What does it mean that love always protects (1 Corinthians 13:7)?

Further positive features follow. Four are mentioned in verse 7. Love bears, or covers, all things. It never condones unrighteousness of course, yet it never finds its pleasure in publishing other people's misdeeds. It rather believes all that it can discover of the truth; it hopes that all that may be lacking will be supplied in due course; it endures meanwhile every deficiency that may exist. It is evident that the expression, "all things," four times repeated, must be understood as limited by its context. For instance, he who believes "all things," in an unlimited way, would simply be landed into a morass of uncertainties and deceptions.

"Bears [or hides]9 all things." Love puts up willingly with everything but sin, and that, when confessed, it diligently hides. Love covers what ungodliness digs up,1 sowing the seed of righteousness in patient disregard of all that nature would resent, or at which it might repine. It does not break under the weight of any secret,2 and is not discouraged by neglect. It can cheerfully encounter obstacles, because it has a steady and self-governing aim. The apostle bore all things for the gospel's sake. There is in true love all the force of will, and it is thus distinguished from mere sentiment. It has its positive not less than its negative virtues. It is not a duty only, but a power. Being of God, it must outlive all other things, and have the mastery eventually in every strife.

"Believes all things." Love is not folly, but the highest wisdom. It is not therefore idly credulous, though capable of trusting to the uttermost; for it lives on God; and knowing that with Him all things are possible, it counts nothing incredible that lies within the compass of His grace. The apostle's practice was a living example of this love. If he beard good tidings of his brethren, he believed it to the ful1,3 counting no measure of grace improbable where the giver is the Lord. If an ill report was brought to him, he believed it but in part. His knowledge of man forbad him to discredit any authentic rumour of disorder in the Church; while his knowledge of God, of His power and His faithfulness, still kept his trust from failing, even where the work of grace seemed ruinously marred.4 Love's sympathies are ever with the truth. It rejects, therefore, nothing, whether welcome or unwelcome, that is credible. Now, all goodness is credible of God; and all that is contrary to good, of man. Hence love's faculty of credence is discriminative in its perfectness; for to believe all things indifferently would be to place truth and falsehood on a common level, and to honour God and Satan equally.

(1) Love “bears all things”. The flesh can bear very little without showing its resentment. Love can bear all things, and oftentimes in silence.

(2) Love “believes all things”. The flesh is ever suspicious. Love is unsuspecting and ready to believe good when there is no direct evidence to the contrary, even in the presence of much that may raise doubts.

Hence love does not rejoice over unrighteousness, as malice does, too glad to cover its own evil by that of others; the joy, the sympathies, of love are with the truth, which is personified here as elsewhere. Thus love bears all vexations, believes all possible good (cf. Acts 9:27; Acts 11:22-26), hopes all, in spite of evil manifest enough at present, endures all things, persecutions or afflictions, knowing that we are set for this. God being seen in Christ raises the heart above the depressing power of evil or even suspicion.

Love is far from being indifferent to sin; but 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. When they are dealt with, and judged, love will no longer speak of them or spread them abroad. Love does not make mischief, or lead people to act as busybodies. Love covers a multitude of sins, as the wise man says, “Hatred stirs up strifes: but love covers all sins” (Proverbs 10:12).

"Does not impute evil;"7 for its office is to hide sins rather than expose them. What God did not do in His righteousness to us, we who are sinners should not do to one another. Love shows this aspect most distinctly where grace is most appreciated. Nor is it a virtue likely to be idle for want of opportunity. Not a day can pass without an appeal to it in some shape; for besides the multitude of real offences, there are appearances of an ambiguous kind which continually tempt our censure. But where a choice is possible, love chooses on the favourable side. It does not shut its eyes to sin, but openly rebukes it as God's witness, while forgiving freely all that is against itself. The apostle's assertion of this property of love is, at the same time, an implied protest against the unworthy insinuations which some of those at Corinth had not been ashamed to entertain against himself and his fellow-helper in the Gospel.8

