"Charity never fails: but whether
there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall
cease;
whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." --
1 Corinthians 13:8
In the entire context, the drift of
the apostle is, to show the superiority of charity over all the other graces of
the Spirit. And in this chapter he sets forth its excellence by three things: first,
by showing that it is the most essential thing, and that all other gifts are
nothing without it; second, by showing that from it all good dispositions
and behavior do arise; and, third, by showing that it is the most durable
of all gifts, and shall remain when the church of God shall be in its most
perfect state, and when the other gifts of the Spirit shall have vanished away.
And in the text may be observed two things: —
First, that one property of charity, by which its
excellence is set forth, is, that it is unfailing and everlasting “Charity
never faileth.” This naturally follows the last words of the preceding verse,
that “charity endureth all things.” There the apostle declares the
durableness of charity, as it appears in its withstanding the shock of all the
opposition that can be made against it in the world. And now he proceeds
further, and declares that charity not only endures to the end of time,
but also throughout eternity — “Charity never faileth.” When
all temporal things shall have failed, this shall still abide, and abide
forever. We may also observe in the text,
Second, that herein charity is distinguished from
all the other gifts of the Spirit, such as prophecy, and the gift of tongues,
and the gift of knowledge, etc. “Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail;
whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall
vanish away;” but “charity never faileth.” By the knowledge here spoken
of, is not meant spiritual and divine knowledge in general; for surely there
will be such knowledge hereafter in heaven, as well as now on earth, and vastly
more than there is on earth, as the apostle expressly declares in the following
verses. The knowledge that Christians have of God, and Christ, and spiritual
things, and in fact all their knowledge, as that word is commonly
understood, shall not vanish away, but shall be gloriously increased and
perfected in heaven, which is a world of light as well as love. But by the
knowledge which the apostle says shall vanish away, is meant a particular
miraculous gift that was in the church of God in those days. For the apostle, as
we have seen, is here comparing charity with the miraculous gifts of the Spirit
— those extraordinary gifts which were common in the church in those days, one
of which was the gift of prophecy, and another the gift of tongues, or the power
of speaking in languages that had never been learned. Both these gifts are
mentioned in the text; and the apostle says they shall fail and cease. And
another gift was the gift of knowledge, or the word of knowledge, as it
is called in the eighth verse of the previous chapter, where it is so spoken of
as to show that it was a different thing, both from that speculative knowledge
which is obtained from reason and study, and also from that spiritual or divine
knowledge that comes from the saving influence of the Holy Spirit in the soul.
It was a particular gift of the Spirit with which some persons were endowed,
whereby they were enabled by immediate inspiration to understand mysteries, or
the mysterious prophecies and types of the Scriptures, which the apostle speaks
of in the second verse of this chapter, saying, “Though I have the gift of
prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge,” etc. It is this
miraculous gift which the apostle here says shall vanish away, together with the
other miraculous gifts of which he speaks, such as prophecy, and the gift of
tongues, etc. All these were extraordinary gifts bestowed for a season for the
introduction and establishment of Christianity in the world, and when this their
end was gained, they were all to fail and cease. But charity was never to cease.
Thus the apostle plainly teaches, as the doctrine of the
text:
THAT THAT GREAT FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT, IN WHICH THE HOLY
GHOST SHALL, NOT ONLY FOR A SEASON, BUT EVERLASTINGLY, BE COMMUNICATED TO THE
CHURCH OF CHRIST, IS CHARITY, OR DIVINE LOVE.
That the meaning and truth of this doctrine may be better
understood, I would speak to it in the four following propositions: first, The
Spirit of Christ will be everlastingly given to his Church and people, to
influence and dwell in them; second, There are other fruits of the Spirit
besides divine love, wherein the Spirit of God is communicated to his church; third,
These other fruits are but for a season, and either have already, or will at
some time, cease; fourth, That charity, or divine love, is that great and
unfailing fruit of the Spirit, in which his everlasting influence and indwelling
in the saints, or in his church, shall appear.
