What does it mean that love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8)?

Verse 8. "Love never fails," etc. It cannot fail nor cease, since it is the very life of God which they who are born of Him will live for ever in His presence, after all obstructions to its full development are gone. It is a nature, not a gift, save only as life is itself the gift of Him who is the quickening Spirit.9 But special gifts and manifestations of the Spirit must cease with the occasion which has called them forth. "Prophesyings," which are now the Comforter's chief means of edifying the saints, will exhaust themselves in the completion of their work. No prophet's voice is heard in heaven, where love has its open vision of unending joy, and where the promises of truth are finally made good. "Tongues," also, which differ in their speech, must cease. Their diversity on earth is a judicial badge of the common distance which separates the nations from the living God. And if God now through His messengers accosts men in their native tongue, it is that He may bring them to a knowledge which shall one day find its adequate expression in a new and nobler speech. In heaven there are many voices, but one speech. Meanwhile the ear of God is accessible, through Jesus Christ, to a far divided utterance of the common faith. Even "knowledge" 1 also shall then be at an end; such knowledge, that is, as we now call by that name. But as such an assertion is a natural paradox, he devotes in what follows some space to its elucidation.

The seventh positive characteristic of love is that it never fails. This is at once seen if we look at it as seen in all its fulness in God Himself. If Divine love had failed, every region, that ever had been touched by sin, would have been lying in the hopeless blackness of everlasting night. In the presence of sin's great catastrophe Divine love did not waver or fail. It designed rather the way of righteousness whereby the situation should be much more than retrieved; men blessed and the Divine Name triumphantly vindicated. True, it may appear for a time to fail. But God has a long outlook and plans by millenniums rather than days. Love always wins in the end. And so it does when Divine love works in and through feeble saints such as ourselves. It may appear to be defeated a hundred times over, but it is not: in the end it wins, it does not fail.

The perpetuity of love, in contrast with means of present testimony or blessing by the way, is next urged. "Love never fails; but whether prophecies, they shall be done away; whether tongues, they shall cease; whether knowledge, it shall be done away. For in part we know, and in part we prophesy; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away." (Vers. 8-10.) Evidently this again proves the immense superiority of love. It will never be out of date. Prophecies, knowledge, shall be done away, and tongues cease; but love abides. They are suited to our time-state, they are but in part, and do not square with the perfection where no evil exists and love is in fullest exercise. Love is thoroughly in keeping with a condition of glory, while incidental and partial agencies as naturally terminate with its arrival.

Now as the apostle mentions tongues, prophecy, and knowledge, at the beginning of the chapter, as just quoted, so he refers to all three in the latter part of the chapter, by way of depreciation as compared with love. They are but temporary while love is unending in its character and activities. We must put love first. Prophecy, knowledge and tongues are proper only to the circumstances of an immature state, but love will never be superseded. Love is the atmosphere of glory, even as it is the life-breath of the assembly on earth,

“Love never fails; but whether prophecies, they shall be done away; or tongues, they shall cease; or knowledge, it shall be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part: but when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part shall be done away” (1 Cor. 13:8-10, J.N.D.).

From verse 4 we learn what love is, and what it is not. It suffers long and is kind; it does not envy, nor is it insolent or rash. Some of the beautiful traits of love have marked the saints throughout the different dispensations; we see the kindness of God in such as Joseph and David, unselfishness and meekness in Moses and Paul, patience and endurance in such as Job and the great cloud of witnesses mentioned at the close of Hebrews 11. But in Jesus every feature of love was found in perfection, and all were perfectly blended together and expressed in all His ways. Longsuffering and kindness mark God's dealings with men from the beginning; they are features of the divine nature to be manifested by all God's children.

What love is by way of contrast is very striking; how very different it is to the flesh, the nature that we have derived from Adam. The flesh is envious, it is insolent and rash, it becomes inflated, it behaves in an unseemly way, it seeks its own, it is quickly provoked, it imputes evil where no evil is, and rejoices at iniquity. Not one of these features is found in love! Love "rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never fails." Whatever the circumstances of life, love does not turn away but bears all; it is marked by faith, hope and endurance, and never fails.

