when the full revelation and full knowledge was finally made known.

The truths of grace for today were progressively revealed to Paul. In 2 Corinthians 12:1, after Paul wrote this epistle, he wrote, “It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.”

There were still more revelations from the Lord to come for Paul, because the full message had not yet been given at this point. Knowing “in part” and prophesying “in part” speaks of incompleteness, having only part of the full knowledge of the truth.

Verse 9 is teaching that the content of the message revealed through the sign gifts of knowledge, or “we know,” and prophecy, or “we prophesy,” was only “in part,” or incomplete and imperfect yet at that time.

They only had partial knowledge and gave partial prophesies at that point concerning the mystery. Paul still had an incomplete view of the whole picture of God’s program with the Gentiles. The full understanding of the Church truth was still to come back then.

“But” verse 10 says. Or in contrast to the way it was at the time Paul wrote this, he says, “WHEN that which is perfect is come.” There was a time coming WHEN what was imperfect was then perfect, WHEN that which was incomplete would be complete.

A change was in the wind and coming. Eventually these gifts would cease and give way to a permanent provision for the Body of Christ. These miraculous manifestations in the sign gifts would soon give way to something far superior.

And the knowledge that they had in part and the prophecies of divine revelation that were given in part and were incomplete, would then be perfect.

Often, verse 10 is interpreted that “When Christ, who is the perfect One, comes, then the supernatural gifts will be done away at which time faith, hope and love will abide throughout eternity.”

Thus, it is taught that the miraculous sign gifts will continue until the return of Christ either at the Rapture or the Second Coming. But does this stand up to the context and construction of this passage? And the answer is that it does not.

There are THREE reasons why this is not speaking of Christ’s return.

First, the word “perfect” is not the normal Greek word meaning moral perfection, but rather it means completeness. It means to bring something to its end, to finish it, wanting nothing necessary to completeness. So it is not speaking of One who is perfect, it is speaking of completeness in contrast to incompleteness.

Second, when you consult the Greek you find that the gender of the word “that” is in the neuter gender, rather than the masculine gender. If it was the masculine gender then an argument could be made that it refers to the person of Christ. But it is not.

Paul is not contemplating an individual. The translators did an excellent job of carrying this thought over into the English as well by using the word “that.” And “that” being in the neuter gender indicates an inanimate object is in view.

Third, the immediate context is speaking of the revelation of God and His Word made known through the gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge and not the return of Christ.

Paul is not referring to Christ here but rather to the Word of God.

Therefore, in light of (1) the meaning of the word “perfect” meaning completeness, (2) the neuter gender of the word “that,” and (3) the context being the revelation of God, we believe that the passage should be interpreted in the following manner:

“But when that [the Word of God, in particular the revelation given to Paul for this age found in his epistles] which is perfect [a completed end accomplished as the effect of a process] is come, then that [the supernatural sign gifts] which is in part [the incomplete way] shall be done away.”

This interpretation is in keeping with the grammatical construction of the passage and even more importantly with the context.

“That which is perfect” is the completion of God’s Word by Paul’s revelation, with which partial, incomplete knowledge came to a completed end.

When the revelation of the mystery was fully given to Paul and completed, the supernatural sign gifts of the early church stopped working and vanished away.

Because at that point, they didn’t “know in part” any longer because the full knowledge was now revealed for this dispensation of grace. There was then no need to “prophesy,” because all God’s divine revelation was given in His completed Word. Within the pages of His Word, God has said all that He needed to say.

And there was no need for the gift of tongues to spread what was revealed supernaturally through the gift of prophecy, because God now speaks to all by His written Word.

Prophecies, tongues, knowledge and the other miraculous sign gifts were given while the Word of God was still being revealed. But after the Scriptures were complete, then these temporary methods of divine revelation and the miraculous gifts vanished away and ceased. They were unnecessary once we had a completed Bible.

Colossians 1:25-26 reads, “Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the Word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints.”

I’m going to say something that is a little out of the box, out of the normal way of thinking about something in God’s Word.

Personally, I believe the Book of Revelation was written much earlier than what tradition teaches. There is no reason to put such a late date on that book other than tradition and that’s what we’ve been told and what people have repeated over and over for many years.

That’s the only authority for it. That said, based on Colossians 1:25, I believe Paul was the last writer of Scripture. Paul said that the dispensation of God revealed to him was for the purpose “to fulfill the Word of God.”

Paul had been given the job of filling up the Word of God, or to fill full or complete the Word and its divine revelation as far as extent and as its last writer.

Paul defines what he means by fulfilling, or filling full the Word of God: “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints.”

The mystery revealed to Paul fulfilled or completed the Word of God. It finished the revelation of God in revealing God’s twofold purpose, for a people to rule and reign in Christ on the earth, which the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the Hebrew epistles reveal and for a people to rule and reign in Christ in the heavenlies, which Paul’s epistles reveal.

By the latter part of Paul’s ministry, that perfect thing had come, the full revelation of God’s Word was complete, and the sign gifts had ceased.

And then you find Paul, as well as his co-workers, unable to perform miracles, speak in tongues, or heal any longer. And the gift of tongues is never mentioned again in your Bible after 1 Corinthians.

But we also need to be careful that when we see that the miraculous sign gifts and the gifts of revelation have ceased, that we don’t set aside all the gifts.

Some gifts are gone but some are still present. The ones that are still present are the ones that function in the life of the church for its edification and are expressions of the Holy Spirit by which He guides and leads and nurtures and ministers to His church.

As Paul wrote in Romans 12:6-8: “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether…ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.”

Now, with all of this about the subject of the gifts, don’t take my word for it. I am not the authority. God and His Word is the authority.

With anything you hear from any speaker who teaches from God’s Word, it’s always important to be a Berean.

By that, we mean to do as the Bereans did as explained in Acts 17:11: “These [Bereans] were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”