What does it mean that tongues will cease?

Now this cannot be said of even the greatest of gifts. Prophecies may fail, in the sense of being done away with, having served their purpose (the word "fail" is not the same as "fails" which occurs just before). Tongues shall cease; they will not be needed in a coming day. Knowledge even shall "vanish away," (same word as translated "fail" in connection with prophecies). What this vanishing away means is shown in the next few verses. Our knowledge and prophesying — even that of a Paul — is in part. Presently in regard to both knowledge and prophecy, perfection will be reached and, when it is, all that is partial will fail and vanish away; just as the moon fails and vanishes away in the light of the sun.

(2) Tongues shall cease (1 Cor. 13:8). Different words used about prophecy and knowledge. They "shall be done away" (New Tr.) "when that which is perfect is come" (vv. 9,10) at Christ's coming, but tongues cease before His coming.

A careful reading of this passage in a version such as that of the Revisers, J.N.D., W.K., and others, wherein the identity of the Greek terms is preserved in the translation, shows us that the cessation of tongues is stated in a special way. Prophecies and knowledge “shall be done away,” but tongues “shall cease.” The different phraseology is the more striking inasmuch as the tongues are interposed between the other two. Prophecy and knowledge shall be abolished, but tongues shall be discontinued. This distinction is difficult to understand if tongues were not to cease until prophecy and knowledge were done away.

Again, the two which shall “be done away” will be abolished “when that which is perfect is come.” What is only partial will give place to what is perfect when it comes. But tongues are not mentioned in this connection. We prophesy in part and we know in part, the apostle says, but he does not say we speak tongues “in part.” Why is this variation of phrase? It must have a significance. Does it not teach that the gift of tongues would lapse in the organisation of the assembly so soon as the wisdom of God saw that the time had come when it was no longer needful?

It has been assumed by some that tongues will continue until the Lord's coming, because it is then that that which is perfect in respect of the saints will come. But it will be seen that only imperfect knowledge and prophecies are actually named as being “done away” at that time, although “tongues” is included with the other two in verses 1, 2, and in verse 8. There must be some special reason for this omission. And it certainly leaves room for the interpretation that the cessation of tongues would take place before knowledge and prophecies were done away.

There are some gifts that abide so long as the church is here; but “tongues” is not named among those that remain “for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-13).

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).

Tongues would cease. After they had fulfilled their purpose, God would no longer communicate this as a gift. Indeed, they are not even mentioned again in Scripture after the writing of Corinthians, and it seems that they very early disappeared. Their purpose was simply temporary, for the

These gifts mentioned in I Corinthians 12, such as gifts of healing, working of miracles, and divers kinds of tongues and interpretations, were those which accompanied the coming to earth of the Holy Spirit and the inaugurating of the Gospel and the Church. There is no promise that they shall continue till Christ's coming, as is true of the gifts in Ephesians 4. In fact, I Corinthians 13:8 says tongues shall cease, and the language there is such as to differentiate between tongues, prophecies, and knowledge, and to indicate that only the latter two of the three will Continue until "that which is perfect is come"-Christ's coming (see verses 8-10).

Great emphasis is laid on the three great graces—faith, hope and love. Prophecies shall fail. When all prophecies are fulfilled they will cease in the full perfection of all God’s ways. Tongues shall cease in that day when nationalities shall cease, racial divisions no longer exist, the reason for the confusing of man’s speech since the days of the Tower of Babel—when all shall speak one tongue and one language—shall be no longer operative. Knowledge shall vanish in the fulness of knowledge that each shall enjoy, when we shall know even as we are 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.

Tongues will cease. Tongues are only useful in a world that owes its diversity of tongues to the sin of the tower and city of Babel. One day there will be only one tongue spoken in the universe of God, one universal language. Then tongues will cease.

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.