What does it mean that the greatest of these is love?

Thus, then, the apostle concludes from it all: "Faith, hope and love abide." He is not speaking here of eternity, but rather in contrast with such gifts as, in fact, will come to an end, having served their purpose. Love abides, for it is the divine nature. Faith, as the evidence of things unseen, necessarily passes away when all is seen with the perfect knowledge of which the apostle has spoken. Hope, too, implies the imperfection which counts upon God, but sees not. It too, therefore, must pass away in full fruition; but love abides. Therefore, the greatest of these three things which morally characterize the Christian, is love.

"But now abides faith, hope, love, these three; but [the] greater of these [is] love." The apostle speaks of the main moral principles characteristic of Christianity not of power in testimony; and here too love has the greater place, though all are great and abiding. But there is no intimation of faith and hope abiding throughout eternity. They remain, but to say that these three shall remain for ever is to interpolate rather than interpret. It is well known how some try to explain the continuance of faith and hope, where all is seen and enjoyed in glory: the one as anticipation certain to be fulfilled; the other as trust, entire and undoubting.

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.

Now abide faith, hope, love, these three, “and the greater of these is love”. In the perfect state faith will be changed to sight, and thus 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. Nevertheless, 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.

Verse 13. "And now abides," etc. Having set the temporal and adventitious gifts of the Spirit in their proper relation to the life which they adorn, he closes this episode of love with a summary of what is vital and essential, faith, hope, and love being the standing constituents and tokens of salvation in those who are elect of God. Faith justifies; the just man has a hope which makes not ashamed and, being born of God, the new man loves. But because this last outlives the other two, it is greater than them both. Faith ends in sight, hope in fruition, but love never.2 What we now hear of as laid up for us in heaven, we shall in the coming day both know and have. But it will be possessed and known in love. God, who is love, will be His children's prospect, and their rest. But if so, the chief aim of the saint, while waiting for his hope, should be to cultivate what is abiding; — to act here in the spirit of watchful and self-denying perseverance, as he will act spontaneously and without all hindrance in the life to come; to walk in that love with which Christ also has loved us — a sacrificial love — an odour of sweet smell to God.

Lastly there are the three great Christian virtues extolled in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now abides faith, hope, charity [love], these three; but the greatest [here we get one of the three comparisons of the adjective] of these is charity [love]”—Faith, that gives the vision of things beyond the reach of the natural eye; Hope, that gives us quietness in waiting for the glorious future that lies before the believer; Love, that divine quality that will exist for ever; for faith will yield to glorified sight, and hope will pass into glad realization, but love, the very nature of God, will abide for ever. Hallelujah!

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.

Now love subsists already; there are faith and hope also. Not only shall these pass away, but even now, here below, that which is of the nature of God is more excellent than that which is connected with the capacity of human nature, even though enlightened by God, and having for its object the revealed glory of God.

But brotherly love belongs to that immovable kingdom. It is the nature of God which He has imparted to us finding its expression in our dealings with one another. "Love is of God and every one that loves is born of God and knows God. He that loves not knows not God, for God is love." And love shall abide. Faith is good, enabling the one who has it to remove mountains. Hope is good, carrying the heart outside of present difficulties to the glorious prospect before us and making us sing in the gloom. But greater than all is Love. Love makes those who are moved by it forget themselves in the care and service of others; it finds a holy joy in self-sacrifice for God's sake.

283 "Faith, hope, and charity," or love, are not put accidentally here. They are the three things that are characteristic of the Christian state now, "putting on the breastplate of faith and charity [the same word], and for a helmet the hope of salvation," 1 Thess. 5:8. Some ten times in the New Testament faith, hope, and love are put together. They are positive elements, faith and hope referring to the present state I am in, and charity to the present and eternal state. Faith lays hold of an object, and hope desires it. The word "charity" is an ecclesiastical word. Love is really what God is. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and this never fails. When we possess a thing, we have done with faith and hope as to it: they have passed into positive fruition, as we say. There will be love in heaven, but we shall not have faith there, because there will be sight; and we shall not have hope there, because we have got possession. "Now abideth" shews the three as present things, but charity never fails.

That may be true, but it is not what is stated here. On the contrary, it says, "Now abides faith, hope, charity, these three." The contrast is between the most shining gifts which pass and the abiding characteristics of Divine life in the saints. The more we approximate to what is carnal, the more likely we are to be dazzled by mere gifts. The more we approximate to the spiritual, the more we appreciate faith, hope, and love. And the more we shall see that love is the greatest of all.

1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter says in closing, “Now abides faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Why should love have this pre-eminence? God is called “the God of hope” (Rom. 15:13), that is, hope is a characteristic feature of God; but 1 John 4:16 tells us “God is love,” that is, love is His very nature.