And now abide faith, hope, love; these three things; and the greater of these [is] love.
The love chapter closes with a short list: three things remain when the showy gifts have run out. The verse raises two questions. What does "abide" mean here? And why does love rank above faith and hope?
What "abides" is measured against
The verses just before set the comparison. There Paul says prophecy, tongues and knowledge will end. One writer reads the closing line as a contrast with those short-lived gifts, not as a statement about eternity.
So the apostle concludes from it all: "Faith, hope and love abide." He is not speaking here of eternity. He is drawing a contrast with gifts that will come to an end once they have served their purpose. Love abides, for it is the divine nature. Faith is the evidence of things we cannot see. So it must pass away when we see everything, with the perfect knowledge the apostle has spoken of. Hope, too, implies the imperfection which counts upon God, but does not see. It too must pass away in full fruition; but love abides.
Why love ranks first
The writer gives two reasons: what happens to faith and hope when the future arrives, and where love comes from.
In the perfect state faith will change into sight, and so faith will have its end. Hope will end in fruition. Love alone will abide. Faith and hope make very good travelling companions, but we part company with them at the door of heaven. We go in with one thing, love. Even so, the verse speaks of the present condition, and tells us that even now love is the greater quality. It must be so, for love is the very nature of God, and therefore love is eternal.
The grace that reaches other people
There is also a plain, practical reason for the ranking. Faith and hope work inside a person; only love travels outward.
"Your faith has saved you," Christian! But what can it do for your brother? It does not reach him. It is a secret in your own breast. Its power is great, but it is the power of a root, not of a branch.
Each of the three fastens on something. Love fastens on the one you can shake hands with.
It is the nature of love to come out. Unless it acts, and acts on others, it cannot be. Love does not begin and end with the lover. Its essence is an outgoing. These three exercises of a human spirit have objects which they grasp, each its own. Faith fastens on Christ, hope on heaven, but love on humankind. It will not, it cannot leave the world alone. All the neighbours know it, feel it.
Three links, not three rivals
Ranking love highest does not set the three against each other. One writer pictures the chapter as a tree standing in a field, and shows why love is what you actually see.
At the bottom you find faith and hope, the nourishing root and the supporting stem. They are alive and life-giving, but small and almost hidden from view. Love springs up, spreads out on every side, and fills the eye of anyone looking.
The same writer answers a wrong conclusion: that praising love makes faith smaller.
Nor is there any cause for jealousy in this sisterhood of grace. To make love great — to make love greatest — does not make faith less. The more precious we find the ripened fruit, the more we value the only root that bears it.
Where commentators differ
The wording does not settle how long faith and hope last. Commentators differ on this. One takes "abide" as covering the present life only.
But Scripture cannot be broken. Faith is the evidence, or conviction, of things not seen. And hope that is seen is not hope. So faith and hope belong to the present state only. Love alone belongs to eternity as well as to the present. Of the three, love holds the first place. Not because it holds the root of the other two inside itself, but because they point and lead through Christ our Lord to love, as the end that has no end.
Another allows that faith and hope carry over in a changed form.
The greatest is love, for "God is love." Love, not faith and hope, will be the great mark of the eternal state. Faith will mostly turn into sight, and hope into glad realization. Yet even in heaven the believer will have full faith and happy hope that this scene of indescribable love goes on for ever.
Summary
- Root. Faith fastens on Christ and works underground; it is the power of a root, not a branch, and a secret in your own breast.
- Stem. Hope carries faith's certainty through the present. It ends when the thing hoped for finally arrives.
- Branches. Love is the only one of the three that goes out and touches other people; unless it acts on others, it is not love at all.
- Fruit. Love is greatest because it is the very nature of God. It has no beginning and no end, so it is greater now, not only later.
- Harvest. Faith and hope are good travelling companions, but we part with them at heaven's door and go in with one thing: love.