I. The Spirit of Christ is given to his church and
people everlastingly, to influence and dwell in them. — The Holy
Spirit is the great purchase, or purchased gift, of Christ. The chief and sum of
all the good things in this life and in the life to come, that are purchased for
the church, is the Holy Spirit. And as he is the great purchase, so he is the
great promise, or the great thing promised by God and Christ to the church; as
said the apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:32, 33) — “This
Jesus,… being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the
Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see
and hear.” And this great purchase and promise of Christ is forever to be
given to his church. He has promised that his church shall
continue, and expressly declared that the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. And that it may be preserved, he has given his Holy Spirit to every
true member of it, and promised the continuance of that Spirit forever. His own
language is (John 14:16, 17), “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give
you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of
truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth
him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
Man, in his first estate in Eden, had the Holy Spirit; but
he lost it by his disobedience. But a way has been provided by which it may be
restored, and now it is given a second time, never more to depart from the
saints. The Spirit of God is so given to his own people as to become truly
theirs. It was, indeed, given to our first parents in their state of innocence,
and dwelt with them, but not in the same sense in which it is given to, and
dwells in, believers in Christ. They had no proper right or sure title to the
Spirit, and it was not finally and forever given to them, as it is to believers
in Christ; for if it had been, they never would have lost it. But the Spirit of
Christ is not only communicated to those that are converted, but he is made over
to them by a sure covenant, so that he is become their own. Christ is become
theirs, and therefore his fullness is theirs, and therefore his Spirit is
theirstheir purchased, and promised, and sure possession. But,
II. There are other fruits of the Spirit besides
that which summarily consists in charity, or divine love, wherein the Spirit of
God is communicated to his church. For example,
1. The Spirit of God has been communicated to his church
in extraordinary gifts, such as the gift of miracles, the gift of inspiration, etc.
— The Spirit of God. seems to have been communicated to the church in such
gifts, formerly to the prophets under the Old Testament, and to the apostles,
and evangelists, and prophets, and to the generality of the early ministers of
the gospel, and also to multitudes of common Christians, under the New
Testament. To them were given such gifts as the gift of prophecy, and the gift
of tongues, and the gift called the gift of knowledge, and others mentioned in
the context, and in the foregoing chapter. And besides these,
2 There are the common and ordinary gifts of the
Spirit of God. — These, in all ages, have more or less been bestowed on
many natural, unconverted men, in common convictions of sin, and common
illuminations, and common religious affections, which, though they have nothing
in them of the nature of divine love, or of true and saving grace, are yet the
fruits of the Spirit, in the sense that they are the effect of his influences on
the hearts of men. And as to faith and hope, if there be nothing of divine love
with them, there can be no more of the Spirit of God in them than is common to
natural unregenerate men. This is clearly implied by the apostle, when he says
in this chapter, “Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains,
and have not charity, I am nothing.” All saving faith and hope have love in
them as ingredients, and as their essence; and if this ingredient be taken out,
there is nothing left but the body without the spirit. It is nothing saving; but
at best, only a common fruit of the Spirit. But,
III. All these other fruits of the Spirit are but
for a season, and either have already ceased, or at some time will cease.
— As to the miraculous gifts of prophecy and tongues, etc., they are
but of a temporary use, and cannot be continued in heaven. They were given only
as an extraordinary means of grace that God was once pleased to grant to his
church in the world. But when the saints that once enjoyed the use of these
means went to heaven, such means of grace ceased, for they were no longer
needful. There is no occasion for any means of grace in heaven, whether
ordinary, such as the stated and common means of God’s house, or
extraordinary, such as the gifts of tongues, and of knowledge, and of prophecy.
I say, there is no occasion for any of these means of grace to be continued in
heaven, because there the end of all means of grace is already fully obtained in
the perfect sanctification and happiness of God’s people. The apostle,
speaking in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, of the various means of grace, says
that they are given “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, unto a perfect man.” But
when this has come to pass, and the saints are perfected, and are already come
to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, then there will be no
further occasion for any of these means, whether ordinary or extraordinary. It
is in this respect very much as it is with the fruits of the field, which stand
in need of tillage, and rain, and sunshine, till they are ripe and gathered in,
and then they need them no more.
And as these miraculous gifts of the Spirit were but
temporary with regard to those particular persons that enjoyed them, so they are
but for a season with regard to the church of God taken as a collective body.
