When the Perfect Comes: A Fuller Reading of 1 Corinthians 13:8–13

There are passages in Scripture that seem, at first glance, so simple that one wonders why they have caused such controversy. First Corinthians 13:10 is one of them: “But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” Yet around that single line, whole systems have been built, arguments sharpened, and theories defended with more confidence than the text itself will bear. Some have said “that which is perfect” is the completed New Testament canon. Others have said it is the mature condition of the church. Still others have taken it, more broadly and more naturally, as the final state of perfection into which the saints enter at the return of Christ. The question is not trivial. Paul’s point touches not only spiritual gifts, but the entire contrast between the church’s present partial condition and her future fullness.¹

The first thing that must be done is to let Paul speak in his own terms. The Greek text reads: ὅταν δὲ ἔλθῃ τὸ τέλειον, τότε τὸ ἐκ μέρους καταργηθήσεται. Literally rendered, it says, “But when the perfect comes, then the partial will be done away.” The key phrase is τὸ τέλειον. The adjective τέλειος can mean complete, mature, brought to its end, or brought to its intended goal. It does not simply mean “morally flawless” in every context. Here it is set over against τὸ ἐκ μέρους, “the thing in part,” that is, the partial, the fragmentary, the incomplete. That contrast is decisive. Paul is not opposing truth to falsehood, nor inspiration to error. He is opposing what is partial to what is complete.²

That observation already weakens the common claim that Paul is speaking merely of the arrival of the completed canon. The issue in the text is not that the Corinthians have false things now and will later have true things, nor that they have temporary scraps of revelation that will one day be replaced by a bound volume. Rather, Paul says that the present condition of the church is one of incompleteness. Even genuine prophecy and genuine knowledge belong, in their present operation, to an age of partiality. “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.”³ The gifts are real, but they are not the final form of the church’s life. They belong to the dawn, not the noon.

Paul then unfolds that contrast by means of two illustrations, and both are striking. First, he speaks of childhood and adulthood: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”⁴ The point is not that childhood is evil, but that it is incomplete. Childhood has its proper place, but it is not the goal. A child’s speech is real speech, a child’s thought is real thought, and a child’s understanding is real understanding. Yet all of it is marked by limitation. So too with the present state of the church. Her knowledge is true, but not full. Her apprehension is real, but not mature. She has light, but still mixed with shadows.

Then Paul gives the second illustration, and this one is even more decisive: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.” The Greek is vivid: ἄρτι δι’ ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι, τότε δὲ πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον. “Now through a mirror, in an enigma; but then face to face.”⁵ Ancient mirrors did not give the crisp clarity of modern glass. The image was indirect, dim, and somewhat obscure. Paul says that this is the church’s present condition. She sees, but through mediation and obscurity. She knows, but in riddle-form. Yet the future he sets over against that is not merely fuller information. It is directness. It is immediacy. It is “face to face.”

That expression is not easily reduced to the possession of the completed New Testament canon. The Scriptures are perfect, inspired, sufficient, and necessary. But no one can seriously say that because the canon is complete the church now sees Christ face to face. We still walk by faith, not by sight.⁶ We still groan within ourselves, waiting for the redemption of the body.⁷ We still hope for what we do not yet see.⁸ The completed canon has not abolished our present state of partiality in the sense Paul describes here. It has immeasurably enriched and stabilized the church, yes. It has given the church the full written revelation God intended for this age. But it has not brought the saints into immediate, unveiled perfection.

Paul confirms this in the next clause: “Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” The verb γινώσκω appears first in the present: “I know in part.” Then Paul uses the future middle ἐπιγνώσομαι, “I shall know fully” or “I shall know more completely.”⁹ The comparison that follows must be handled with reverence and care: “even as also I am known.” Paul is not saying that he will become omniscient. The creature will never possess the infinite knowledge of God. That would be absurd. But he is saying that the mode of his knowing will be transformed. It will no longer be partial, indirect, and riddling in the way it is now. His future knowledge will correspond to the fullness of that future state. In other words, Paul speaks of consummation, not merely information.

The broader flow of Scripture points in the same direction. John says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”¹⁰ That is the same pattern: present sonship, present incompleteness, future appearing, future likeness, future direct sight. Paul elsewhere says that now we walk by faith, not by sight.¹¹ He also says that our citizenship is in heaven, “from whence also we look for the Saviour,” who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.¹² The New Testament consistently presents the church as living between promise and fulfillment, between firstfruits and harvest, between earnest and inheritance.¹³ First Corinthians 13 belongs to that same rhythm.

Some have tried to make “the perfect” refer to the maturing of the church in history rather than to the final state of glory. That view has more plausibility than the canon theory, because it at least recognizes that Paul is speaking about fullness rather than about a book. But it still does not rise to the height of Paul’s language. Has the church in history ever reached a state that could properly be described as “face to face”? Has she ever ceased to know in part? Has she ever left behind the dimness of the mirror? To ask the question is nearly to answer it. The church on earth remains militant. She is holy, but still battling sin. She is enlightened, but still waiting. She has communion with Christ, but not yet by open sight. She has the Spirit, but still longs for the day when faith gives way to vision.

