Most of us have heard the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians read aloud at weddings. Its dubbed “The Love Chapter”, as love is its main topic. Hence, a good scripture to share during a service of holy matrimony.
The last verse, verse 13, ends the chapter without giving any reason for its bold conclusion. Here it is:
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
This struck me that why is “love” greater than either “faith” or “hope”?
In the case of “faith”, the one common definition is “strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion”. In Hebrews 11:1, there is another biblical definition of faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. In the instance in which faith is required, it fills the gap between our desired outcome and our present state or circumstance. We place faith mostly in others – people, processes and systems – albeit we are let down from time to time. We have faith in people as our friend coming to pick us up in time to share a ride to work, systems like our political process in the United States (or not?) or in systems such as the power grid so we’ll have electricity in our homes. Faith requires the assumption of risk on the part of the one who believes, and we give it to others which leaves us exchanging our faith for hope.
Hope is what we’re left with when we offer our faith. We may not yet have our desired outcome, we believe (or have faith) it will happen, and we cling to hope while we wait. We hope our mother ailing with a terminal disease shows improvement. We hope our annual review at work goes well and we get an increase in compensation and we hope our team wins the championship.
In each case we give faith and cling to hope:
- We have faith in the doctors and hope mom’s health improves
- We have faith in our supervisor and company employing us and hope we get a raise
- We have faith in our coaching staff and players and hope we win a championship
Hope requires faith. Yet, hope is risky. Hope let’s us down. Hope is not 100%, not all the time. We are disappointed, hurt and left holding the bag sometimes when we hope.
So, love is the greater than either faith or hope? Why?
Remember in the verse the word “abide” as in “So now faith, hope, and love abide…”? A synonym for abide is to “continue”. So, all three, faith, hope and love continue for eternity. Love is also mentioned in other verses in the text, including verse seven:
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Love “believes” all things, with belief and faith being synonymous. And “hopes all things” is also mentioned in a subordinate way to love along with faith. Love is stated to be eternal, the only one of the three in verse eight (a):
Could it be that love, which existed with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit before the beginning of time, then extends into eternity with no end is therefore the greatest? Faith and hope need not exist until the Creation where humans were given the capacity for both. Can you imagine a life with neither faith nor hope?
So, love, the greatest of these, transcending time, emanating from a Triune God, upon which both faith and hope both are lesser but clung to by humankind until we reap in full this promise made by Jesus:
Richard Bahr 