When That Which Is Perfect Is Come

When That Which Is Perfect Is Come "WHEN THAT WHICH IS PERFECT IS COME"
1 Corinthians 13:10.
GEORGE A. KLINGMAN This passage is understood by some to have reference to the completed will of God, or the completion of the New Testament revelation. Some who hold this view further assert that "the perfect law of liberty", mentioned in James 1:25, refers to the same thing.

Neither Paul nor James had in mind "the comple­tion of God's will". This can be clearly shown from the context. But let us first observe the following considera­tions: The epistle of James was written about A. D. 50, nearly fifty years before all of the books of the New Testament were written. Surely James intended that those to whom the epistle was sent should look into the law of liberty, the perfect law, and to continue therein, being not forgetful hearers, but doers of the word. In other words, the Christians who lived when this letter was written had "the perfect law, the law of liberty". Paul wrote I Corinthians in 56 or 57, more than twenty years after Pentecost. Did all those who obeyed the gospel during these twenty or more years, have only a partial knowledge of the will of God? Moreover, the New Testament was not completed until about A. D. 98 or 100, when John wrote the Book of Revelation. Was he the only one of the apostles who had the "perfect law of liberty"? and when he finished writing this book of prophecy did that which is perfect come? If so, then we have this strange situation: That the will of God was imperfectly revealed during the life time of Christ's apostles, with the exception of John, and from this it follows that they preached an incomplete gospel; that those who now have access to the New Testament know more than Paul knew when he wrote I Corinthians, and that we can see clearly that which he saw "in a mirror darkly". Let us read carefully James 1:19-25. The writer exhorts those addressed to "receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls", and then he shows that one must be a "doer of the word" if he would be blessed! if he is a forgetful hearer he is compared with a man who takes a glance- look at himself in a mirror and passes on forgetting what manner of man he was; but if he is a doer that worketh, he is represented as a man who "looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty" and "continues" therein. The gospel of God, with all its requirements and command­ments, precious promises and glorious liberty, is here set forth as a mirror into which we must continue looking by a faithful performance of our duty.

Any and all who heard the gospel from Pentecost on, had the perfect law of liberty in Christ, and James is just calling attention to it and the necessity of con­tinuing therein; and that law is no more complete nor perfect now than it was when first inaugurated on Pente­cost after Christ's resurrection and ascension; those who lived in the days of the inspired apostles were fortunate in having the living presence of men who were inspired of God, and whose preaching was shown to be of God through signs and wonders which they wrought "in the name of Jesus"; we are fortunate in having the inspired record of their preaching and teaching, handed down from generation to generation, and are profiting today through the written word even as those of other days depended (largely) upon the spoken word often accompanied by miraculous demonstrations. When the gospel was first preached it was a "new thing"; and the question that arose in the minds of the people was whether it came from God or from men; and this question has been definitely answered for all time to come. The writer of the Hebrew letter sets forth the greatness of our salvation through Christ by showing that it was at the first "spoken through the Lord", then it "was confirmed unto us by them that heard; God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will". Hebrews 2:3-4. Who could justly ask for more proof than this? This was God's way of establishing the facts and truths of the gospel by giving his own testimony which was believed then and is to be believed today through the words of the apostles. In the seventeenth chapter of John Jesus is recorded as praying for them that believe on Him through their (the apostles') word. (John 17:20). Whenever God's testimony is thus given, sustained by supernatural manifestations, it is evil to demand more signs. It is not more miracles that people need today— it is faith in the Christ through the miracles of which we have the record. John writes on this point as follows: "These (things) were written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye may have life in his name". (John 20:31). We have not only Moses and the prophets but we have Christ and the apostles, and if one will not hear these, neither would he be persuaded, if one should rise from the dead. See Luke 16:31.

Thus God has ever wrought with the human family. When he called Moses to deliver the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage, he gave hint the power to work miracles, proving that God had sent him. When Elijah or any of the prophets had an important work to do— especially when the fact of Jehovah's authority or su­premacy was involved, there was the Divine demonstration of the miraculous. So it was in the case of Jesus; throughout all his ministry he "did many mighty works", and he cites these as proof of his Messiahship (John 5:36). And thus were the apostles "endued with power from on high" so that all men may know assuredly that they were divinely commissioned. For this same reason were the various "spiritual gifts" granted to some in the early days of the. church. Tongues as a sign for the unbelieving and prophesying, "to them that believe". (1 Corinthians 14:22).'

