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 5, 1996.
About this sermon
An outline of 1 Corinthians 13 shows that tongues and prophecy were truly supernatural gifts and that love stands above them all. Paul’s sarcasm toward Corinthian boasting comes through clearly, and Christ himself stands at the center of the chapter.
Sermon transcript
Now I told you that we would be reading various versions of 1 Corinthians 13 as we made our way through our messages on this passage, and this morning we will be reading from the Revised Standard Version. So we are starting with verse 27 in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians, verse 27, and we will be reading through the opening verse of chapter 14. Let us give our attention to God’s holy word. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, and speakers of various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts.
And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I give away all that I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
As for prophecy, it will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For our knowledge is imperfect, and our prophecy is imperfect. But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a dim mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully understood.
So faith, hope, love, abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. Father, we rejoice in Christ’s sacrifice for us upon the cross. We know, Lord, the magnitude of this sacrifice as it is revealed to us in the Scriptures, and this is impressed upon our souls by your Spirit. And Father, even as we struggle with sin day by day, may we realize that the matter of our sin has been resolved by him and in him, and therefore, O God, may we turn to our Savior and may we find the strength of that salvation that has worked for us. Father, we plead with you that in our struggles we would be refreshed by your word, and that we would know that you are with us, that you have not forsaken us. Oh God, glorify yourself even as we battle against the wiles of the devil. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
When you memorize Scripture, do you find yourself, in your mind at least, outlining the passage before you? An outline often proves to be helpful. If you have memorized 1 Corinthians 13, your outline most likely fell along these lines: verses 1–3, verses 4–7, and then verses 8–13. You might have separated the thirteenth verse in your mind and given it a place all its own as the fitting conclusion to Paul’s argument in this chapter.
This is how I divide 1 Corinthians 13. Verses 1 through 3, love’s absolute necessity for the Christian life and its superiority to all spiritual gifts. Verses 1 through 3, love’s absolute necessity for the Christian life and its superiority to all spiritual gifts.
Next, verses 4 through 7, love’s character. In speaking this way, you might be aware that there is something of a personification going on here. Hold that thought for the weeks to come. Love’s character and its indispensability for attaining all other spiritual excellence. Then verses 8 through 12.
Love’s permanence. Love’s permanence. And its unique ability to reveal the eternal qualities of Christian existence. The eternal qualities of Christian existence. Love’s permanence, its unique ability to reveal the eternal qualities of Christian existence. Then, verse 13, love’s excellence, even among the other spiritual graces of faith and hope.
This will be the outline I work from in our messages to come. This morning, we want to look into verses 1 through 3 and what they have to tell us about love’s necessity and its superiority, even as it is implied in these verses, to all spiritual gifts.
First of all, let us consider the gifts or the Christian actions mentioned in these opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13. We have mentioned, first of all, tongues in verse 1, and this gift is mentioned first because it is the primary issue. It is the main matter under discussion in the Corinthian assembly at this time. There is, as you know, a significant debate in that church about the place and importance of tongues among other spiritual endowments. Next, prophecy is mentioned in the second verse, a gift that, according to Paul’s exposition here, reveals mysteries and knowledge. And then, in the same verse, faith is also mentioned, but in such a way as to suggest a special kind of giftedness, and we will be discussing that.
It is precisely along this line that we are to move into verse 3 and what it says there about charity and self-sacrifice. As we move through this passage, as we consider these gifts, and as we reflect on the devotional activity described, particularly in the third verse, it is important for us to realize, to understand, and to know that what is in view is thoroughly supernatural.
There should be no doubt about this. What is in view is not our natural abilities, our native talents and endowments. It is not the gifts inherent to us by birth, nor those that arise from our own efforts, ingenuity, strength, or cleverness. Therefore, we cannot regard the gift of tongues mentioned by Paul here as merely a speaking ability. It is not simply being eloquent, nor is it the gift of gab, and then being useful to God and his kingdom.
Nor is it a natural talent for languages. When I think of a natural talent for languages, I cannot help but recall the late Dr. E.J. Young of Westminster Theological Seminary. It was reported that Dr. Young could converse in thirty-five languages, both ancient and modern, including Ugaritic.
Now that is a remarkable ability. I also think of Woody Lauer, a man dear to this congregation and a missionary to Japan. I do not know of many people who have the language ability of Woody Lauer. He is truly remarkable. During his first mission tour in Japan, to the amazement of all, he was writing, speaking, and preaching in Japanese. He was progressing well. This was not a natural talent.
