What is the meaning of "perfect" in 1 Corinthians 13:10?

"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.

It is with reference to this state, we see at once, that the apostle says of "knowledge," that "it shall vanish away," or rather "be made void" Cor. 13:8). The next verse gives us the reason, "for we know in part, … but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away," or made void. It is of the slow, toilsome and imperfect processes of acquiring knowledge (of "knowing") that he is speaking, and which will necessarily be made void, when the spirit is no longer confined to the attainment of the spiritual by means of groping (for the most part) amid material things. The things known will still remain known; but the knowing of things, in the partial way now necessitated, will be done away, in the perfect apprehension of spiritual knowledge.

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.

Our present position is likened to a child in comparison to a full-grown person, to our looking at objects as through a dim window obscurely. In the future we shall see face to face. There will be no temple in the holy city, for God and the Lamb are alike the temple and the light of it. Then the “part,” precious as it is, and known in this life, will leap at one bound into perfect knowledge.

Knowledge also, in the way in which we gain it today, shall be done away. It is not that we shall no longer be intelligent, but that at present there is constant exercise necessary in gradually gathering the knowledge of spiritual things, learning from the viewpoint of our own imperfect, partial knowledge. Not one of us can see things totally objectively, from the viewpoint of the perfect, overall knowledge of God. And our prophesying too is "in part." It should humble us always to remember this, so that we do not dare to make the ministry of any man a set standard for doctrine or practice. We are only servants, limited to a very small sphere.

But when, in the presence of the Lord, we have reached the state of perfection, or of full maturity, then all that is merely partial will have fulfilled its purpose, and therefore be no longer necessary.

Here is the reasoning of the apostle: "We know in part … when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away." There is a partial knowledge which belongs to the Church here below. This knowledge will be perfect above.

(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.

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.

There is a difference in the phraseology as to tongues as compared with prophecies and knowledge, and it has been inferred, perhaps justly, that the cessation of tongues intimates their dropping when God's aim was achieved, whilst the means of edifying fall in with continuance, till the perfection of glory brings them to a comparatively abrupt end. Those habituated to the accuracy of scripture expression will not doubt that a difference is intended by the change of words. Certainly, however this be, there is the utmost care to maintain the Lord's coming as our immediate hope. All expression of a long future for us on earth is avoided here and everywhere.

The apostle proceeds to illustrate the present and the future by the childhood and full growth of a man as follows. "When I was a child, I talked as a child, I thought as a child, I reckoned as a child; when I am become a man, I have done away with the things of the child. For we see now through a mirror in a dark form, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall fully know, even as I also was fully known. But now abides faith, hope, love, these three; but [the] greater of these [is] love." (Vers. 11-13.) Clearly the drift of the passage is not to cast uncertainty on our present measure of knowledge, but to set forth its partial character, as compared with the fulness in glory. He confirms the difference by another similitude, the reflection of a mirror with no more than a dim shape seen thereby, and seeing face to face. The medium, or rather our seeing now, is necessarily imperfect, and the result more or less dark. By-and-by it will be immediate vision, and I shall know fully as I was also fully known. It is a difference not merely of measure but of manner too. Our very learning now, no matter how much we have learnt, proves our ignorance. It will not be so then. The state which needs to grow, as well as the means which contribute to growth, will have passed away. Truth will be fully known as a whole in that day, not learnt piecemeal as now.

Both knowledge, then, and prophecy, which is its highest present utterance, are partial, though progressive. And whatever is progressive must eventually distance and lose sight of its beginning. "When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away." Now, although the Spirit's things are constantly analagous to those of nature, they differ widely, not in kind only, but in the order and manner of their consummation. Nature fulfils itself by regular but slow degrees. But the scanty beginnings of true knowledge will be suddenly expanded to perfection, when the change from mortality to life takes place. And this difference is pointedly illustrated in verse 11. Between infancy and manhood there intervenes in nature a third state, of which no account is taken in this estimate of spiritual growth. The speech, and understanding, and imaginations of a child are outgrown and forgotten by the full-grown man. But the child's language is a just expression of his thoughts; and if the changeful emotions of his heart are little, they are true. So is it, and so will it be with the believer as a new-born babe of grace. The light into which he is already brought is marvellous.5 He knows by name, and in a measure also experimentally, what it is to be, through faith, an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ. But what we are to be, not even the bosom friend of Christ could know while in the body.6 And when the time of change shall really come, and conformity to the image of the Firstborn shall be no more an aspiration but a fact, the joys which they now taste, who with a godly diligence add knowledge to their faith, will seem, in the retrospect, no better than an indistinct though pleasant memory of childhood.

For each one of us, no doubt, the state will be perfect, the partial condition will be done away. That is surely so. When the bud is ripened into the flower, the perfect condition is reached; it is a bud no longer. Does it follow from this at all that the flower is in no wise dependent upon that bud which is passed away? We know it is dependent. So when it is no longer a condition of faith, but of sight, — no longer seeing through a glass, darkly, but face to face, the present knowing* — not the knowledge itself, but the manner of it — will have passed. We "shall know," not as afar off any longer, but in the presence of the things known. That is, "as we are known," as He to whom all