All that belongs to the present time will pass away, even the gifts through which the saints of God are helped, but love will never pass away. Love is eternal, it had no beginning, and shall never have an end. Its full expression came out in Jesus on the cross, it is the cause of God's activities in grace; it is the very nature of God. Of this we read in John's 1st Epistle, "God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:8-10).

In that which is said of love in this chapter we find the reproduction of the divine nature, except that what is said is but the negative of the selfishness of the flesh in us. Now the divine nature changes not and never ceases; love therefore abides ever. Communications from God; the means by which they are made; knowledge, as attained here below, according to which we apprehend the truth in part only, although the whole truth is revealed to us (for we apprehend it in detail, so that we have never the whole at once, the character of our knowledge being to lay hold of different truths singly); all that is characterised by being in part — passes away. Love will not pass away. A child learns; he rejoices too in things that amuse him; when he becomes a man, he requires things in accordance with his intelligence as a man. It was thus with tongues and the edification of the assembly. The time however was coming when they should know even as they were known, not by communications of truths to a capacity that apprehended the truth in its different parts, but they should understand it as a whole in its unity.

But scripture cannot be broken; and faith is the evidence or conviction of things not seen, as hope seen is not hope. (Rom. 8; Heb. 11) Faith and hope therefore refer only to the present state, love alone to eternity as well as to the present. Fruition supersedes the faith that looks at God's word for the object presented, and the hope that desires and waits for it; but love never fails. So it was laid down in verse 8, in contradistinction from the instruments or signs there given of God. Then, after the setting out of the intervening verses which explain or confirm, the apostle resumes with νυνὶ δέ μένει, "now however remains" not love only, nor first, but "faith, hope, love, these three; but the greater of these is love," which last is turned to grave account in the chapter following. They are the cardinal points of every Christian, as is attested right through the New Testament; and of the three love has the pre-eminent place, not because it contains in itself the root of the other two, but because they point and lead through Christ our Lord to it, as their end which has no end, that nature and activity of divine goodness which we share now by grace in a world of evil, and which will last everlastingly where there is no evil but only good in source and fruit.

(Vv. 8-13). Having depicted the nature of love, the Apostle declares its permanence. Love never fails. Prophecies will be done away; their fulfilment will bring them to an end. Tongues will cease with the present divided condition of the nations. Knowledge, or the partial knowledge that we have at the present time, will be done away. Such knowledge as we now possess is not full knowledge, but rather something that we are ever acquiring, and therefore only a proof of our ignorance. It is only knowledge “in part”. In the perfect condition of heaven this knowledge in part will for ever have passed away. There may be blessed unfoldings of truth in that heavenly scene, but whatever is presented there will be fully known, in contrast to our present condition in which, though truth is fully revealed, it is yet only partially apprehended. However much we may enter into the truth down here, it ever remains knowledge “in part”. To set forth our present partial knowledge, the Apostle uses the figure of a child, who can only think, speak and reason as a child. When the child becomes a man, the childish condition is left behind. So we, while in these bodies, are compelled very largely to think of spiritual things in natural terms in accord with our present condition. Thus, as to the truth, we only see through a glass darkly. At present we are like one looking at objects through some semi-transparent medium that obscures the vision. In the perfect state we shall see face to face; there will be no medium between us and that upon which we gaze. Then we shall know as we are known. We shall fully know the truth as a whole, not merely in part, even as we are fully known.

Love never fails. Prophecies will, for the time will come when all prophecies will have been fulfilled, and there will be no prophecies awaiting fulfilment. Tongues, so attractive to the carnal mind of fallen human nature, will cease, for there will be only one language in the new creation when all things will have become new. Tongues are reminder of the pride of man when he would build a city and a tower whose top should reach to heaven. But God stepped in and broke the power of man, seeking to be compact and of one mind in defiance of God Himself, by the confounding of their language, thus giving them tongues to weaken them. Knowledge too will pass away, in that knowledge is comparative, some know more than others, but in new creation we shall no longer know in part, but in fullness of knowledge All shall know as they are known.

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.

Verses 8 to 13 now deal with love's permanence. It never fails. So it is put in contrast to prophecies, tongues, and knowledge. Prophecy is only for a condition in which souls require edification, exhortation, comfort. Even in the millennium, prophecy will no longer be necessary (Zech. 13:2-5).