bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Paul has just listed what love does not do, and verse 7 turns to four things love does, each stretched to "all things." Commentators ask how far that "all" reaches: is love simply gullible, or do these four clauses give a believer strength to carry through real evil?
The verse changes direction. Every clause before it hangs on the word "not." Every clause here hangs on the word "all."
The negative qualities show the patient endurance of love. Notice the word 'not'. The positive ones show love in action, and that action leaves nothing out. Notice the word 'all'.
One writer sees these last four as the supply that keeps a believer standing where the world is against him: "The last four qualities set forth the positive energy of love, whereby its possessor is sustained in the middle of a hostile world."
The first clause sets love against how little we put up with before we react.
Love "bears all things". Our natural self can bear very little without showing resentment. Love can bear all things, and often in silence.
The word also means to cover. That shapes what love does with what it knows about others.
Love bears, or covers, all things. Of course it never approves of wrong. But it takes no pleasure in spreading news of what other people have done wrong.
Believing all things is the opposite of a suspicious mind. One writer traces it back to the way the Lord Jesus lived among people.
"Believes all things" is not being suspicious. Love is quick to believe. It "hopes all things." It wishes no harm and does not think about evil. Evil tends to depress the soul, but God is above all that... Christ was here in the world with no suspicion in His mind. That is the spirit we should walk in. If you are always suspecting people, who will trust you?
Hope takes over where belief runs out of evidence. One writer applies it to the reports we hear about other people.
Love is not irritable or resentful. Love believes all things — not the evil things, but the good ones. Where it cannot believe all the good it would like, it at least hopes all things. It hopes the good report is true and the bad one false.
The four "alls" do not mean love believes anything anyone says. Commentators read them as limited by what Paul is writing about.
Love believes all the truth it can find. It hopes that whatever is missing will be supplied in time. Meanwhile it puts up with every lack. Clearly the phrase "all things," repeated four times, must be read within its context. Someone who believed "all things" without limit would end up in a swamp of uncertainty and deception.
Covering sin is not the same as ignoring it: "love does not necessarily expose sins, or gloat over the failure of others. If possible, love will deal with sins privately, so that they do not needlessly become public."
The last clause grows out of the one before it. Where hope dies, staying power dies with it.
Love "endures all things". The flesh, assuming the worst, has no hope, and when hope is gone there is no power to endure. Love hopes all things, and that hope gives strength to endure when opposition and discouragement come.
What love endures includes hostility from outside. The strength for it comes from God, not from a rosy view of people.
So love bears every annoyance. It believes all the good it can. It hopes for everything, even when evil is plain to see right now. It endures all things, whether persecution or suffering, knowing this is what we are here for. Seeing God in Christ lifts the heart above the crushing power of evil, and above suspicion too.
The description is not an ideal without an example. One Man has already lived out every clause.
Everything this wonderful chapter says love does, we have seen fully displayed in the Son of God. He bore all things and endured all. He put up with the weaknesses and failures of His disciples. He endured the hostility of sinners against Himself.
- Bears — love carries what our natural self cannot carry, often in silence, and takes no pleasure in making another person's failure public.
- Believes — it drops suspicion and believes the good, walking through the world in the spirit Christ Himself showed.
- Hopes — where the good cannot yet be believed, love still hopes the kind report is true and the ugly one false.
- Endures — hope supplies the staying power. Lose hope of good, and endurance under opposition collapses with it.
- All things — the four "alls" do not mean love believes anything, and they never excuse wrongdoing. They were displayed in full in the Son of God, who bore with His disciples and endured the hostility of sinners.
Love never fails; but whether prophecies, they shall be done away; or tongues, they shall cease; or knowledge, it shall be done away.
The verse just before this described what love does and does not do. Here love stands beside three spiritual gifts — prophecy, tongues, and knowledge — and only love lasts.
Commentators trace love's permanence back to its source. It lasts because of what it is, not because of how well anyone uses it.
"Love never fails." It cannot fail or stop. It is the very life of God. Those born of Him will live that life for ever in His presence, once everything holding it back is gone. It is a nature, not a gift — except that life itself is the gift of Him who is the life-giving Spirit. But special gifts and displays of the Spirit must cease with the occasion that called them forth.
The three things listed are not faulty. They simply match a situation that will not last.
Prophecies and knowledge will end. Tongues will stop. But love lasts. They suit the time we live in now. They are only partial. They do not fit the perfect state, where no evil exists and love is fully at work. Love belongs in glory. Partial, passing helps end when glory comes.
Prophecy answers a need. Remove the need, and the gift has nothing left to do.
Verses 8 to 13 now deal with love's permanence. It never fails. So it stands in contrast to prophecies, tongues, and knowledge. Prophecy is only for a condition in which people need building up, encouragement, and comfort. Even in the millennium, prophecy will no longer be necessary (Zech. 13:2-5).
Writers link the many languages of earth back to Babel. There God stopped one united human project by confusing their speech.
Tongues attract the worldly mind of fallen human nature. But they will stop. In the new creation, when all things have become new, there will be only one language. Tongues are a reminder of the pride of man, when he set out to build a city and a tower with its top reaching to heaven. But God stepped in and broke the power of man… by confusing their language, giving them tongues to weaken them.
Another writer draws the same line, adding what replaces the confusion: the differences between languages mark how far the nations stand from God, and "in heaven there are many voices, but one speech."
The hardest of the three to accept is that knowledge will pass. Writers explain that what disappears is not truth, but the partial way we hold it now.
Knowledge, or the partial knowledge that we have at the present time, will be done away. The knowledge we have now is not full knowledge. It is something we keep adding to. That alone proves how much we do not know. However much we take in of the truth here, it always stays knowledge "in part".
One writer pictures the change: our knowing and prophesying fade when perfection comes "just as the moon fails and vanishes away in the light of the sun."
The gifts that shine are the ones that pass. So what we prize shows where we stand.
The contrast is between the most shining gifts, which pass, and the lasting marks of divine life in believers. The more we live by our old nature, the more mere gifts dazzle us. The more we live by the Spirit, the more we value faith, hope, and love.
The one thing that lasts is not handed out to some and withheld from others. So this verse reaches the believer with no gift at all.
You say, I have no gift. Possibly so, but you can love. Every Christian can do that. And it is worth more than the brightest gift. Love is the nature of God. It seeks the good of others, and thinks of everybody but itself. What chapter 13 says of love is the divine nature showing itself again. It is the life of Jesus, and love abides for ever.
- Nature. Love does not fail because it is not a gift handed out but the very life of God in those born of Him.
- Prophecy. It serves souls who need building up and comfort; when that need is gone, the gift is finished.
- Tongues. Many languages mark a scattered race; they stop when the reason for the scattering stops.
- Knowledge. We know only "in part," which shows how little we know. That partial knowing ends when the full comes.
- Love. Everything fitted to the present state passes; love fits glory — so a believer with no gift already holds the one thing that lasts.