You may agree with me or you may not agree. BIBLICAL STUDY ON 1 CORINTHIANS 13:10 I.INTRODUCTION “But when the perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.” The particular word “perfection” in this verse is a big issue in Christendom since it has been debated by many different denominations from different perspectives and is still debated until today. Since the human beings are complex to know the word of God, this particular word “perfection” has brought many views. There are at least three major views: The completion of Canon, the second coming of Christ, and Maturity of the body of Christ. a. Need of Study In many situation and area of doctrinal issues within the church or outside the church, nominal Christians are mostly forced to believe what they really do not believe in their conscious. The author personally believe that the true researcher are lesser generally 10% than the people who hold a doctrine. People usually give their ear to the people who can speak and write upon any doctrine and easily believe without doing any research or reasoning. Even though there is a lot of diversity in the Christendom, the real doctrinal issues are within the few of opponents. Many people are following the wrong doctrine without realizing why he/she stand on it. Such kind of situation rings the bell to do research on what and why “believe.” 1 Corinthians 13:10 is also one of the issue the Church face today and is needed to do proper research to conclude with the biblical answer. b. Scope and limitation of the study Whether the Spiritual gifts are still exist today or not is a big debate among many of the ecumenical movements. 1 Corinthians 13:10 is a difficult passage what all Christians never find unanimity. As the time and the paper are limited, the author will do the research only on the gift of tongues in relation to cessation as far as the word “perfection” is concerned. c. Purpose of the study Firstly, the author’s aim is to know that truth of God by doing this research so that it would make the right way of approaching to God. Second, it is also the objective to distinguish the true teaching and false teaching of the theologians. Lastly, the enthusiasm is extended to pass the true doctrine to others after doing a careful investigation. II. THE STUDY ON THE WORD PERFECTION a. The use of the word perfect in the Bible The word “perfect” can be found in the Bible several times. For example, in Deuteronomy 32:4, it says, “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” It is talking about the perfection of God. Free Online Bible study mentions that we find the word perfect 48 times in New International Version. Studying carefully on the word “perfection”, the endeavor will come to know that it does not only refer to God, but also refers to God’s word and even Satan. However, it always refers to blameless. In Genesis 17:1, Abraham was asked to walk and live perfect, “When Abraham was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, I am the Almighty God; walk and live habitually before Me and be perfect (blameless, wholehearted, complete).” Whenever the Bible uses the word “perfection”, it always stresses that something/someone who/which is indicated is totally blameless and completely perfect. Therefore, blameless can be used as the team for perfection. b. The Original Meaning of the Word Perfect The word “perfect’’ mentioned in 1Corinthains 13:10 is originally rooted from the Greek word teleion which is Adjective, Neuter, Singular, Nominative, No degree. The word teleion is translated as mature, complete and perfect. One of the online post presents the meaning of perfect like this; Teleion is the neuter form of teleios, which the Greek lexicons tell us means complete as opposed to incomplete, mature as opposed to immature, final (form), whole, perfect, full as opposed to partly full. In 1 Tim 1:16, Paul uses the word perfect, “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” It means, “being entirely without fault or defect or satisfying all requirements.” However, the word teleion used in this verse is closer to “MATURE.” c. Relation to the cessation of Spiritual gifts No doubt the word perfect in 1 Corinthians 13:10 has to deal with the spiritual gift since the context is talking about it. In this verse, we can find three kinds of spiritual gifts; prophecy, knowledge and tongues. Perhaps this verse is the only reference that tells about the cessation regarding the spiritual gifts. Nevertheless, it is hard to know when the time cease will happen. III. VIEWS ON PERFECTION a. The completion of Canon Most of fundamental and liberal group of people say that the world perfection mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13:10 refers to the completion the New Testament Canon because we have full revelation of God in our hands. They claim that we do not need more revelation from God. It is also good to know whether the tongue is used for the revelation of God. Someone has stated like this: I believe that both the Greek and the context of 1 Corinthians 13:10 do not lend to the idea that Jesus or heaven are in mind. Instead, the gender neutral THING that the Holy Spirit indicates is the completed Word, the Bible. According to him, those who are speaking in tongues are just claiming themselves without any proof. Moreover, he never knows any people who are speaking in tongues. The question is what if there are some body speaking in tongues in front of him. b. Maturity of Church This view interprets the word perfection is that to teleion means maturity, and that tongues, prophecy (etc.) would end when the church reached maturity in love and knowledge of God. However, the love and knowledge of the Church is so far from maturity. c. The second coming of Christ This view is based on the phrase face to face in 1 Corinthians 13:12 which taught that the perfection refers to when Jesus Christ will return to the earth. If it is the case, then why there should be the war any more between God and Satan. III. THE ARGUEMTNS TO VIEWS ON PERFECTION The word perfection has precisely been explained what it means grammatically and biblically. After studying the word perfection, an endeavor can say that perfection mentioned in 1 Corinthians 13:10 has not come yet. Someone cannot deal perfection only with the completion of the Canon New Testament, Maturity of the Church and the Second coming of Christ. It has to do comparison with the present time whether perfect or imperfect. a. Gospel is still needed to be reach the unreached There are many places where the good news is needed to be reached out. People may hear the word “Christ” without knowing who He is. Jesus commanded us to go and preach the good news about Him to the entire world until he comes. Sadly, the extension of reaching the gospel to the unreached still demands great obligation to the Christians. b. Not all Christian are mature The purpose of the spiritual gifts is for the immature Christians and the infant church. As long as the Christian are immature, the term “perfect” which means “Mature” can never be used to apply in the context of this verse what is to come. c. Politic, Economic and Social are imperfect No politic, economic and social development is