One of the great characteristics of love is that it will never cease.  After describing the way love behaves, Paul made this simple statement.

1 Corinthians 13:8 (ESV)
⁸  Love never ends…

The permanency of love makes it the greatest gift of all.  It will last throughout eternity.  While all of the gifts that the saints at Corinth cherished so much were temporary, love never ends.  This makes love superior to miraculous gifts, and this was the primary point that Paul was making to the Corinthians.  While the miraculous gifts were absolutely essential at a time when Christians did not have access to the completely written Word of God, those gifts would eventually cease.  Here is the rest of verse 8.

1 Corinthians 13:8 (ESV)
⁸ … As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

These three gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge represent the gifts as a whole.  Paul probably chose these gifts because they all had one thing in common—they served as vehicles by which God’s divine Word would be spread.  But there was something else that they, along with the rest of the gifts, had in common—they were all temporary in nature.  The prophecies and knowledge (supernatural) would pass away, and the tongues would cease, but love would endure even after those gifts were gone.  The question is when would the gifts cease?  Paul gives us the answer.

1 Corinthians 13:9-10 (ESV)
⁹  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰  but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

What is Paul referring to when he wrote of that which is in part?  It is the partial revelation of God’s will.  That will was coming forward in piecemeal fashion through some of the miraculous gifts like supernatural knowledge and prophecy.  To know in part was to have partial knowledge.  To prophesy in part was to reveal only a part of God’s will.  Why did the Corinthians only know in part and prophesy in part?  It was because that was how God was revealing His will to the apostles and prophets of that day.

“But, when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.”   What is the perfect thing that Paul is referring to here?  The entire passage swings on one’s interpretation of the statement, “when the perfect comes.”  Most people think that Paul is referring to Christ as the perfect one who will come, or to the perfect state of heaven which will commence after the second coming of Christ.  First, neither one of those things are mentioned by Paul in this context.  Why would he, without warning, throw them into the text now?  Second, we must keep the text in view here.  Whatever was in part in this text is now the perfect thing.  What was in part?  The revelation of God that was being revealed in piecemeal fashion.  When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, much of the New Testament was yet to be written.  Now, if revelation was that which is in part, would not the perfect be the complete revelation of God?   Read James 1:25 where he refers to God’s Word as the “perfect” law of liberty.

Paul’s point, then, is that when God’s revelation has been completed, there would be no more need for the vehicles of that revelation, that is, the miraculous gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge.  But remember now, those gifts simply are representative of them all.  So, when God’s perfect revelation was complete, miracles ceased.  Listen to the well-respected Vines on speaking in tongues:

“There is no evidence of the continuance of this gift after apostolic times nor indeed in the later times of the apostles themselves; this provides confirmation of the fulfillment in this way of 1 Cor 13:8, that this gift would cease in the churches, just as would “prophecies” and “knowledge” in the sense of knowledge received by immediate supernatural power (cf. 14:6). The completion of the Holy Scriptures has provided the churches with all that is necessary for individual and collective guidance, instruction, and edification” (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Word).

Since miracles have ceased and love continues, love is the greater gift, and it is the gift that we must all possess today.

As you wind down for the night, think about these things