These gifts are not fruits of the Spirit that were given to be continued to the
church throughout all ages. They were continued in the church, or at least were
granted from time to time, though not without some considerable intermissions,
from the beginning of the world till the canon of the Scriptures was completed.
They were bestowed on the church before the beginning of the sacred canon, that
is, before the book of Job and the five books of Moses were written. People had
the Word of God then in another way, viz. by immediate revelation from time to
time given to eminent persons, who were, as it were, fathers in the church of
God, and this revelation handed down from them to others by oral tradition. It
was a very common thing then, for the Spirit of God to communicate himself in
dreams and visions, as appears by several passages in the book of Job. They had
extraordinary gifts of the Spirit before the flood. God immediately and
miraculously revealed himself to Adam and Eve, and so to Abel, and to Enoch,
who, we are informed (Jude 14), had the gift of prophecy. And so Noah had
immediate revelations made to him, and he warned the old world from God; and
Christ, by his Spirit speaking through him, went and preached to the spirits
that are now in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the
long-suffering of God waited while the ark was preparing (1 Pet. 3:19, 20). And
so Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were favored with immediate revelations; and
Joseph had extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, and so had Job and his friends.
From this time, there seems to have been an intermission of the extraordinary
gifts of the Spirit until the time of Moses; and from his time they were
continued in a succession of prophets, that was kept up, though not again
without some interruptions, till the time of Malachi. After that, there seems to
have been a long intermission of several hundred years, till the dawn of the
gospel day, when the Spirit began again to be given in his extraordinary gifts,
as to Anna, and Simeon, and Zacharias, and Elizabeth, and Mary, and Joseph, and
John the Baptist.
These communications of the Spirit were given to make way
for him who hath the Spirit without measure, the great prophet of God, by whom
the Spirit is communicated to all other prophets. And in the days of his flesh,
his disciples had a measure of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, being enabled
thus to teach and to work miracles. But after the resurrection and ascension,
was the most full and remarkable effusion of the Spirit in his miraculous gifts
that ever took place, beginning with the day of Pentecost, after Christ had
risen and ascended to heaven. And in consequence of this, not only here and
there an extraordinary person was endowed with these extraordinary gifts, but
they were common in the church, and so continued during the lifetime of the
apostles, or till the death of the last of them, even the apostle John, which
took place about a hundred years from the birth of Christ; so that the first
hundred years of the Christian era, or the first century, was the era of
miracles. But soon after that, the canon of Scripture being completed when the
apostle John had written the book of Revelation, which he wrote not long before
his death, these miraculous gifts were no longer continued in the church. For
there was now completed an established written revelation of the mind and will
of God, wherein God had fully recorded a standing and all-sufficient rule for
his church in all ages. And the Jewish church and nation being overthrown, and
the Christian church and the last dispensation of the church of God being
established, the miraculous gifts of the Spirit were no longer needed, and
therefore they ceased; for though they had been continued in the church for so
many ages, yet then they failed, and God caused them to fail because there was
no further occasion for them. And so was fulfilled the saying of the text,
“Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they
shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” And now there
seems to be an end to all such fruits of the Spirit as these, and we have no
reason to expect them any more. And as to those fruits of the Spirit that are
common, such as the conviction, illumination, belief, etc., which are common
both to the godly and ungodly, these are given in all ages of the church in the
world; and yet with respect to the persons that have these common gifts, they
will cease when they come to die; and with respect to the church of God
considered collectively, they will cease, and there will be no more of them
after the day of judgment. I pass, then, to show, as proposed,
IV. That charity, or divine love, is that great fruit of
the Spirit, that never fails, and in which his continued and everlasting
influence and indwelling in his church shall appear and be manifest. — We
have seen that the Spirit of Christ is forever given to the church of Christ,
and given that it may dwell in his saints forever, in influences that shall
never fail. And therefore however many fruits of the Spirit may be but
temporary, and have their limits where they fail, yet it must be that there is
some way of the Spirit’s influence, and some fruit of that influence, which is
unfailing and eternal. And charity, or divine love, is that fruit, in
communicating, and nourishing, and exercising which, his unfailing and eternal
influences appear. This is a fruit of the Spirit that never fails or ceases in
the church of Christ, whether we consider it with respect to its particular
members, or regard it as a collective body. And,
1. We may consider the church of Christ with respect to
the particular members of which it consists. — And here it will
appear that charity, or Christian love, is an unfailing fruit of the Spirit.