But that is not what the Apostle Paul has in mind here. This does not mean that the gift of tongues, as Paul describes it, does not involve languages or actual foreign languages, foreign to the speaker. It simply means that these tongues are given to individuals in a supernatural way. They come through God’s direct action. In the same way, the gift of prophecy mentioned next is not the natural ability to preach or teach, as it has sometimes been understood, any more than the faith spoken of is a natural tendency to trust. Likewise, neither is charity nor a disposition toward self-sacrifice the natural expression of a selfless personality. Instead, Paul is speaking here about gifts that result from divine visitation—extraordinary gifts, miraculous gifts produced by the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. That is why he calls them spiritual gifts.
Chapter 12, verse 1. Chapter 14, verse 1. Spiritual gifts. If you have difficulty remembering that this spiritual gift refers to the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, then please capitalize the S in “Spiritual.” This will help you to remember.
But by acknowledging now these gifts as supernatural endowments of the Spirit, Paul, in this passage, says nothing directly about their permanence or their continuing availability to the Church until the end of the age, until the end of the world. However, what he does make clear in these first three verses in 1 Corinthians 13 is the relative importance of those gifts when compared with the blazing glory of gospel love. There is a diminishment taking place through the way in which the Apostle expresses himself.
Therefore, we must take note of the way in which he formulates his argument, and notice how this indirectly reflects upon the question of whether or not the gifts are permanent. On the surface, it sounds as if Paul is merely emphasizing the necessity or indispensability of love. Not a few commentators see only this element in Paul’s remarks. Therefore, these commentators say, Paul has in mind nearly and only the way in which love determines the use of the gift. Now, by all means, the apostle has in view the way in which the gifts are used, that they are to be used in a loving manner, and we have admitted that in earlier messages. But is that all Paul has in view? I do not think so. You see, Paul means here to press home not just the necessity of love in the use of the gifts, but the superiority of love to each and every one of the gifts. And Paul does that in two ways.
As he builds his case, which finds its resolution at the close of the chapter. First of all, notice the way in which Paul structures those first three verses. He strings together in those opening verses a series of hypothetical statements, the effect of which, through the repeated if clauses, is to accent the concluding but clauses.
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. The force of this construction is to exalt love to a position all its own, sufficient even in the absence of the gift. In other words, in light of the incomparable excellence of love, the gift takes on a deliberate superfluous character. A deliberate superfluous character. The repetition of this construction through these first three verses builds to the most powerful effect.
Paul takes what generates such pride in Corinth, namely the spiritual gifts, and specifically mentions tongues, and reduces it not just to a minor status, not even to the status where the missing ingredient, love, will correct it and make all things right, but, as it were, to the status of total insignificance. Therefore, it is as if Paul were saying, You can have the gift and have nothing. You can have the gift and have nothing. But you can have love without the gift and still have everything. That is the effect.
This line of argumentation, the superiority of love to the gifts, then effectively moves toward Paul’s conclusion at the end of this chapter, namely, love’s permanence, it being so sublime that it outlasts all gifts and rises to a position even above other spiritual praises. But there is a second way in which Paul presses home the superiority of love in these verses.
He does so by way of sarcasm. He is not above sarcasm, I want you to know. And he uses it most effectively. There is the habit, when reading this chapter, to launch into a rapturous, dramatic reading—full tones, sonorous, well-rounded, very serious and grave. Paul writes these with a twinkle in his eye, and a decided note of sarcasm in his voice. Now, I know that this is where some of you would like to get up and leave. You do not appreciate sarcasm. I had a woman in this church at one time who was severely offended when I pointed out the biblical use of sarcasm.
I told her to go home and read Galatians 5:12 in the privacy of her own living room.
Now, that should stir your imagination a bit. You may want to go home yourself and read Galatians 5:12 in the privacy of your own living room.
Paul is blatantly sarcastic in that verse, commonly so. In reference to 1 Corinthians 13, this woman could conceive of nothing more unloving if Paul actually was guilty of sarcasm, that is, of mocking or laughing at these Corinthians through cleverly biting remarks.
I quickly discovered, however, that this woman was not so much possessed of a superior piety as of a singular inability to laugh at herself, even when it was God’s word that was making her attitudes look so ridiculous. It is not piety, my friends, that keeps you from laughing at yourself and others when the truth of God is exposing your foolishness. Paul, in the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13, employs a very clever but humorous and deliberately sarcastic line, playing off Corinthian vanity and boasting.