This also explains why Paul’s point is not simply about identifying the cessation point of certain gifts. His aim in 1 Corinthians 13 is far more pastoral and far more searching. The Corinthians were fascinated by what dazzled. They loved the spectacular, the public, the sensational. Paul does not deny the reality of gifts; he subordinates them. He places prophecy, tongues, and knowledge beneath something greater—love. “Charity never faileth.”¹⁴ Prophecies shall fail. Tongues shall cease. Knowledge, in its present partial mode, shall vanish away. But love abides. Love belongs not merely to the scaffolding of the present age, but to the very architecture of the age to come.

That is why verse 13 must be read carefully: “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”¹⁵ Paul is drawing a contrast between temporary gifts and the abiding graces that characterize the Christian life. Faith, hope, and love are not momentary flashes. They belong to the enduring substance of Christian existence. Yet even among these, love is greatest. Why? Because faith looks toward sight, hope looks toward possession, but love is already the very pulse of heavenly life. Faith will be crowned in sight. Hope will be crowned in fulfillment. Love will remain love still, only purified, enlarged, and freed from all corruption.

So what then is “that which is perfect”? It is best understood as the final state of consummation when the saints shall be with Christ in unveiled fullness. It is the eschatological completion toward which all present partiality moves. It is not merely a completed document, though we give thanks for the completed Scriptures. It is not merely a mature stage of church history, though the Lord has indeed nurtured his church across the ages. It is the perfection of the age to come, when Christ appears, when the saints are glorified, when knowledge is no longer mediated through the dim mirror of present weakness, and when the partial instruments of this age pass away because their purpose has been fulfilled.¹⁶

There is something deeply comforting in that. Paul is not merely solving a theological puzzle. He is lifting the eyes of the church beyond her present weakness. The Christian now lives in the realm of ἐκ μέρους, “in part.” He knows truly, but not fully. He sees truly, but not directly. He loves truly, but with remaining corruption. His prayers are often halting. His mind is often clouded. His understanding is often fragmentary. But none of that is final. The present age is not the finished form of the Christian life. There is a day coming when all that is partial shall give way to what is complete. The mirror shall be set aside. The riddle shall be answered. The child shall become the man. And the believer, still a creature and never divine, shall nevertheless stand in a state of perfected communion before his Lord.

The grandeur of the passage, then, lies not merely in what it says about gifts, but in what it says about hope. Paul reminds the church that all her most precious present realities are still only anticipatory. Even the highest gifts of the apostolic age belonged to the realm of incompletion. They were candles, and blessed candles, but not the sun. When the sun rises, candles do not become wicked; they simply become unnecessary. So too with the partial means of this present order. They belong to a world of waiting. But the waiting will not last forever.

There is a holy tenderness in that promise. We are not abandoned to fragments forever. Christ will not leave his people in riddles. The day of partial sight will yield to open vision. The age of groaning will yield to glory. The language of “now” will yield to the brightness of “then.” And in that final state, love—the grace which already bears the stamp of heaven—will not be discarded with the scaffolding, but will remain. It will remain because it belongs to God’s own life and likeness in his people. In that sense, the whole passage is a rebuke to pride and a consolation to weakness. The proud are told that even their brightest gifts are temporary. The weak are told that their present dimness is not final.

Paul’s meaning, therefore, is not small or mechanical. He is not giving the church a narrow chronological code. He is drawing her heart out of the childish fascination with what sparkles and into the mature longing for what lasts. He is teaching her to value love above display, permanence above excitement, fulfillment above fragments, and Christ’s coming perfection above every temporary instrument of the present age. “When that which is perfect is come,” all partial things will bow and disappear. Not because they were evil, but because they were preparatory. Not because they were false, but because they were incomplete. And when that day comes, the church will not mourn the loss of the mirror. She will rejoice in her face.

Endnotes

1. 1 Cor. 13:8–13. ↩︎
2. 2 1 Cor. 13:10. On τέλειον as “complete,” “mature,” or “brought to its intended end,” compare its broad semantic force in contexts such as Matt. 5:48, 1 Cor. 2:6, Eph. 4:13, and Jas. 1:4. ↩︎
3. 3 1 Cor. 13:9. ↩︎
4. 4 1 Cor. 13:11. ↩︎
5. 5 1 Cor. 13:12. ↩︎
6. 6 2 Cor. 5:7. ↩︎
7. 7 Rom. 8:23. ↩︎
8. 8 Rom. 8:24–25. ↩︎
9. 9 1 Cor. 13:12. ↩︎
10. 10 1 John 3:2. ↩︎
11. 11 2 Cor. 5:7. ↩︎
12. 12 Phil. 3:20–21. ↩︎
13. 13 Eph. 1:13–14; Rom. 8:23. ↩︎
14. 14 1 Cor. 13:8. ↩︎
15. 15 1 Cor. 13:13. ↩︎
16. 16 Compare 1 Cor. 1:7–8; 15:49–54; Col. 3:4; 1 Thess. 4:16–17. ↩︎