"Rejoices not in iniquity." Love works no ill to his neighbour;9 it cannot then rejoice in what is contrary to its nature. Itself the child of goodness, it can only grieve when evil practises and prospers. Its only interest in iniquity is to succour and befriend its victims. What hate spies out, love will not see. It waits for no man's halting, and wrests no man's words. It does not say, "So would we have it," when the righteous fall. Alas! in a Christ-despising world iniquity rejoices against love. And what shall be said of the spirit which too generally characterises religious controversy? To be "truthful in love,"1 is found in practice to be the hardest of achievements, though the simplest and most imperative of Christian duties. In other words, conflict and disputation are the very element of that nature which is by divine description "hateful and hating." Hence, even where contention is needful for the truth's sakes flesh seeks and too often finds its opportunities, thus augmenting the great sum of evil in the very effort to repress it in some special form. What love feels in the presence of the iniquity which it condemns, is best exemplified by Him who wept over the city which had killed the prophets, and where the hand of wickedness had hewn for Him already His appointed grave.2 Love cannot rejoice in iniquity; but it —

"Rejoices with3 the truth." God's love in His saints must languish or rejoice with the truth which both gave it being and is its proper utterance. Natural affection may use flatteries, and often manifests a practical indifference to truth. But both these things are held in abhorrence by real love. Its delight is in God, and therefore in the truth. The disciple whom Jesus loved, and whose inspired testimony leads the willing soul so far into the mystery of still unfathomed love, had no greater joy than to hear that his children walked in the truth.4 That his own witness is true is his continual confidence and boast.5

(3) Love “hopes all things”. The flesh is ever ready to presume evil and believe the worst. Love looks upon the good rather than the evil and hopes for the best, in spite of much that may appear hopeless.

(4) Love “endures all things”. The flesh, assuming the worst, has no hope, and when hope is gone there is no power to endure. Love, hoping all things, strengthens its possessor to endure in the presence of opposition and discouragement.

"Believeth all things" is not being suspicious: one believes readily. It "hopeth all things"; it does not mean ill, it does not think of evil. Evil tends to depress the soul, but God is above all that. I find constantly the danger of thinking the evil is greater than the good; but if I bring in God, He is greater than all opposed. Christ was here in the world with no thought of suspicion, and that is the spirit in which we are to walk through the world. If you are always suspecting people, who will trust you? I feel the great difficulty in seeing the evil, which is apt to get the upper hand of your mind; though it is no good deluding oneself that it is not there, because it is there. But love will go on in heaven when there is no evil to think about; prophecies will fail, tongues cease, and knowledge vanish away. "When that which is perfect is come" (v. 10) means the time of glory, when everything is perfect, and these partial things will have ceased. Knowledge now is in degree, "we know in part"; all that kind of learning will pass away. Learning is a proof of ignorance, and this will not be then. Even in divine things we learn, and all that is testimony to ignorance. It gives a great idea of the littleness of man in that way. All these partial instruments of communicating will be done with when I know as I am known: which is, I believe, God's way of knowing; it is not knowing in part; it is not so much the measure as the manner of God's knowing. God can create ideas. I know so far as things are knowable to be known. Now we see "darkly" what we do not see clearly. It is just as I see through a window, instead of seeing the object at once. It is an extraordinary expression; we do not see clearly, but in a mystery, not like plain open things. It is an enigma, though I do not like that word, because it does not suit divine things.

I believe this to be a most important exhortation, and one of the most solemn of all in this verse 8. It is not unlike the one before it: Whatsoever things are lovely, or loveable. Oh, that we might have our minds occupied with such things! Oh, that we might meditate on the gracious, winsome things in the saints, and in others about us! Oh, that we might put the most favourable construction on every report we hear. Love thinketh no evil. Love believeth all things: not the evil things, but the good ones: and where it cannot actually believe all the good it would like, it at least hopeth all things: it hopes the good report is true, and the evil one false.

But what is love? Verses 4 to 7 show how it expresses itself. It suffers long, and in suffering still remains kind. It "envieth not," for it is honestly glad that another is favoured. Nor does it vaunt itself: unseemly advertising of oneself is not love for others. "Is not puffed up." However one may be used of God, if love is the motive, he will not be thinking of his own importance, but still of the need of others. Its conduct is not unseemly, not offensive to any sense of decency. It does not seek its own, for it is an outflowing stream. Nor is it easily provoked, because not occupied with its personal feelings. And it does not suppose evil, apart, of course from manifest evidence. It rejoices not in evil, but in the truth: being genuinely ungrudging. Believing all things is being not suspicious without clear reason; then even when things seem to the contrary, love continues to hope all things. And finally it endures all things: it does not give up.