Every one of the true members of Christ’s invisible church is possessed of
this fruit of the Spirit in the heart. Divine or Christian love is implanted,
and dwells, and reigns there, as an everlasting fruit of the Spirit, and one
that never fails. It never fails in this world, but remains through all trials
and oppositions, for the apostle tells us (Rom. 8:38, 39) that nothing “shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord.” And it ceases not when the saints come to die. When the apostles and
others of their day died and went to heaven, they left all their miraculous
gifts behind them with their bodies. But they did not leave the love that was in
their hearts behind them, but carried that with them to heaven, where it was
gloriously perfected. Though when wicked men die, who have had the common
influences of the Spirit, their gifts shall eternally cease, yet death never
overthrows Christian love, that great fruit of the Spirit, in any that have it.
They that have it, may and shall leave behind them many other fruits of the
Spirit which they had in common with wicked men. And though they shall leave all
that was common in their faith, and hope, and all that did not pertain to this
divine and holy love, yet this love they shall not leave behind, but it shall go
with them to eternity, and shall be perfected there, and shall live and reign
with perfect and glorious dominion in their souls forever and ever. And so,
again,
2. We may consider the church of Christ collectively, or
as a body. — And here, again, it will appear that charity, or Christian
love, shall never fail. Though other fruits of the Spirit fail in it, this shall
never fail. Of old, when there were interruptions of the miraculous gifts of the
Spirit in the church, and when there were seasons in which no prophet or
inspired person appeared that was possessed of such gifts, still there never was
any total interruption of this excellent fruit or influence of the Spirit.
Miraculous gifts were intermitted through the long time extending from Malachi
to near the birth of Christ; but in all this time, the influence of the Spirit,
in keeping up divine love in the church, was never suspended. As God always had
a church of saints in the world, from the first creation of the church after the
fall, so this influence and fruit of his Spirit never failed in it. And when,
after the completion of the canon of the Scriptures, the miraculous gifts of the
Spirit seemed finally to have ceased and failed in the church, this influence of
the Spirit in causing divine love in the hearts of his saints did not cease, but
has been kept up through all ages from that time to this, and so will be to the
end of the world. And at the end of the world, when the church of Christ shall
be settled in its last, and most complete, and its eternal state, and all common
gifts, such as convictions and illuminations, and all miraculous gifts, shall be
eternally at an end, yet then divine love shall not fail, but shall be brought
to its most glorious perfection in every individual member of the ransomed
church above. Then, in every heart, that love which now seems as but a spark,
shall be kindled to a bright and glowing flame, and every ransomed soul shall be
as it were in a blaze of divine and holy love, and shall remain and grow in this
glorious perfection and blessedness through all eternity!
In the application
of this subject, I would remark,
1. That there
seems to be no reason to think, as some have thought, that the
extraordinary gifts of the Spirit are to be restored to the church in the future
and glorious times of her latter-day prosperity and blessedness. — Many
divines have been of the opinion, that when the latter-day glory of the
church, which is spoken of in the Word of God, shall come, there will again be
prophets, and men endowed with the gifts of tongues and of working miracles, as
was the case in the times of the apostles; and some now living seem to be of the
same mind.
But from what the
apostle says in the text and context, it seems as thought we had no reason to
imagine any such thing from what the Scriptures say of the gloriousness of those
times, or because it speaks of the state of the church then as being more
glorious than ever before, and as though the Spirit of God would then be poured
out in more abundant measure than ever in times past. All these things may be,
and yet there be no such extraordinary gifts bestowed on the church. When the
Spirit of God is poured out for the purpose of producing and promoting divine
love, he is poured out in a more excellent way than when he is manifested in
miraculous gifts. This the apostle expressly teaches in the latter part of the
foregoing chapter, where, after enumerating many miraculous gifts, he advises
Christians to covet or desire the best of them, but then adds, “And yet show I
unto you a more excellent way,” namely, to seek the influence of the Spirit of
God, working charity or divine love in the heart. Surely the Scriptures, when
speaking of the future glorious state of the church as being such an excellent
state, give us no reason to conclude that the Spirit of God will be poured out
then in any other way than in the most excellent way. And doubtless the most
excellent way of the Spirit is for the most excellent state of the church.
