Love Doesn't Babble
"Love never ends" (1 Corinthians 13:8), or as the King James Bible reads, "Charity never faileth." Fails is the better translation of the Greek. To say that love never ends makes it into a statement about time and duration, whereas to say that love never fails makes it into a statement about effectiveness and perseverance. Over against love, Paul has put prophecies and knowledge, both of which will fail, and tongues, which will cease.
The reference to tongues ceasing has, no doubt, given credence to the idea as it was interpreted by the Reformers that the mysterious phenomena of Delphic-like glossolalia would end. And if you come to the text with the idea that tongues means mysterious glossolalia (babbling), then the ceasing of babbling would be an acceptable meaning to assign to the phrase. God does not speak nonsense. However, it must be understood that babbling should not cease because of the reign of Christ or because of the completion of Scripture, but babbling must simply cease because it is not and has never been a methodology of God. The God of Scripture doesn't babble. Never has. Nor does God encourage His children to speak without understanding (1 Corinthians 14:33).
And what is more, the idea of the cessation of babbling doesn't fit with the larger context of the passage. Paul has set the temporal gifts of prophecies, knowledge and tongues over against the eternal gift of love. Prophecies, tongues and knowledge exist on the earth now and are for use with these earthly bodies, but love will carry forward into eternity. There will be no need for prophecy in eternity, nor for knowledge, because in eternity all things will already be known.
The exercise of tongues involved the use of foreign (non-Hebrew) languages to carry the content or orthodox meaning of Scripture to people of every nation. Tongues is a matter of translating the gospel into foreign languages for the sake of those who don't understand God's "mother tongue" (Hebrew). In eternity all of God's saints will speak the same language. Whatever it may be, it will be a common language. Thus, the need to translate into other tongues will be unnecessary in eternity. And the practice of tongues translating the gospel into other languages will cease.
Or, if we want to press the passage for a stronger meaning, we can understand Paul to say that language itself will one day fail. Language itself as we know it will one day cease, but love will never fail. Love is not a function of language, rather, arsy varsy, language is a function of love.
Again, Paul's point was to contrast the temporal gifts of the Spirit with the eternal gift of love in order to show the superior character of love. The problem that Paul encountered in Corinth was that too many people had overvalued the temporal gifts, particularly tongues, and undervalued the eternal gift of love. The Corinthian priorities had become inverted, preferring the gifts that are exercised in the flesh over the greater gift of love that is exercised in the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 13:9-10 emphasize the difference between part and whole. "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away." In this temporal world our knowledge and our ability to use our knowledge in prophecy is only partial. The world has been rent asunder by sin. It is broken, flawed, incomplete, not whole. But when "the perfect" comes, things will be fixed, restored, made whole again. What is this "perfect" that will come? Scripture uses the word in several places. For instance:
"You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48).
Speaking to the rich young ruler, Jesus said, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me" (Matthew 19:21).
Paul wrote to the Romans (12:2), "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."
To the Ephesians Paul wrote, "And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature (perfect) manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes" (Ephesians 4:11-14).
The idea contained in the use of the word "perfect" in Scripture pertains to the end of time, at which Christ will return and restore all things to their original state or order. Our perfection in Christ suggests the culmination of our sanctification, even our ultimate glorification in Christ in eternity, the endpoint of our growth in grace in eternity, or as it is translated elsewhere, our maturity in Christ.
Paul was saying that now we are broken, our understanding is broken, and our ability to communicate with one another is broken. But one day everything will be fixed. One day things will be restored to their original perfection. On that day we will look back on our brokenness and weep tears of sadness for our foolishness and tears of gladness for God's grace and mercy. On that day the temporal (temporary) gifts of prophecy, tongues and knowledge will fade in the light of the infinitely superior gift of love that will manifest in full bloom. On that day, we won't need what is broken. We will release it, let go of it, and embrace what is whole. Rather, God's wholeness will embrace us and wrap us into the fold of perfection, completeness, maturity.
Looking back on the process of his own spiritual growth and maturity, Paul reflected, "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" (1 Corinthians 13:11). There is nothing wrong with thinking and speaking like a child, as long as it is understood that such thinking and speaking are temporary phenomena that are outgrown in maturity. Thinking and speaking like a child is fine for a child. But they are inappropriate for an adult. One day we will look back upon what we consider to be our adulthood today and see it as only another stage in our childhood. Every new stage of maturity engaged in the flesh will in eternity be seen as temporary aspects of our childhood. Only in eternity will we find our perfection and our complete maturity in Christ.
And yet, through regeneration by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit that process of perfect maturity in Christ has begun here and now, in the flesh, in these sinful and inadequate bodies. It is not that we must disregard or discount the various stages of our growth and maturity, but that we must not hold on to them when we are beckoned by God to continue to grow in grace through faith. We must continuously honor our past as sinful as it is, we must acknowledge our history, our fallen condition, and the various stages of our growth in grace, without fearfully clinging to what has past. We must not ignore or dishonor the past, those stages of growth that provide identity and continuity. The past is important, but the future in Christ is determinative. It is not that the past is pushing us into the future, but that Christ is (teleologically) pulling us into greater faithfulness, and eventually into eternity.