1 CORINTHIANS 13
Ques Is this chapter the way of more surpassing excellence?
CAC Yes, it certainly is. We have seen in chapter 12 that the body is composed of many members, the Spirit having set the gifts in the body in His own sovereignty, and that each has to function in its place, but you do not exactly get the life of the body in chapter 12.
Ques Is it more in the nature of what is potential then?
CAC Yes, and what is functional; the members function, the figure used being that of the human body. The members all function where set, and in harmony; but the life of the body is not in the members; in the natural body the life is in the blood. Paul comes here to that which constitutes the life of the body without which there could be no functioning rightly in any of the members.
Ques Are you suggesting that love is equivalent to the blood in the natural body?
CAC Yes, I thought so.
Ques You have in your mind the thought of the life being in the blood?
CAC Yes. The Spirit is seen in chapter 12 as forming the body and the vessel in which certain gifts function. Well, that is one side of the operations of the Spirit, what we might perhaps call the external side.
[p. 78] Ques The Spirit is not mentioned in this chapter. In Romans the Spirit is life; what is the difference?
CAC We have to recognise that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is not only active in the way of conferring gifts, which operate in power by the Spirit, but He is also operating on the line of love and that is internal. The gifts are external, indeed they are spoken of as manifestations; but then there is also the power, the working of the Spirit on the line of life, so that the body can be a living organism animated vitally by love. No gift that is not operating in that way is operating vitally. It has often been said that chapter 12 is power, chapter 13 is love, and chapter 14 the spirit of wise discretion.
The apostle therefore does not hesitate to say that if he had the most remarkable gifts and was lacking in love, he had nothing. He says it of himself. When Paul is going to say anything particularly strong, he likes to say it of himself.
If we think of it, how could it be in any spiritual sense the body of Christ if it were not animated by love? It would be an impossibility. It is good for us to accept the fact; we are only in the body of Christ as moved by love.
It is such a character of love as could not have been found in Old Testament times. There could not have been a body in the Old Testament in that sense; there was no power adequate for the forming of a body in love.
Ques Do we need exercise as to it?
CAC The difficulty really in apprehending the truth of the body is the immensity of what is involved in it. We can all accept that the saints are the body of Christ, and so they are. The Corinthians are called the body of Christ, but there was not much exercise as to their being it in a vital sense.
Rem Ephesians shows the body building itself up [p. 79] in love.
CAC Very helpful. When we come to the body in its highest aspect we find inward energies of the body are for the self-building up of itself in love. The Ephesian gifts act towards the body; they are in a sense external to the body. The gifts in the body in 1 Corinthians 12 are actually members in the body. Then at the end of chapter 12 there are gifts set in the assembly which is a different thought again.
Ques Would the exercise of gift produce this?
CAC Yes, I think it is clear that there might be much gift and little love. The Corinthians came behind in no gift. They had a wonderful enrichment in the line of gift but were going to law with each other, showing that the gifts were no help at all there. Love would have put that right. If love is not there, God is not in the matter and it is absolutely worthless. Gift is a manifestation of love; it operates in love if it is genuine and the love is greater than the gift. We meet a brother sometimes of whom we say that his spirit is greater than his gift. The gifts will pass away, love goes on. Paul is seeking to clothe us with that which we can carry to eternity. The divine conception is a wonderful one, and you could not think of Christ having an imperfect body. I suppose undue importance was being attached to gift at Corinth. It was gift that was not being exercised in love but was making much of the person who had it.
Rem It was destroying the vital thought of what the body really is.
CAC It would seem they had been priding themselves on their ability in the speaking of tongues, but using them for self-display. God was not in it. Paul wanted a state of things at Corinth that would affect an unconverted man if he came in, so that “falling upon his face, he will do homage to God, reporting that God is indeed amongst you”. That is what we would like. It is not that he would say, ‘What wonderful men and what gifts’ but “God is indeed amongst you”.
We need to take up this chapter as encouragement. It has often been said how humbling it is to read it, but I do not think the apostle wrote it to humble them, but as alluring them, that they might follow this wonderful character of love. He indicates how it would behave, and how we need to behave. We should do well to ask ourselves, ‘How would love behave in this case?’ If we can answer that question we have a solution to all our problems. It was all exemplified in the Lord. Love has been set forth perfectly in Him, and particularly, of course, in His death. The Lord’s supper is the point where we learn love. We learn it as revealed in divine Persons — in God and in Christ — so that we possess it. He says nothing about our loving. He regards love as something we possess. “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love” and in verse 2, “but have not love”, and again in verse 3, “but have not love”. It is not what I do, it is what I possess. I shall never give any expression of love until I possess it. It is really the apprehension of love in divine Persons; we have it there, but it is to become formative in us.
Peter shows us how the promises make us partakers of the divine nature. If we lay hold of them, they bring us into the knowledge of the nature of God in such a way that we become partakers of it. It is supposed to take practical form in us, so he later on tries to show us how love will be there. If I have it, it is bound to affect me in a practical way.
