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No.18.
pp. 113 - 116
The Apostle Paul has been dealing with the supernatural sign-gifts of the Holy Spirit
which were characteristic of the period covered by the Acts of the Apostles. We have
seen that the Corinthian church, on Paul's own declaration, was mostly carnal, yet it
abounded with these gifts, which clearly shows that they were not a mark of spirituality
or of some special "filling of the Spirit", as Pentecostalists today so often assert.
What is definitely more important in God's eyes is the practical "fruit of the Spirit" of
Gal. 5: 22, 23. It is fruit that the Lord wants upon the tree of our lives, and without this
our heavenly Father cannot be glorified by us (John 15: 1-8). The first in the list of fruit
is love, and to the church at Corinth, Paul is now going to show that "supremely excellent
way", which was better even than the evidential gifts they possessed.
This "way" is now set out in the wonderful hymn to love of chapter 13: In this
poem, a contrast is first made with the gifts and one great and essential difference is
stressed, namely, that the gifts including that of tongues, were temporal and passing,
whereas love abides and is eternal:
"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become
sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal" (13: 1 R.V.).
It is clear from chapters 12:-14: that the Apostle did not rate the gift of tongues
highly. Even if the believers at Corinth were able to understand the speech of angels, and
all other languages, this would be meaningless and valueless without practicing love. It
would be no better than the paganism that surrounded them, just an empty noise. Let this
be made clear from the start. We must empty our minds of all human conceptions of love
if we wish to understand I Cor. 13: If ever a word has been misunderstood and grossly
debased and misrepresented it is the word "love". Today it has sunk so low as to mean
little more than the physical.
The character of divine love is clearly stated in the Scripture. It is pure unselfishness
which gives to the limit for others. "A studied denial of self in the interests of others."
"God so loved . . . . . that He gave His only begotten Son" (John 3: 16). "Walk in love,
as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us . . . . ." (Eph. 5: 2). Real love
does not merely give of one's possession; it gives no less than one's self for others. The
Lord Jesus not only gave out of His inexhaustible fullness, but even more, He gave no
less than Himself for us.
It is this conception of love that obtains in I Cor. 13: Anything less is a mockery,
and this was what so lacking in the Corinthian assembly. Plenty of gifts, plenty of show,
but so little real fruit of the Spirit evidenced in the practical out-working of Divine love.
Speaking in tongues without such love was just a jangling noise that accomplished
nothing.