When, however, the divinely established law of the kingdom was made known to all creation under heaven, and the church set in full working order by the apostles and others who learned of them, and who were to "commit to faithful men" the things which they had learned, and when the miraculously attested word was committed to writing for the use of all the churches, miracles and spiritual gifts were no longer needed. The New Testa­ment scriptures constitute an all-sufficient guide in all matters of faith and practice. "For every scripture in­spired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, which is in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, furnished com­pletely unto every good work". (2 Timothy 3:16.) Those who are seeking for signs today, after all that God has done for them, are either ignorant of God's plain teaching, or belong to the class referred to by the Savior when he said, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet, etc." (Matthew 12:39 ff). Were there no other sign but the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, that would be sufficient to convince any honest mind that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God. See 1 Corinthians 15; Romans 1:4; etc. We have accounts of many miracles and John tells us that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, but the things that have been written are amply sufficient to produce faith that is unto the saving of the soul. Well may we sing:

"How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent word;
What more can He say than to you He has said,
You who unto Jesus for refuge have fleet." From the above considerations it is evident that we do not need miracles nor miraculous gifts today; that sinners may be saved now without the aid of the miracu­lous and that the church may be edified without the use of the spiritual gifts enjoyed by some Christians in the beginning of the Christian era.

Let us next consider the context in which we find the words of our text. Beginning with 1 Corinthians 11:2 and continuing through the 14th chapter, Paul is dealing with disorders in the Public Worship of the church. In chapter 12 he shows the utility of spiritual gifts in the edification of the church; but the church at Corinth was divided into parties; they had contentions among themselves; there was envy and strife and with all their wonderful gifts the church was not being edified as it should have been. In 1 Corinthians 11:12, Paul says: "So also ye, since ye are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may abound unto the edify­ing of the church"; and in verse 26 he says, "Let all things be done unto edifying". Now the most excellent way to do this is through Love. Paul does not minimize the value of spiritual gifts, but he exalts Love as mani­festing the more excellent way. In the Kith chapter the value of Love is shown: (1) Negatively by its absence from the exercise of spiritual gifts—"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mys­teries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." (2) Its value is shown by its absence from self-sacrifice: "And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing". (3) Its superior greatness is shown by its attributes: "Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not account of evil; rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things". (4) It is superior to spiritual gifts because the use of spiritual gifts is temporary while love is eternal: "Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done away." The temporary use of spiritual gifts is further emphasized by the fact that in a state of perfection that which is partial ("in part") will not be necessary and will therefore "be done away": "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away". Paul then gives two illustrations of this point. First, that of a child contrasted with full-grown (perfect) manhood: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things". Surely this could not possibly refer to the "childhood age of the church" during the lifetime of the apostles, and the perfected "manhood age of the church" of our own time.

Paul is simply showing by analogy that in a state of perfection that which is limited is done away. The second illustration presents the picture of a man looking into a mirror or through a glass darkly (the original word bears the idea of "a riddle" or an "enigma") while he is in this creaturely condition, limited by his human imperfections; but "when that which is perfect is come", when he shall have been delivered out of the bondage of this corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God, he will see "face to face". "Be­loved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that if he (or "it") shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is".

"Face to face with Christ my Savior,
Face to face how can it be;
When with rapture I behold him,
Jesus Christ who died for me?
Only faintly, now I see Him,
With the darkling veil between;
Rut a blessed day is coming,
When His glory shall be seen.
Face to face shall I behold Him,
Far beyond the starry sky;
Face to face in all His glory,
[ shall see Him by and by."

Following these illustrations through which the apostle seems to have transported himself in thought into the very presence of God's glory, he says of himself, "now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as I was fully known". Can there be any question in the mind of any one as to what the "now" and the "then" refers? All you have to do is to turn back to verses 9 and 10 and the context makes it perfectly clear. It would be the worst form of "destructive criticism" to assume that the apostle Paul knew "in part" that which we now "know fully"; that through the exercise of our fallible faculties we could read the New Testament scrip­tures and know more than that great inspired hero of God knew nearly nineteen hundred years ago! What a blessed thing it would be if the world today had the knowledge of that perfect plan of salvation preached by the apostles from the very beginning of the Christian Dispensation on that great day of Pentecost? Yes, if all who profess to be true, loyal Christians had that knowledge! What a glorious state of affairs would exist in this world of ours, if all Christians would "look into the perfect law of liberty", which they had in the days of James, (nearly fifty years before all of the books of New Testament were written) and would all "continue therein" by being faithful "doers of the word"!!!

Surely, when Paul made use of the expression, "When that which is perfect is come", there was not the remotest thought in his mind about the perfected "will of God" through further revelation nor did he even intimate that the "law of liberty" would not be complete or perfect until the rest of the books of the New Testa­ment should have been written; but by "that which is perfect" he had reference to the final consummation of all things in Christ Jesus, when all our limitations and imperfections and temporary gifts shall give place to absolute perfection; when faith, as regards its historic element which depends upon testimony, shall turn to "sight", but as regards its trust element shall abide; when hope, having reached that for which it patiently waited, shall "turn to glad fruition"—but in its glorified desires and new expectations, shall continue forever; when love, look­ing upon its holiest object, shall be satisfied, but in its un­hampered, liberated, perfect form and expression, shall prove itself to be the greatest of all abiding principles.