This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “I Corinthians 13” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, May 12, 1996.
This morning we are reading once more from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. We are at chapter 12, verse 27. This is 1 Corinthians 12, verse 27. We are reading from the New American Standard Version this morning. Give your attention to God’s holy words. You are Christ’s body, and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, and various kinds of tongues.
Not all are apostles, are they? Not all are prophets, are they? Not all are teachers, are they? Not all are workers of miracles, are they? Not all have gifts of healings, are they? Not all speak with tongues, are they? Not all interpret, are they?
They earnestly desire the greater gifts, and I show you a more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love is patient. Love is kind and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant. It does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. It is not provoked. It does not take into account a wrong suffered. It does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things. It believes all things. It hopes all things. It endures all things. Love never fails.
But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will come to an end. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. When the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, just as I also have been fully known. But now abide faith, hope, love, these three. But the greatest of these is love. Pursue love. Yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
Dear God, we confess that worship is a very difficult matter. Proper worship, O God, demands our full concentration. And Lord, we ask that we might understand this even as we are brought through this service of worship. And now, O God, as we come to your word, its recitation before us and its proclamation to us, may we give to that word our full attention. We pray for your Spirit’s help in this regard, lest we offend against you. These things we ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
There are two matters that demand comment before we proceed further in our study of 1 Corinthians 13. The first of these is of a specific nature and relates to the precise interpretation of the first verse in that thirteenth chapter. The second matter is of a more general nature and pertains to our appreciation of the Bible’s, even the Apostle Paul’s, perspective on the subject at hand, namely love. I want you first of all this morning to consider again with me verse one.
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. It is Paul’s final words in this statement that interest us. We may quite innocently think that all Paul has in mind is this: even if I possess the gift of tongues, of which you Corinthians boast, or even a greater gift, such as the tongues of angels that surpass what you can express or even hope to express, and if I possess such an extraordinary gift but lack love, I am made a meaningless sound. Paul is indeed saying this much. But to leave things at this level does not fully convey his message to us. To leave things here omits the true offense to God of a life devoid of love.
It has been suggested that Paul, by his reference to the noisy gong and the clanging cymbal, has in mind the wild, ecstatic practices of certain forms of pagan worship. One Eastern mystery religion, very popular in Corinth in the first century, was the worship of Cybele, the great mother, the mother of the gods. Her worship became infamous for claims of providing supreme emotional and sensual satisfaction. Celebrations in her honor were marked by bloodletting through self-flagellation and even self-mutilation. The participants were encouraged to such actions by the excited cries of the priests, accompanied by the banging of gongs and the clanging of cymbals. Many have emphasized the connection between these practices in the worship of Cybele and Paul’s language here in verse one. In my judgment, the connection is warranted.
The power of Paul’s statement is this: even the most extraordinary of supernatural gifts, if you can imagine such a thing—the tongues of angels, if you will—without love, makes me an instrument of paganism. I am not, therefore, simply dismissible in God’s sight. I have become an abomination. As a loveless Christian, I am as offensive to God as an idol worshiper. Now I urge you on this point: you must not treat this matter as if it were something of no importance, something you can ignore or keep at the edge of your Christian experience. Paul here is using every means at his disposal. He is using exaggeration. He is using a holy form of irony. He is using blunt honesty to make his case. And he does this because he sees so clearly what is at stake.
Namely, the integrity of a confession of Christ, and the validity of hope for seeing Christ in glory. The integrity of your confession of Christ is bound up with love. The validity of your hope of seeing Christ in glory is bound up with love. Am I introducing some contradiction to the gospel of sovereign grace that Paul so clearly preaches? This is no contradiction to Paul’s gospel of salvation by grace through faith. He never tells us that we are justified by love. He always tells us that we are justified by faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ, who imputes to our account his own righteousness as a gift, having taken our sins upon himself on the cross. Paul also tells us in one of the letters that speaks so powerfully about justification by faith—the letter to the Galatians—that only a faith working through love has any value before God. Galatians 5:6.
In other words, any faith that I might claim for myself is an offense to God if it does not work through love. Why is this the case? I trust that you remember what I said in an earlier message in this series about the relationship between the love described in 1 Corinthians 13 and the person of Jesus Christ. You will do well to substitute the name of Jesus Christ every time you find the word love in 1 Corinthians 13. The Jesus to whom your faith has bound you, the Jesus to whom your faith joins you, is the Jesus whose love must now be expressed through you.
To claim otherwise, to live otherwise, is to present a Christ who is without love. This is a complete contradiction. A Christ without love is as valuable to you as a Christian without love is to God. Your faith, your commitment to the gospel of justification by faith, does not free you from the obligation to love. On the contrary, it draws you to that obligation with absolute seriousness. As Paul tells the Corinthians in chapter 14, verse 1: “Pursue love.” He says this because he knows full well that lovelessness in a Christian is more than a personality deficiency or an oversight by a believer who has not yet had time to act. Rather, the Apostle Paul knows full well that lovelessness in a Christian is a testimony to unbelief. It is a witness that no vital union exists between Christ and this professed believer. Therefore, lovelessness in a Christian is a sure and certain sign of impending damnation. You are either in or out, not just for a moment, but for eternity.
You must listen to the Apostles. Please, my friends, pursue love and cultivate it. Consider this carefully. Strive for it with all your energy. Consciously and deliberately work at it as you approach the Church and her worship. Apply your soul to loving even those with whom you are most closely and immediately bound. Come to worship determined in your joy to love one another. Lead with love. Reflect on how your love for your brothers and sisters in Christ will be expressed in the present.
