by A.W. Tozer
A few days ago I heard a man speak on First Corinthians 13, the familiar love chapter of the New Testament. His message pointed up a modern heresy against which I have often warned and about which I now consider it my duty to write a few words.
The preacher was not a cultist, but an evangelical and a Fundamentalist. Undoubtedly, he would have given his right eye rather than teach false doctrine or otherwise injure the souls of his hearers. Nevertheless, I believe he was injuring them and teaching false doctrine into the bargain.
The heart of his message appeared to be that the description of love in that Corinthian chapter applies to our Lord Jesus Christ. And of course it was easy to prove that it does. "Christ suffereth long, and is kind; Christ envieth not; Christ vaunteth not Himself, is not puffed up, does not behave Himself unseemly, seeketh not His own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil?" and so to the end of the chapter.
Now, no Christian would deny that Jesus Christ, being very God of very God, has in Himself all moral virtues in full perfection. God is love and Christ is God, so it follows that anything that can be said of love can be said also of Christ. But to make Paul's words describe Christ is to read into them a meaning Paul never intended, which of course is to introduce error into the interpretation of Scripture. And the error is not one of interpretation merely; it has practical and serious consequences in that it ignores the solemn warning of the chapter and relieves us of all obligation to seek and obtain the love of God in our own hearts.
Just what is Paul telling us in this thirteenth chapter of his first Corinthian epistle? That love is absolutely indispensable to the Christian life. The gift of tongues without love is so much noise. The gift of prophecy without love is of no benefit. Without love, knowledge and faith are useless. And though a man bestow all his goods to feed the poor and die at last a martyr's death, if he have not love it profits him nothing. So Paul states in the first three verses, after which he describes love and identifies it so the reader will know what kind of person he must be to escape an unprofitable, empty and deceived existence.
Paul's analysis of love is not intended to tell us what kind of being Christ is, but what kind of person a real Christian must be. That these virtues are all in Christ, I repeat, is the common belief of all Christians, but they were not listed in the inspired Word to teach us that. So to hold and teach is to play a shoddy trick on our own souls and on the souls of our hearers.
Perhaps a homemade illustration may help. What does "health" mean for a man? Well, it means a pulse rate of seventy two, a body temperature of 98.6 degrees, a blood count of 5,000 white cells and 5,000,000 red cells per cubic millimeter, a respiration rate of twenty at rest, thirty percent solids to seventy percent water body composition, and so on. Any doctor could carry this on until he had described the man of ideal health.
The thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians may tell us what Christ is like, but let us not forget that it also tells us what we must be like to avoid spiritual tragedy. Let us not turn our back on this critically important teaching. Without love, the kind described by Paul, my whole Christian life is a barren fig tree. It's a neat trick to apply Paul's words to Christ only; but it isn't honest and it is dangerous.
It is the Holy Spirit who sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts (Romans 5:5) and love is declared to be a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). But if our daily lives reveal that the fruit is not there we dare not assume that it is-"because the Bible says so." The absence of love as described in First Corinthians 13 is proof of the absence of the Spirit, or at least that He is inoperative within us. That's the only honest conclusion. We can't afford to be less than candid about the whole thing.
( Article taken from The Price of Neglect, Chapter 35 )
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