"And now these three remain......"

(Written May 16, 2012)

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- I Corinthians 13:13

I am absolutely entranced, enchanted, fascinated and insatiably intrigued by the way the Bible WORDS things. It has a way of reaching out to your heart, pulling you by the heartstrings and saying to you, "isn't this the truth? and how did I know you were thinking about this?"

The context of this absolutely pivotal and significant verse is what Paul has been saying to the Corinthian church about love. It yanks the word out of the miry depths into which the Corinthian world had buried it, and sets it up as an unreachable ideal, stressing that unless we aspire to the unreachable, we will get nowhere. When Paul is done with what he has said about love, love has become such a pure thing that the reader will want absolutely no impurity to be associated with it. It is an "aha" moment for the Corinthian church.

This verse has been on my mind for a few months now, very strangely. I even went out and searched for a song that specifically explains this verse, which I hope to do with our church choir soon:)

One of the things that slowly came clear to me is that these three are 1) inextricably linked to each other, and none can truly exist without the other 2) Neither faith nor hope can truly breed if there is no love 3) All three are intangible. I believe that these thoughts have important implications for me.

There can be no faith without love; there can be no love without faith. And both faith and love need to exist, if there is to be any (tangible) hope at all. Faith and love are handmaidens; together, they inculcate a sense of hope which is so powerful that it helps us overcome handsomely ANYTHING the evil one throws at us.

Faith without love is suffocating legalism. Love without faith is hypocritical. Faith or love without hope is inhuman. Hope without faith and love is impossible and a delusion.

If we have faith, it is because God first loved us. If we have hope, it is because we have faith in God who first loved us. If we have love, we have faith in God and hope for the age to come.

In the Corinthian church, probably mooring the word "love" inextricably with its two handmaidens faith and hope was a totally new concept. It was absolutely an eye-opener to realise that true love cannot exist unless we have faith in God, and that this gives us hope not just for this world but also in the age to come. The Corinthians were well-known for their purely earthly definitions of 'love'. In their view, it was possible for love to exist all by itself. By mooring love with faith and hope, Paul was indeed opening their eyes to new vistas and an altogether heavenly vantage point.

We need this so much today too!!!!! Why?

Because in our world today, if something is intangible, it is assumed to not exist. If it cannot be observed, described, measured, proven, demonstrated, seen, touched, felt, in fact, if it doesn't show up on any dial, scientific or even emotional, then we are exhorted to consider whether it exists at all.

Notice a few things about these three intangible things - 1) all of them have to do not only with the age we're living in, but more primarily in a future time and place 2) though intangible, they are the only things that "REMAIN" (v.13) - that is, when all is said and done, and our lives on earth are complete, all that will truly 'remain indelibly' for future generations is whether we had faith in God who loved us, and whether we attained our hope in Christ. Three intangibles, inextricably linked, are all that remain from our lives for eternity.

Lots of us think our world is WYSIWYG - 'what you see is what you get'. We do not suspect that there might be any reality beyond the physical that we see. Though there is evidence that God exists, that a spiritual reality exists, that the evil one exists, and there is a cosmic spiritual battle going on, which affects life on earth in many significant ways, the average person does not consider the existence of an unseen spiritual reality. And yet, faith, hope and love ultimately have to do with the spiritual reality. It is there that they become tangible. In the physical world, they cannot be proved to exist as entities. In essence, Paul is also exhorting us to consider our spirituality. Do we have faith? if so, in whom or in what? Do we hope for true eternal life? And do we respond in love to God's unfathomable, first, amazing love for us? If not, what do we achieve in our physical lives that will ultimately "REMAIN"?

Sometimes I feel Christianity is extremely simple. Have faith in God, who provides an imperishable hope for us through His love for us in Christ Jesus. If we live this way, we will impact life on this planet significantly and our faith, hope and love will REMAIN as testimonies to those who come after us.

The "greatest" of the things that "REMAIN" is LOVE - God's love for us in Christ Jesus, and whether we responded to His love so lavishly poured out on us through His grace. God's love is the greatest, because it is the point where we come in to the picture. If we did not know His love, it would be difficult to have faith and understand the hope God provides for us in eternity. God's love is also the greatest, because it is the only remotely tangible thing among the three - faith cannot usually be proved, there is no guarantee of hope realised, but we can feel, know and respond to God's love while we live.

Consider His love. Consider how He steadfastly searched for us (remember the lost coin? the lost son?) and remember where and how He found us. Consider how He places His arms around us and carries the lambs among us upon His shoulders.

Look up beyond what you see. Can you feel God's love? Do you have faith in God? Do you know the hope He provides for us in eternity?

In the verses just before verse 13, Paul says, For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

This speaks of a spiritual reality where we will fully know, as we ourselves are fully known. There will come a day when the only reality we know will be the spiritual one. In that day, our faith in God, hope for eternity and God's love for us and our response will be all there is, because only these three "REMAIN". Are we ready for that day? That's the only question that matters while we live in the physical realm.