He elevates these people to the heights of absurdity so that they might look directly into the face of their own foolishness. Believe me, Paul’s sarcasm in these verses is a very godly and loving thing to employ, having as its goal the deliverance of these people from their own self-importance. In verse one, note how Paul makes his case.
He literally creates a farcical endowment of the Spirit. Not just tongues as given to men, but the language of angels. Paul concocts, he invents, a gift that does not exist. His point, of course, is that if such a gift did exist—a gift which makes the present gift of tongues experienced by the Corinthians appear insignificant by comparison, even that heightened and super-supernatural gift—without love, such a gift would have in its recipients the effect of pure cacophony and meaningless silence.
His argument is consistent. It follows the same line in verses 2 and 3. In verse 2, he exaggerates the gifts of prophecy and faith to the point that they surpass the limits of reality. There are no such gifts. This is not the usual gift of prophecy, which he himself commands, but one granted so that the person receiving it has understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge.
This person begins to rival God himself. No ordinary gift of faith is in view. But when we speak of moving mountains, I cannot help but think of the end of the world. This is the faith that has the power to bring about the apocalypse, to bring about the conclusion of all creation. There is no such gift.
Paul’s point, again, is, of course, that these gifts do not exist, but if they did, not even they without love could give meaning to the lives of the recipients. Now in verse 3, the tone changes a bit, but the argument remains the same. Here Paul turns from gifts in themselves to acts of charitable self-sacrifice, but he heightens these to such an extent that by the end of verse 3 they seem to approach the sacrifice of Christ—giving up one’s life for a religious purpose and for religious benefit. First, he speaks about surrendering everything for the sake of the poor. He may well have some kind of supernatural existence now. I gave everything away. I have nothing visible to live on, but I live by God. Secondly, he speaks about the self-offering in death and a supreme act of religious devotion.
Again, Paul may well have in mind an act that, like Christ’s, extends saving value to others and provides a reason for glory before men and before God, because one has placed both man and God in one’s depth through such an action. At any rate, such gifts lie far beyond the reach of even the most gifted in Corinth, even beyond the reach of Paul himself. Rossi speaks in the first person. But even if such gifts were within reach, without love, they are utterly devoid of value.
Paul’s sarcasm has the effect, then, of emphasizing the diminishment of the gifts for the sake of the exaltation of love, even to the point of suggesting the relative and impermanent character of the gifts, while establishing the absoluteness, permanence, and superiority of love.
That is the effect. And this is by design, so that he might lead you to the conclusion of his chapter and his argument concerning the excellence of love itself and its grandeur. Now there are two things that I must say to you in conclusion. The first is this: think about yourselves. If Paul’s argument, if his sarcasm, puts the gifted Corinthian Church in its place, then it certainly puts the ungifted Grace Church in its place.
We are not claiming to have the supernatural gifts of the Spirit here in this congregation. And if a church like Corinth, which was gifted supernaturally by God, is forbidden to boast, then how much more are we, who do not boast of such gifts? Is there vanity here? Is there pretentiousness? Is there in you a tendency to think more highly of yourself than you ought? Even to the point of imagining your indispensability to this congregation? If those with the supernatural gifts are rightly chided and even laughed at for their vanity, how much more are we who do not boast of those gifts?
And I might add, even though there may be the temptation to boast about the fact that we do not have the gifts, I am not talking about that. We have the Reformed Church that said the gifts have ceased, and we might be going around bragging about that. We think we have the inside track on this matter.
If I have the proper doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and believe accurately and in accordance with orthodoxy that the gifts have ceased, but do not have love, I am nothing. Finally, we do very well to substitute Jesus Christ for the word love in 1 Corinthians 13. If we would gaze upon love’s true necessity and its superiority to all spiritual gifts. Indeed, even if I give all of my possessions to feed the poor, and if I were able to offer my very body as a means of salvation for myself and others, and do not have Jesus Christ, it profits me nothing. I remind you of this, lest you, like so many, lose sight of the Christ-centeredness of Paul’s message. Even the God-centered consciousness that he is endeavoring to express in this sublime passage.
Do not lose your grip on that. Our Father, we ask that we would not be offended by any aspect or tone from your word, knowing that your servants speak for you and that your word is in them. Rather, our God, we plead with you that there may be the full benefit of this word that has been given to us, registering upon our souls. And insofar as we are dealing with this matter of love, Father, deal with us. For we know that you are love. We plead, our Father, that we might be in tune with you here at this crucial point. Move, Lord, your Spirit in us that we might be moved to obey you and your word. We ask you for the sake of Christ, that one who stands central to your word. 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.