Rem “Love has long patience”. Patience is very practical; we test each other a good deal on that side.
CAC It is indeed. You mean, we have patience, but after a while we lose it! The point with love is, after it has been tested it remains kind. It is a wonderfully attractive [p. 81] thing and the saint is entitled to say that that is his nature, and if anything is exhibited that is contrary to it, it is the flesh; it is something hateful to God and hateful to him. It has been said that this chapter is like a picture on the wall. It is not intended to be a mere picture on the wall, but seen in the saints. Paul is bringing these things out to allure the saints with them; they are to be adorned with the divine nature; if they are not, they are no good to God or man.
Ques How do we arrive at it?
CAC I suppose that, according to Corinthians, it is by means of the Lord’s supper, which is the fresh start of our spiritual life every first day of the week. The loaf and the cup are not set before us that we may merely look, but that we may eat and drink, and we eat and drink our way into divine love. So each week we have a fresh start, a spiritual meal. Eating and drinking implies the building up of our spiritual constitution. The Lord’s supper is the great tangible expression of divine love that will never be repeated. It will never be expressed again to all eternity. And we are to live on it, so that our spiritual constitution is formed in love.
The thought of eating and drinking comes in in this epistle and it is much emphasised in chapter 11. It suggests that the spiritual effect of doing so is to build up our constitutions. What good is it unless I come to the Supper with the idea of getting a fresh and deepened impression of it? If I do not, I am not in a condition to come. It is right to take account of the symbols because the Lord has appointed them, and we should regard them with the greatest reverence as divinely selected. They are not appointed by a man at all. It is well to contemplate the loaf and the cup, but there is the eating and drinking; that is, they are to be appropriated. That is how we get the formation in the divine nature; we get it [p. 82] no other way except as contemplating it in Christ. We do not get stature by being gifted. The greatest gift we could think of — an apostle — without love (and Judas was an apostle without love, which shows what a terrible thing it is) was the “son of perdition”. We may be infants in stature while having outstanding gifts. Chapter 14 must be taken up in the good of chapter 13 or else there will be poor ministry meetings.
Ques Would Peter and John be gift and love combined?
CAC Yes, and the two work beautifully together in the Acts. We can all come into this. I may be small in gift but great in love. Gift is limited but there is no limitation in the divine nature — love. This is all to draw us in a practical way into the truth of the body. I am nothing in the body if I am not characterised by love. It is no good to say I am small; I am nothing! So I have to pursue these things. According to the working of God in me I harmonise with them. They are not uncongenial to me, they are attractive to me.
Ques Would you explain verse 9, “For we know in part”?
CAC Well, I think at the end of the chapter he reminds us that we are actually in an infantile state.
Ques Does it show the possibility of growing now?
CAC Does not this passage distinctly suggest the possibility of growth? Because he says, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I had done with what belonged to the child”. There is growth in the divine nature; we sing sometimes, ‘In this Thy nature grow’. We have to accept our limitations according to our condition in flesh and blood. The apostle did not profess to know everything, for he says, “Now I know partially” — that is, it is a partial thing now — “but then I shall know [p. 83] according as I also have been known”. God has known us in Christ, but then I only know myself partially in Christ, I have a very limited and partial view of it. “When that which is perfect has come, that which is in part shall be done away”. The saints in the glorified state will enter into it. We are known in Christ by God and nowhere else; but then we do not know ourselves in Christ as God does. Saints are known of God in Christ, but in the future saints will know themselves in Christ as God knows them in Christ. There will be love that pervades the whole scene; every one will be filled with love and be in a scene of love. And there will be no gift there; everything is perfect.
“Love ... bears all things”. ‘Bears’ could be ‘covers’ so you do not expose a brother or sister; you do not speak of what is wrong in a brother or sister, but you speak to them of it. “Believes all things” — perhaps it is difficult for us to take that in. I think it means that you take account of the saints according to divine thoughts. “Love ... believes all things” is a general statement; it is the comprehensive way in which love acts. That would be distinctive of the body. If all kinds of distrust and suspicion are at work that is of the devil. The very thing that I complain of in another is likely to be the very thing that is working in my own heart; we know how true that is. Instead you count upon the same principle in action in others that is in yourself. You count on the same line of the working of God in others as in yourself; everything else is a sting in your conscience and you will never be happy until you put it right. That is going on in your brethren too all the time.
Was it not the very absence of love that made all the defects and deficiencies at Corinth? I am to go on with these features of love, and if I see any one doing wrong I [p. 84] am to speak to that person in love. Paul was doing that to the Corinthians, but it is all balanced. In chapter 5 a wicked person has to be removed; you must not use love to cover up sin in the sense of passing it by. It is good to be among the brethren and feel that the divine nature is operating in every brother and sister and we want to help that on and encourage it; Paul is showing that love never fails.