That which is perfect
What about Paul’s 1 Corinthian 13:10 statement that when "that which is perfect is come that which is in part will be done away"?
The Corinthian church was richly blessed (1:4-7) but on the whole they were a carnal, childish congregation that must have kept Paul up at night. They took pride in this preacher or that, they took each other to court before pagans, they thought it was okay to lie with temple prostitutes and attend pagan temple festivals. They looked down on one another, strutted thinking they knew a lot, demanded center stage and wanted to hog assembly time. They humiliated the poor and hungry, burned in resentment toward those who are better off than themselves, tittered as they spoke about an incestuous member and some of them sneered at talk of bodily resurrection.
They had everything but what they really needed—a profound love for God and one another. They thought they had arrived or, if they hadn’t, they were close and knew how to get there.
Chapter 13 sounds like it’s all sweetness and fluff but it’s no such thing. It is a gracious and wholesome but stinging rebuke for spoiled brats and its background is in the first twelve chapters. They were in dire need but it wasn’t a need for more information or knowledge or more specific gifts. If they had had a complete revelation written down in a book, and if they understood every bit of it they’d still have been empty. The cure for their sickness wasn’t a completed Bible. (Suppose Paul had returned to Corinth with a ship full of Bibles. Would that have been the cure? Has it cured us?) The cure for their sickness wasn’t more information or more gifts that brought more information. The gifts as blessings became (in a sense) curses because the Corinthians lacked what made anything worthwhile. They were like children with toys. They were juveniles parading their knowledge of God but 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 knocks a hole in that boat. Their knowledge and vision was partial but that partial knowledge of God would vanish when they pursued the "way of love" (14:1) because in that way they would become children in malice and adults (teleioi) in how they viewed things and thought about them (14:6).
While it’s true that the miraculous gifts would cease, when Paul said the "partial" (in part) would be done away when the "complete" (total, maturity) arrived he wasn’t speaking of the gifts themselves—he was speaking of their partial understanding and grasp of God that came through the gifts. Through gifts and with a heart not in tune they saw God reflected in a mirror; their knowledge of him was the knowledge of a child, it was partial; but if love became the dominant element in their lives they would (as it were) have turned from the mirror to look God in the face. (I’ve developed this some in a little commentary on 1 Corinthians. You might be interested in that. In the USA call toll free 877-792-6408)
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
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