We are not speaking here about things that happen automatically. As you have cultivated this love within the environment of God’s people, take this love—defined and nurtured within the church—into your daily life. Be aware that Christian love cannot be confined to your church experience any more than Jesus’ love could be confined to his synagogue experience.
I once had an elder who told me, across the table at a session meeting, that he had no spiritual obligation to love me. He did not like me. By the time I came to know this man, he had already caused generations to be filled with suspicion and outright hatred. I was well acquainted with his grandchildren. He had also poisoned the church with a profound lack of love. I will say this much for him: he was consistent.
The Apostle Paul is pleading for an equally consistent lifestyle, certainly not one that ends at the church door. This lifestyle moves us in the complete opposite direction from the lifestyle demonstrated by that elder. We must move in Paul’s direction, or our religion becomes to God as vile as paganism, and as repulsive to God as the worship of the Sibyl.
It may well be that some here this morning are struggling to express love to others. Immerse yourself in what Paul says, and please, in the balance of it all, do not be content with the kind of love that the world offers. Be content with nothing less than what is available to you in the gospel and in Jesus Christ. Now, another point I want to address before we continue with our messages on 1 Corinthians 13 is Paul’s general perspective in this passage. You see, we may easily be misled by Paul’s approach in this chapter. Many people have been. It is as if God has placed a deliberate obstacle in the path of the people of the world so that this chapter might serve as a defining moment between those who truly belong to Him and those who do not.
There are many ways to misunderstand the message of 1 Corinthians 13. Notice, as you read through this chapter, that Paul never mentions God. Did you notice that the name Jesus Christ does not appear? Did you also notice that the person of the Holy Spirit is not named?
This is a chapter that does not mention the Trinity, and this fact has made it useful in the broadest, most religiously generic and religiously non-specific contexts.
A couple, deeply in love, having no interest in the triune God of the Bible or the gospel of Jesus Christ, and even somewhat quietly and politely, culturally aware, dismissive of that gospel, recite this chapter or have it quoted at their marriage ceremony because they find it beautiful. After all, they reason, there is nothing in this chapter that is religiously offensive to them or to any who might be gathered for their wedding. A congressman with no Christian confession, or perhaps a peripheral Christian confession, pulls out 1 Corinthians 14 and quotes it in order to promote a particular form of legislation, even as he uses it to support his own pluralistic, religiously nonspecific political philosophy. After all, he reasons, this chapter is religiously unoffensive. It says nothing about the triune God of Christianity, and therefore it should be acceptable to all of his constituents.
Both this congressman and the wedding couple viewed this chapter as if it were promoting a philosophy of love—that is, a universal definition of love that rises above the specific teachings of Christianity. They even placed this understanding of love above the specific teachings associated with the gospel of Jesus Christ. In their view, love eclipses tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, and even the supreme acts of charity, as Paul lists them in the first three verses of 1 Corinthians 13. In their minds, love also eclipses God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. In 1 Corinthians 13, they claim that Paul has grasped a reality that transcends the religion he professes, making all the specific elements of his religion and his gospel unnecessary. And even if Paul himself did not understand this about what he wrote, they say, we certainly do.
Well, I hope that you never fall for any of this, even when listening to politicians or attending weddings. However, I do mention the temptation for Christians to fall into this trap with respect to this passage and many others in the Bible. This is the graduation season, and often Christians find themselves delivering graduation addresses. In their effort to promote what they consider an elevated level of public discourse, they fall into this very trap by elevating a philosophy—whether this or that—above the gospel and its specific teachings. A philosophy that is presented as true, apparently, regardless of whether Christianity is true.
Whether or not Jesus Christ came in the flesh, died for sinners, and rose again on the third day. I listened to just such a speech yesterday at my son’s graduation. I was told that Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in Samaria, recorded for us in John chapter 4, was really about our ability to recognize opportunities and to act on them, especially without being held back by what the past has taught us. But don’t you see? Such a message does not actually require Jesus to be communicated. Any person, from any seminary, university, or college, can convey this idea.
Such a message does not require a crucified Lord, nor a sin-bearer, nor a risen Savior who, by His life, death, and resurrection, fulfills His Father’s will and brings about an entirely new age. A new time, a new environment, new life from heaven, made possible specifically because of who He is and what He has done. Jesus changes the times. He determines what time it is, and He calls all people to account with respect to this revelation.
As I say, you may be tempted to keep God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and the gospel of saving grace out of 1 Corinthians 13, just as the speaker yesterday did in his exposition of John 4. I plead with you not to follow this path. Our God has concealed Himself and His gospel in this very chapter. This is so that the chapter may become a stumbling block to those who do not have true faith and cannot see Jesus in the Word. The Jesus whom you see in the Word is specifically the Jesus who was born of a virgin, who performed miracles, who died on the cross, who rose again on the third day, who has ascended to the right hand of the Father, and who reigns there. He is coming again. That is what I wanted to hear at my son’s graduation. God has indeed concealed Himself, even His gospel, in this chapter, so that this chapter itself may become a stumbling block for all those who do not have true faith, who have no eyes to see.
May it never be a stumbling block to you. Lest your philosophy of love become just as much an abomination to God as the loveless Christian we spoke about earlier. Let us pray. Father, keep us from editing Your Word. Or Lord, in embracing a philosophy and then searching for a passage that will support this philosophy, which exists independently and even rises to a level above Yourself and above Your gospel. May we be immersed in the particulars of Your Word and in the particulars of the gospel of saving grace. And Lord, may we never give one of them away. May we hold on to them tenaciously. And with respect to this chapter before us, O God, may this love to which we are drawn, even in the way it is described, confront us afresh with Your Son. For we know, O God, that Your love is defined in Him, and our response in love is found nowhere else but in Him. Keep us by Your Word, Lord. Indeed, O God, keep us from idols. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.