The future state of
the church being so much more perfect than in previous times, does not tend to
prove that then there shall be miraculous gifts, but rather the contrary. For
the apostle himself, in the text and context, speaks of these extraordinary
gifts ceasing and vanishing away to give place for a kind of fruits or
influences of the Spirit that are more perfect. If you do but read the text in
connection with the two following verses, you will see that the reason implied
why prophecy and tongues fail, and charity remains, is this, that the imperfect
gives way to the perfect, and the less excellent to the more excellent; and the
more excellent, he declares, is charity or love. Prophecy and miracles argue the
imperfection of the state of the church, rather than its perfection. For they
are means designed by God as a stay or support, or as a leading string, if I may
so say, to the church in its infancy, rather than as means adapted to it in its
full growth; and as such the apostle seems to speak of them. When the Christian
church first began, after the ascension of Christ, it was in its infancy, and
then it needed miracles, etc., to establish it; but, being once established, and
the canon of the Scriptures being completed, they ceased, which, according to
the apostle’s arguing, shows their imperfection, and how much inferior they
are to that fruit or influence of the Holy Spirit which is seen in divine love.
Why, then, should we expect that they should be restored again when the church
is in its most perfect state? All these miraculous gifts the apostle seems to
call “childish things,” in comparison with the nobler fruit of Christian
love. They are adapted to the childish state of the church, while holy love is
more to be expected in its full-grown and manly state; and in themselves they
are childish, in comparison with that holy love which will so abound in the
church when it comes to its perfect stature in Christ Jesus.
Nor is the
gloriousness of the future times of the church any argument for the continuance,
in those times, of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. For surely the state of
the church then will not be more glorious than the heavenly state; and yet the
apostle teaches, that in the heavenly state all these gifts shall be at an end,
and the influence of the Spirit in producing divine love only shall remain. Nor
does it appear that there shall be any need of miraculous gifts in order to the
bringing about of the future glorious times of the church; for God is able to
bring them about without the instrumentality of these gifts. If the Spirit of
God be poured out in only his gracious influences in converting souls, and in
kindling divine love in them in such measure as he may and will, this will be
enough, without new revelations or miracles, to produce all the effects that
need to be produced in order to the bringing in of the glorious times of which
we are speaking; as we may all be convinced by the little we have seen in the
late outpouring of the Spirit in this and the neighboring towns. If we needed
any new rule to go by, and the common influences of the Spirit, together with
the Word of God, were insufficient, then there might be some necessity for
restoring miracles. But there is no need whatever of new Scriptures being given,
or of any additions being made to those we have, for they are in themselves a
perfect rule for our faith and practice; and as there is no need of a new canon
of Scripture, so there is no need of those miraculous gifts, the great object of
which was, either to confirm the Scriptures, or to make up for the want of them
when as yet they had not been given by the inspiring Spirit.
2. The subject
we have been considering should make persons exceedingly cautious how they give
heed to anything that may look like a new revelation, or that may claim to be
any extraordinary gift of the Spirit. — Sometimes a person may have an
impression in his mind as to something that he thinks immediately revealed to
him that is to come to pass concerning himself or some of his relatives or
friends; or as to something that is to come to pass that before was hid from
him, and if it had not been revealed, would remain still a secret; or, perhaps,
he thinks it has been revealed to him, what is the spiritual state of some other
person, or of his own soul, in some other way than by the scriptural marks and
evidences of grace in the heart. Sometimes persons imagine that they have an
immediate direction from heaven to go and do this, or that, or the other thing,
by impressions immediately made on their minds, or in some other way than by
learning from Scripture or reason that it is their duty. And sometimes they
fancy that God immediately reveals to them by a dream, what the future shall be.
But all these things, if they were from God’s Spirit, would be of the nature
of those extraordinary gifts of the Spirit which the apostle says do cease and
are done away, and which, having long since failed, there is no reason to
suppose that God will restore again. And if they are not from God’s Spirit,
they are but gross delusions. And once more,
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's Jonathan Edwards Collection by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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