I. There are three Christian graces as distinguished from all imperfect and transitory gifts which shall never pass away, but abide for ever which, in the perfect state, shall constitute between them the character of the glorified children of God. These three are faith, hope, and love. But of these three greatest, which no perfection of eternity shall ever supersede or absorb, the greatest is love not the only enduring one when the others have passed away; that, though high praise, would not be so high as is here intended but, of the three enduring ones, the greatest, first in comparison, not only with the passing gifts of time, but with the enduring graces of eternity; not only a never-fading flower, as contrasted with all ours which fade, but of the immortal blooms which "flower aloft, shading the fount of life," itself the brightest and the fairest.
II. (1) Faith abides for ever. But how can faith, which is the evidence of things not seen, remain in the very presence of the realities themselves? It is clear that faith cannot be altogether the same as here. But will not entire and unwavering trust in God form a component of the character of the saints in glory? And faith will not be lost in certainty, simply because the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him are not bare facts, but living and unfathomable truths, to exercise all man's renewed powers to all eternity. (2) And, if faith abides, hope abides also. It shall not be lost in joy, just because joy will not be one great pleasure once imparted, but springs ever welling up afresh, pleasures at His right hand for evermore. (3) Love is the greatest by comparison with the others, (a) because their chief work was accomplished when the higher state was entered, in which itschief work lies; (b) because faith and hope are but the conditions of the employment of the glorified, whereas love is the employment itself.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. i., p. 119.
I. Faith must abide with us always if we are to be blessed creatures. No distinction which belongs to God's Divine order can be abolished. Faith and sight may both be perfected; the invisible things may become more real and certain to us than the things of sense. We may be sure that they are the substances apart from which the others would be mere shadows. Hereafter this world, which has been so full of unfathomed secrets, may disclose them and their deepest signification to the purified searcher. Every sense may put forth its fullest energy. The glorified body may be fit to understand the glorified earth. Faith and sight may be the divinest allies, instead of being, as they so often are with us, murderous antagonists. But neither will usurp the other's place. There will be no confusion in their functions. Such confusions are the effect of our twilight; they will be scattered in God's perfect day.
II. It is impossible to speak of faith without alluding to hope, seeing that faith is said to be "the substance of things hoped for." What can be the things hoped for of which the Apostle tells us? Are they the same with the glory of which the Prophet Isaiah discourses? If so, consider how far the fruition of such a hope can be said to extinguish it. Is not the hope of the glory of God the hope of that which is infinite, which must be always unfolding itself more to him who is in communion with it, which must therefore be always kindling fresh hope? Hope has faith for its substance, because it has God for its substance, God for its end. That comes from Him, and can only be satisfied in Him. Not, indeed, that because He is the ground and ultimate satisfaction of hope it disdains any inferior objects. All things shine in His light; all things glow with His life. But, for that very reason, the pettiest man, the pettiest insect and reptile, must be beyond the comprehension, not of us, but of saints and angels; they must be ever filled with the hope of apprehending a little more of that Divine secret which God sets before them for their endless inquiry and admiration. Surely it is in this babyhood of an existence that we dream of grasping the waters in the hollow of our hand or of finding the end of the rainbow! When we come to our manhood, and begin to see things as they are, we shall cry out, not with terror or shame or discouragement, but with awe, thanksgiving, hope, "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!"
III. And thus, I conceive, we arrive naturally and in order at the Apostle's conclusion, "The greatest of these is charity." That must be greatest without which the other two could not be. That must be greatest without which they could have no object. A being who is not perfect charity is no object on which faith can rest. It must always be seeking some other, it must always be flickering and uncertain while it is directed towards him. A being who is not perfect charity is no object for hope. As long as it lasts, it must look some day or another to escape from the atmosphere which surrounds him, into some clearer, warmer region. Therefore, if faith abides, if hope abides, charity must abide. Because that is the fixed eternal substance, they have substance. Because that cannot fail, they are not to fail.
F. D. Maurice, Sermons,vol. i., p. 219.
I. Love is of God's nature faith and hope are only of God's creation and appointment. God loves, but God neither believes nor hopes.
II. Love being of God's nature, and faith and hope being of God's creation and endowment merely, it follows that charity is the senior of faith and hope.
III. Believing and hoping give no direct affinity to the Divine nature, but love secures real oneness with God.
IV. Love fills a nobler sphere than either faith or hope. Faith embraces testimony only, but love embraces the testifier. Hope has regard to the future only, but love has regard to all duration.
V. Love is enforced by the highest examples.
VI. The very spirit of the Christian dispensation is the spirit of love.
VII. The work assigned to Christian charity on earth is the mightiest work. Within the individual it is one important evidence of his salvation.
