The assembly at Corinth was enriched “in all utterance, and in all knowledge” (1 Cor. 1:5). It came behind in no gift, and was indeed a favoured company of believers. But unless gift is accompanied by grace, it may well become a menace to those who possess it. This was seen in the party-making and carnality that marked the assembly at Corinth. “Are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” was the solemn and searching question the Apostle Paul asked them.
Wherein lay this carnality? Among other things it was seen in their fastening upon the spectacular gift of tongues to the neglect of the less spectacular and more spiritual gifts.
The gift of tongues was unknown in the Old Testament times. Of old miracles attested new departures in the ways of God, as for instance the miraculous gift of a son to Abraham, when Sarah, his wife, and he were long past the age when this was possible to nature, a demonstration to Abraham that the promise of God, that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed, would materialize. Later, Moses was empowered to perform miracles, attesting him as God’s chosen leader to bring His earthly people out of Egypt. Still later Elijah and Elisha performed miracles in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, attesting the power of God in a land given up to idolatry.
But in the New Testament we find the preaching of the apostolic gospel was accompanied by a new kind of miracle, even of tongues. So we find the Apostle Paul rebuking this craze of the Corinthian assembly for the miraculous to the neglect of “the best gifts” in chapter 14 of his epistle. We have had efforts put forth in this country to rival the apostolic days by professing to speak with tongues. These attempts have been far removed from the sobriety and power of those apostolic days, and from subjection to the instructions that Scripture gives as to their exercise. They stand self-condemned, either as trickery or demonism, in our judgment.
At the end of chapter 12 the Apostle exhorted these Corinthian saints to covet earnestly “the best gifts.” It is striking that the gift of tongues is placed last in the list of gifts enumerated in 1 Corinthians 12:10 and 28. When once Christianity was attested in this striking way, speaking by tongues ceased, just as the Church bells announce a coming service, and cease their raucous voices the moment the service begins.
But there is still “a more excellent way,” than “the best gifts.” And that more excellent way is outlined for us in that wonderful chapter—1 Corinthians 13—all dedicated to the subject of divine love. We have often heard the new commandment that we should love one another described as the eleventh commandment, but this has always grated on our ears. The ten commandments were addressed to man in the flesh. The Epistle to the Galatians speaks of being under the law as being under bondage. Not so is the command of our risen Lord that we should love one another. There the command is given to a nature that finds its truest liberty in responding to it. The principle is seen in the verse, which says, “When Thou saidest, Seek ye My face; my heart said to Thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek” (Ps. 27:8). To put the ten commandments alongside 1 Corinthians 13 is like seeking to mix oil and water, sorrow with joy, to join bondage with liberty. The NEW commandment of the Gospel has nothing to do in character and nature with the OLD commandments of Sinai with its thunderings and earthquakes.
It surely is most cheering in these days of brokenness and weakness, where there are little isolated assemblies, who can claim no gift in their midst, to have placed before them something that is superior to having gift, even the more excellent way of love. Have we not often seen a few embers scattered here and there in the hearth about to die out, yet these embers when carefully raked together, so that the heat of each could contribute to the whole, very soon made a very cheerful and cheering blaze. So it may be in divine things.
Love never fails. Prophecies will, for the time will come when all prophecies will have been fulfilled, and there will be no prophecies awaiting fulfilment. Tongues, so attractive to the carnal mind of fallen human nature, will cease, for there will be only one language in the new creation when all things will have become new. Tongues are reminder of the pride of man when he would build a city and a tower whose top should reach to heaven. But God stepped in and broke the power of man, seeking to be compact and of one mind in defiance of God Himself, by the confounding of their language, thus giving them tongues to weaken them. Knowledge too will pass away, in that knowledge is comparative, some know more than others, but in new creation we shall no longer know in part, but in fullness of knowledge All shall know as they are known.
Now abides faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love. Love is the divine nature. God is love, and the believer loves all those, who are begotten of God, as he loves God Himself. Here is a word for all of us. If we belong in the kindness of God to a gifted assembly, there is still something better than coveting the best gifts, there is a more excellent way, and that is love. If there is gift and love permeating an assembly how happy it must be, but if we are in a small assembly with no gift, how blessed to have the more excellent way left to us.
Let us seek to display the qualities of Divine love, suffering long and yet kind, envying not, seeking not one’s own, not easily provoked, thinking no evil, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things. “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). “And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave us commandment” (1 John 3:23).