Love - The greatest of all

Text 1 Corinthians 13:13 Time 12/10/14 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church
My wife, as many of you know, is one of three sisters. She was talking the other day about other families she knows where there are three sisters. Our old next door neighbours were a family with three girls, for example. Perhaps the most famous three sisters in history were the Brontes (Charlotte, Emily and Anne).
We have five boys so I know nothing about bringing up three girls but I do want to introduce you to three famous sisters today, who are really well worth knowing. The seventeenth century Puritan Thomas Adams called them the Divine Sisters. Their names are Faith, Hope and Love (or Charity).
If you read through Paul's letters in the New Testament you will see that on several occasions he talks about these three graces or virtues. Sometimes he mentions one of them on its own; sometimes two are mentioned together and sometimes we get all three of them - faith hope and love.
So for example he speaks of
  • Faith on its own (Romans 1:16, 17) Paul is not ashamed of the gospel because in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed - a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
  • Hope on its own (Romans 8:24, 25) For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
  • Love on its own (Romans 12:9, 10) Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honour one another above yourselves.
  • You get faith and hope in Galatians 5:5 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. Also in Colossians 1:23 Paul talks about continuing in your faith, established and firm, and not being moved from the hope held out in the gospel.
  • Faith and love come in Ephesians 1:15 and Colossians 1:4 where he talks about their faith in the Lord Jesus or Christ Jesus and their love for all God's people.
  • All three are found in
    Colossians 1:5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven 1 Thessalonians 5:8 and 13 We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. … But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.
They are also here at the end of 1 Corinthians 13 - And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13 is a wonderful chapter about Christian love. We have looked at most of the chapter and we have seen that
1. Love is absolutely essential – no gifts from God or any zeal for him can possibly ever compensate for a lack of love. It is vital.
2. Love itself is not a vague thing but something definable. We are told that it is patient, … kind. It does not envy ... or boast, it is not proud ... or rude, ... self-seeking, … or easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It takes no delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
3. Then, thirdly, Love never fails. Whatever it is prophecies, they will cease ... tongues, they will be stilled ... knowledge, it will pass away and so on. Love, however, never fails. It continues.
Paul now wants to pull together what he has been saying before he goes on in what we call Chapter 14 to tackle the specific problems they were having in Corinth over gifts. So we want to say
1. There are three things that always remain – understand what they are and the importance of developing them
So Paul says And now these three remain then lists them - faith, hope and love. These are the three principal gifts that the Holy Spirit gives and their outstanding quality is that they remain. This is true of all three of them not just of love. Some do suggest that when Paul says they remain he means only beyond the time when the supernatural gifts (prophecy, tongues, knowledge, etc) cease. As we said last time, however, that does not seem to be what Paul is talking about here. What Paul is actually saying is that all three go on beyond death and beyond Christ's coming and exist even in heaven.
It is difficult to see at first blush how faith and hope can continue in heaven, where to some extent hope is fulfilled and faith turns to sight. However, if you go back to verse 7, you will see that Paul says that love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. If love exists in heaven, therefore, there must be a sense in which faith and hope continue as love always trusts and always hopes.
So with that in mind let's define these three graces as Paul understands them here and talk about developing them in our lives.
1. Faith
When Paul talks about faith here he is not talking about
  • The supernatural gift of faith. In 1 Corinthians 12:8, 9 Paul says To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit. The gift of faith he has in mind there is no doubt a special gift of faith. He may be referring to it at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13 when he talks about faith that can remove mountains.
  • Nor is he talking about what we can call temporary or historical faith where a person professes to believe for a little while but then stops believing.
  • It is not mere assent to certain truths he has in mind either.
By faith here he means a faith found only in the elect, the fruit of election and irresistible grace. It is something that we know is the gift of God, brought about by the Spirit. It is the twin sister of repentance. It is the grace that, to paraphrase one old writer (Gill), enables a soul to do six things – to see Christ, to go to him, to lay hold on him, to receive him, to rely on him, to live on him. Such faith never dies. It remains.
In Hebrews 11 you have a whole gallery of examples of people who put their faith in God and who were rewarded for it, people like Abel and Enoch and Noah and Abraham and Jacob and so on.
What about you? Are you a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you trust in him? Is that where your faith is? If it is a real faith it will remain. We are not saying it will never waver. But if it is real it will remain.