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Sermons,2nd series, p. 137.
Love.
I. Whence hath love its birth? In the infinite love of God, in the essence of God. Faith and hope are towards God. They are graces put into the soul by God, whereby the soul should cling to Him, hold fast by Him, long for Him. But faith and hope can have no likeness in God. They are the virtues of the creature when absent from its Creator, companions of its pilgrim state. In heaven neither angels nor saints hope or believe, but see and know and feel and love. On this ground, then, is charity greater than faith and hope, and any other grace, because it has its source in that which God is. Love contains all virtues; it animates all; but itself is beyond all. For they are concerned with human things and human duties, with the soul itself, or its fellow-men, with deeds which shall cease when our earthly needs and trials and infirmities cease; love bears them up to God, looks out of all to Him, does all to Him, and in all sees Him, soars above all and rests not until she finds her rest in the all-loving bosom of God.
II. Holy men have distinguished four stages of love. (1) The first state of fallen man is to love himself for himself. (2) The second is to love God for the man's own sake. Such is the love of most who love God at all. (3) The third should love God for His own sake. (4) The last stage is that man should love himself only for the sake of God. In this, as holy men have spoken, the soul, borne out of itself with Divine love, forgetting itself, losing itself in a manner as though it were not, not feeling itself and emptied of itself, "goeth forth wholly unto God and cleaving to God, becometh one spirit with Him." This is life eternal, that" God should be all in all, that the creature should be nothing of itself, except the vessel of the life and love of God.
E. B. Pusey, Sermons from Advent to Whitsuntide,vol. ii., p. 41.
Consider:
I. The specific nature of each of these graces. (1) Faith. (a) As to its origin, it is the gift of God; as to its operation, it is the work of the Spirit; as to its object, it fastens upon Christ; as to its exercise, it is the disciple's own act. (b) Faith designates the act of a sinful man when he accepts Christ from God on God's own terms. It is the first stone of the building, but it is not the foundation. (2) Hope. It is a light shed down from heaven to cheer a dark and troubled scene. It is like moonlight borrowed from the sun to mitigate the darkness, which it cannot dispel. Hope is the tenant, not of a heart that was never broken, but of a heart that has been broken and healed again. (3) Love. Some fragments of this heavenly thing survive the fall and flourish in our nature. It is beautiful even in ruins. But feeble, changeable, and impure is all the love that is born in us. At the best it expatiates on a low level, and expatiates irregularly, intermittently, even there. The love which is strung in with kindred graces in our text is the work of the Spirit in renewed man.
II. The mutual relations of all. Faith leans on Christ, and hope hangs by faith, and love leans on hope. Love, the beauteous top stone on the house of God, could not maintain its place aloft, unless faith resting directly on the rock were surely laid beneath; but it is not the less true, that both its elevation and its beauty are due to the graces of the Spirit, which are piled, course over course, upon faith.
III. The superior magnitude of love. In two distinct aspects love is the greatest of all the graces: (1) in its work on earth, and (2) in its permanence in heaven.
W. Arnot, Roots and Fruits,p. 1.
References: 1 Corinthians 13:13. Homilist,3rd series, vol. i., p. 106; R. W. Church, Church of England Pulpit,vol. xxi., p. 37; E. C. Wickham, Wellington College Sermons,p. 42; G. Salmon, Gnosticism and Agnosticism,p. 205. E. B. Pusey, Parochial Sermons,vol. ii., p. 41; R. W. Church, Advent Sermons,p. 88; E. A. Abbott, Oxford Sermons,p. 86; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons Chiefly Practical,p. 39; Church of England Pulpit,vol. xix., p. 85; L. Campbell, Some Aspects of the Christian Ideal,p. 175; T. J. Crawford, The Preaching of the Cross,p. 342; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 74; R. Tuck, Ibid.,vol. xix., p. 346; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iv., p. 89; vol. viii., pp. 98, 99, 224; W. Dorling, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xx., p. 61; R. W. Church, Ibid.,vol. xxviii., p. 417. 1 Corinthians 13 H. W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. xiv., p. 148; Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 425. 1 Corinthians 14:1. W. Webb Peploe, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 161; R. Tuck, Ibid.,vol. xix., p. 248. 1 Corinthians 14:1-4. F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians,p. 186. 1 Corinthians 14:2-9. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 355. 1 Corinthians 14:10. J. Stannard, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 91; Morlais Jones, Contemporary Pulpit,vol. xv., p. 172. 1 Corinthians 14:12. G. W. McCree, Ibid.,vol. xxvi., p. 231.