This chapter, though a continuation of the subject commenced in the previous chapter, is one of the chief jewels in the crown of Holy Writ. Paul’s extolling of Christian Love has made this chapter a favourite amongst the people of God throughout the ages.
Having indicated the divergences, the source and the purpose of the spiritual gifts that had been bestowed upon the church at Corinth, Paul urges upon them a more excellent way, that is, a more excellent enduement by which they may promote the cause of God. Hitherto, their efforts at showing their zeal for God had resulted in them vying with each other as to who has been endowed with the best spiritual gift by the Holy Spirit. We need not envy the apostolic church the miraculous gifts not now available to believers and which in the beginning of that new age were designed to demonstrate the divine origins of the gospel of Christ and to confirm the faith of those who received the truth. We have seen how these miraculous gifts gave rise to shameful rivalry amongst those who possessed them and thus divided the church at Corinth. We need not envy them for there is that of which we as well as they can avail ourselves and to which their gifts are as nothing in comparison. Paul urges upon them an endowment that was more valuable than all the other gifts and one which each one could have. This chapter is a recommendation of the spiritual grace of LOVE. We use the word love for the English word charity is more limited in its present-day meaning than the Greek word agape {ag-ah’-pay}. Paul is seeking to show that it is better to be filled with Christian love than to be able to exercise any of the miraculous gifts then available to the church. He goes further and shows that the exercise of any miraculous gift in the absence of love is a vain and empty thing.The chapter divides into three sections.
1 — 1-3, the Indispensability of Christian love.
2 — 4-7, the Nature of Christian love.
3 — 8-13, the Superiority of Christian love.
I. THE INDISPENSABILITY OF CHRISTIAN LOVE, 1-3.
1. The exercise of gifts of the highest order without love is vain.
It will shock some to read these words and take in what Paul is saying. Miraculous gifts were exercised in apostolic days to non-effect.
Speaking in tongues (the word means language or dialect) of the highest order, even that of angels, was only as useful as the banging of cymbals. The exercising of the gift of prophecy, of knowledge, of faith, when love was not at work within the heart, meant that the individual’s activity was valueless in God’s eyes.
2. The bestowal of all our possessions upon others profits us nothing without love.
These actions are no proof of Christian grace or of salvation. Unconverted men may do these things, Matt 25:44. Many of the actions of works-religionists are of this calibre.
3. The greatest act of self-sacrifice is valueless without love.
Burning seems the most cruel and painful form of dying. Yet even to suffer so without love for God and men is nothing in God’s eyes.