When the Lord Jesus Christ comes we will see him as he is and so there will be no need for faith in the sense that we often use the word but we will still put our trust in him if we are his. Indeed, more than ever, he will be the one we trust. At one point Jesus asks (Luke 18:8) when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? This could refer to the Second Coming or to other times of crisis or both. When Jesus raises the question of whether he will find faith on the earth he is not interested in whether there will be many or few believers at that time, as interesting as that question may be. The question is more personal. “Will you have faith when Christ comes?” Will you be found trusting in him? Believing in the Second Coming will not be at all difficult when it happens but trusting in Jesus will be the thing that makes the difference.
And so we say not only have you seen Christ and gone to him? Have you laid hold on him and received him? But are you relying on him now living on him. Such faith never dies.
2. Hope
Hope again needs to be distinguished. We are not talking about some general idea of hope, the vague idea that may be it will all turn out okay in the end. No, we are talking about another gift of God's grace given when a person is born again. It is a quiet confidence that God is working it all together for our good and that we will in due time be blessed. It is this hope that enables Christians to endure, to keep going, especially when things seem to be going against them. Hope lives on God's promises and the righteousness of Christ.
Its object is God and Christ not any worldly thing or anything we think we may have done to please God. Hope usually relates to things unseen, future, difficult, yet possible to be enjoyed. It is the grace that enables a Christian to wait for what is promised and rejoice in the prospect of glory and happiness.
Again, people question whether there can be hope in heaven. As Paul says, Who hopes for what he already has? Yet there is a future in heaven and there is progress and so hope no doubt continues even there. Don Carson helpfully puts it this way
“There is a sense in which hope is not merely the anticipation of the blessings to come, an anticipation no longer needed once those blessings have arrived, but a firm anchor in Christ himself. Our hope is in God, in Christ; and as such, hope continues forever, doubtless opening up an infinity of new depths of blessing, world without end”
Perhaps an illustration is possible, though not the best. There is a phrase “The great white hope”. It is a racist term and it was used mostly for boxers but has also been used for Cricketers and others. Famous people to have borne the name are the American boxers James J Jeffries, Warren W Barbour and Jess Willard and the African born cricketers Allan Lamb and Graham Hick. Now my simple point is that though a boxer is dubbed the great white hope before he defeats the black man and becomes champion he is still the great white hope after he has won.
And so just as Christians cast their anchor in Christ beyond the veil here on earth, when they are within the veil in heaven he is still their anchoring point. He is still their hope.
So hope then. Can you sing truly “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness”. “We have an anchor within the veil, steadfast and true while the billows rage”. Is your anchor within the veil? Are you looking in hope only to him? We must be people of hope.
3. Faith and hope distinguished
Faith and hope always go together and are very similar in some ways.
To believe is to accept something you cannot see or has not yet happened.
Hope is to embrace or look forward to something you cannot see or has not yet happened.
Martin Luther, writing on Galatians 5:5, helpfully distinguished them in five ways. $ He says they are like the cherubim either end of the mercy seat but there are differences. They are like the pillars Jabez and Boaz in Solomon's Temple. Differences then
1. Where they rest
  • Faith rests, he suggests, in the understanding
  • Hope in the will.
2. They differ in their office or work
  • Faith tells us what is to be done. It teaches, prescribes and directs
  • Hope, on the other hand, stirs up the mind to be strong, bold, courageous. It enables us to suffer and to endure adversity and wait for better things.
3. They differ as to their object, where they look.
  • The object of faith is the truth. Faith teaches us to stay close to the truth and fix on the word and the promise in it.
  • Hope has for her object God's goodness and fixes on the thing promised in the word, that is, what faith teaches us to hope for.
4. They differ in order
  • Faith is the beginning of life, before all trouble
  • Hope comes out of troubles.
5. They differ by working in a different way
  • Faith is a teacher and a judge, fighting against errors and heresies, judging spirits and doctrines.
  • Hope is, as it were, the general or captain of the field, fighting against trouble, the cross, impatience, heaviness of spirit, weakness, desperation and blasphemy. It waits for good things even in the midst of all evils.
Luther says it is like this. When I am taught by the Word and receive it in faith and so lay hold of Christ and wholeheartedly believe in him, then I am justified through this knowledge. Then along comes the Devil, that old schemer, and labours to destroy my faith by his schemes and tricks (lies, errors, heresies, etc). He has been a murderer from the beginning and is ready to use violence for his ends. It is here that hope wrestles, laying hold on the thing revealed by faith and overcoming the Devil who wars against faith. When we are victorious peace and joy in the Holy Spirit follow.