perfect. In fact, there are always civil wars within a country. Diversity among the politics party are increased. There are always against from one country to another country. These all are happened because of imperfect political movements. In the same way, economic is severely affected the people. It is hard to see the inequality of human’s living style. Some people are very rich when some people are starving. The rich become richer and richer and the poor become poorer and poorer. Many people cannot be educated themselves because of financial problem in the family. It is because of imperfect economic. Social in the society or the country, people are different if some people are animal. Some people are treated even lesser than dog. It is hard to say that the social is perfect. Therefore, having such kinds of imperfection in this world, how can someone say that the perfection in 1 Corinthians 13:10 has come and completed now? The reaching of gospel is still in incomplete. The church needs to be mature more. The political, economical and social movements are still yet to correct. V. WHAT PERFECTION IS It is good to say that there is no more speaking in tongues today if we have strong evidence from the Bible that prove no body speaks in tongues today. However, we see many people speaking in whether tongues genuine or not genuine. Of course, we cannot say that this tongue is genuine or not genuine unless we speak ourselves or have relationship with the person who has ever spoken. That is why experimental explanation has stood strongly to prove there are still exist. Some New Testament Scholar will say that the term “perfect” is a middle voice which means the gift of tongue will cease by itself. The question is when it will be ceased by itself. When perfection comes? So when is perfection? Going back to the views upon the word perfection, one may get suggestion or solution for this issue. As the view on the completion of Canon, W. E. Vine, in his An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, believes that the complete is referring to the complete revelation of God’s will and ways, whether in the completed Scriptures or in the hereafter. The word perfection is impossible to be built on this dogmatic view because People do not understand the Bible as a whole. If the word perfection is to be understood as the completion of the Canon, people should clearly and fully understand the words of God without any help. Ryrie said, “If it did so, then the Bible would teach that we who are living in the time after the canon was closed would see more clearly than Paul did (v.12).” Max Turner also stressed, “There is no evidence that Paul expected the formation of the canon the death of apostles.” Another view, which refers the second coming of Christ, also has the weakness to approve as perfection. The weakness of this is that when Jesus comes to the earth, there will be still war between God and Satan (but Satan will be defeated). The view on Maturity of the Church also has the same problem since the maturity of the Church has not come yet to perfection. In Romans12:2, it says that “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. We are asked to test whether acceptable or not acceptable. Unfortunately, many of Christians bring the discussion to conclusion without testing what really it means. Anyhow, the author is scared of making dogmatic statement on this verse whether this speaking in tongues is really still exit or not. J. Oswald Sanders says It is generally admitted that it is impossible for anyone to prove experimentally that genuine speaking in tongues cannot occur today. In the absence of categorical scriptural guidance, we can only offer an opinion as to the probability or improbability of what God will or will not do. However, the best answer the author probably can offer for the word “perfect” in this verse is as the perfect New heaven and New earth where all Believer will see God face to face as Paul has hinted in v.12. The things what are been seeing are not clear enough now. Human’s understanding is so limited. However, believers are going to see and know perfectly when the perfection comes. This perfection will be only from God, not from men because God alone is perfect. So the real perfections in New Heaven and New Earth are as follow: a. Perfect City The city will come down form God Himself. The new heaven and new earth will replace the old ones (2 pet 3:10). In that perfect city, there will be no more corruption of political, economical, and social moments since God Himself will be the ruler. There will be like the first days when everything was perfect before man fell into sin. Therefore Keener stresses in his commentary, The new Jerusalem, an Old Testament image (Isa 65:18), had become a standard Jewish hope for the future, whether as a renewed and purified Jerusalem (Tobit, *Psalms of Solomon) or (as here) a new city from above (probably *4 Ezra); a city "from above" would be perfect, having been built by God himself. b. Perfect Life Whenever the word perfection is used, it always emphasize on the blameless. John wrote in the book of Revelation, saying, “There will be no more death or mourning, crying, or pain, for the old order or things has passed away” (Rev.21:4). The old thing refers to the imperfect world where now we live. If one person have to conclude the word perfection in relation to views on completion of the Canon, Maturity of the Church and even the second coming of Christ, why is the war exist which is painful and bitter for people. When the perfection comes, there will be no more war. c. Perfect Knowledge As Paul has already stated, that believers will see Him face to face and know fully about Him. There will be no more secret in heaven what believers would not know. Joseph S. Exell said, “Therefore our knowledge will be thorough; through and through.” All believers are going to have the perfect knowledge about God when the time perfection comes. VI. CONCLUSION The biblical study on the 1 Corinthians 13: 10 brings precise insight upon the doctrine debate for what reason. Every view is based on the understanding of the endeavors. However, in order to bring conclusion upon this topic, the author has chosen the Biblical view. There is no way of choosing any other meaning rather than the New Heaven and New Earth for the word “perfection” because this new heaven and new earth only will be the perfect universe politically, socially and economically since it will be ruled by God Himself. In New Heaven and Earth, perfect ruling, perfect peace and joy are for the believers. There will be no need of speaking in tongues at that time because there will be no need of sign and edification since everybody will have full measure of knowledge about God. Nothing is going to be secret. Moreover, on that time, there will be no more pain and sorrow. Every believer will have the glorify body and will be perfectly have joy and peace. The reason why completion of the Canon, Maturity of the Church and the second coming of Christ are impossible to refer the word “perfection” is the imperfect natures of its.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 07:25:49 +0000
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