What did Paul mean in 1 Corinthians 13:8 "whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away?"
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
1 Corinthians 13:1 - 13
ESV - 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
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Asked June 12 2022
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Jack Gutknecht
Supporter
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Tim Maas
Supporter
I would say that Paul is expressing the idea that, in the context of eternity (when time no longer exists and we are forever in God's presence), knowledge will have passed away because everything that can be known will be known, or will have been discovered or revealed. (As Paul said immediately following the verse cited in the question, "For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. For now we see only a 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.") But even in that environment of complete awareness, love will continue to exist between God and the redeemed, and among the redeemed themselves.
Shirley H
Supporter
Ephesians 3:17 - 19: "So that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then planted in love and built on love, with all God's Holy people you will have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth, so that, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond knowledge, you may be filled with the utter fullness of God." Jesus was filled with divine love and pours this love into a believer. It is in Christ we find fulfillment. Everything has an end, except the love of God. Psalm 27:4: "One thing that I have desired of the Lord, that I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple." Love preserves itself in divine blessedness. Knowledge of God becomes a blessing because what the Spirit teaches is naturally beautiful. There isn't anything, prophecies, knowledge, or gifts of tongues, that compares to the indwelling love that God gives. He is what we need. He quenches our soul.
Jack Gutknecht
Supporter
The last spiritual gift Paul mentioned that would cease to exhibit was having knowledge beyond ordinary knowledge such that one could understand things that were mysteries to others. —Natalie Regoli [One] way in which love never fails is that love is eternal. Selfless love will continue in the Lord and in His people forever. It is absolutely the way we will live in relationship with each other in eternity. Examples of selfless love in the present are glimpses of the normal state of things in eternity. This is not true of the spiritual gifts, Paul says. The gifts of prophecy, tongues, and knowledge will all pass away. By this, Paul means that eventually these gifts will not be needed. https://www.bibleref.com/1-Corinthians/13/1-Corinthians-13-8.html
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