I trust you see the difference. Not that we need to be too worried over this. Faith and hope, hand in hand must march on in our lives whatever else we do or do not have.
4. Love
As for love, we don't need to spend too much time on this as we have already spent some time defining this further Christian grace. We have said from this chapter that the love Paul is talking about here is not any sort of love that goes by that name but a distinct Christian love that has the characteristics he speaks about here.
Positively, true love is marked by patience and kindness. Negatively, it does not envy or boast or get puffed up with pride. Nor is it rude, ... self-seeking, … or easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs and takes no delight in evil but rather positively it rejoices with the truth. Further It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres and never fails.
Love is different to faith and hope, though it is a trusting or hoping sort of thing. It is by faith and with hope that we love God and that we love men and women. Christian faith and hope, if they are genuine will lead to love.
If your faith and hope are real, they will be accompanied by love – love to God, love to fellow believers, love to your neighbour, even love to your enemies. We will say more about this in our second and final point.
2. The greatest of these three is love – see why it is the greatest and what to do about it
So these three remain – faith, hope and love. They are all central. More important than any other gift the Holy Spirit may give a person. But Paul adds, interestingly, the greatest of these is love. Now why does he say that? It's a little bit like a father saying here are my three wonderful daughters but the best one is not Faith or Hope but Charity or like an artist saying the three primary colours are red, green and blue or red, yellow and blue but the greatest of these is red.
What can Paul mean?
We have already said it is not to do with how long they last. All three remain to some extent. He certainly does not mean that love is the greatest in every sense. Without faith there would be no hope and love, for a start. No he means that, practically speaking, love is the greatest. $ So a man might say of his three piece suit that the trousers are greater than the jacket and waistcoat or a BLT sandwich that the bacon is more important than the lettuce and tomatoes.
So in what sense is love the greatest? Firstly, as we have already noted love contains faith and hope to a certain extent, as it includes all that is good. Love always trusts, always hopes. In fact, faith without love is dead.
James 2:14-17 What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go in peace; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
Faith and hope are intended to lead to love. That is their great end. Don't forget how Jesus speaks when he is asked by the scribe that question about the greatest command. He says (Matthew 22:37-40) Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Paul takes that up in Romans 13 and says (8-10) Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not covet," and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbour as yourself." Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law.
More than that we know from Scripture that God is love. We never read that God is hope or faith, of course, but he is love and those who know him must also love. To love is in some sense to follow God in a way that trusting and hoping is not.
Then, further, there is the fact that to love is to be a means of blessing not only to oneself but to others too. It benefits more than one person. If I have faith and hope that is a blessing to me but if I have love that is a blessing to many others too. One writer (Barnes) says
Love is more important than faith and hope, because, although it may co-exist with them, and though they all shall live forever, yet love enters into the very nature of the kingdom of God; binds society together; unites the Creator and the creature; and blends the interests of all the redeemed, and of the angels, and of God, into one.”
As we have suggested, it is probably the usefulness of love that makes Paul put it first. In 14:5 he says that The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified. The greatness there is certainly to do with usefulness and that is probably the idea here too.
So, is your faith and hope leading to love? Is love the chief thing about you in what ever else you do for the Lord? That is how it should increasingly be. It is not that faith and hope are unimportant. Quite the opposite. However, there must be love too. Indeed love must triumph. May it be so with us all.
Let me give Thomas Adams the last word
I should now tell you, that as these three fair sisters came down from heaven; so in a cross contrariety, the devil sends up three foul fiends from hell. Against Faith, infidelity; against Hope, desperation; against Charity, malice. He that entertains the elder sister, Unbelief, I quake to speak his doom, yet I must; "he is already condemned," He that embraceth the second ugly hag, Despair, bars up against himself the possibility of all comfort, because he offends so precious a nature, the mercy of God, and tramples under his desperate feet that blood which is held out to his unaccepting hand. He that welcomes Malice, welcomes the devil himself; he is called the envious, and loves extremely to lodge himself in an envious heart. These be fearful, prodigious sisters; fly them and their embraces; and remember, O ye whom Christ loves, the commandment of your Saviour, "Love one another!"”