In 1 Cor:13, the Apostle Paul reaches the climax of this famous discourse on spiritual gifts by declaring in 1 Cor 13:13: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Now, I have not always wondered as deeply as I ought as to why love holds this supreme position over faith and hope so, let’s examine the theological framework of the early Church, the definitions of these three virtues, and their eternal destiny.
The Transience of Faith and Hope
Paul elevates love and he does this crucially not by diminishing faith and hope, but by highlighting their temporal nature in comparison to love’s eternal character.
The evolution of faith
Faith is the confident assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. In this earthly pilgrimage, believers walk by faith rather than sight. However, as Richard Hooker and the church fathers frequently observed, faith is ultimately teleological – it has an end goal. When the believer passes from this life into the immediate presence of God, faith is swallowed up by sight. We no longer need to believe blindly in what is unseen when the wonderful vision is unveiled before us.
The fulfilment of hope
Hope also shares a similar destiny. Hope by its very nature looks forward with eager expectation to the final redemption of creation and the resurrection of the body. Yet, as Paul writes elsewhere, hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees – once the promises of God are fully realised at the final consummation, hope reaches its destination and is fulfilled.
The eternal nature of love
Therefore love MUST be different to be the thing that remains and unlike faith and hope, which serve as the “elementia vitalia” of our earthly pilgrimage, love belongs to the very essence of God Himself, for as John reminds us “God is love.”
Participating in the divine life:
Because love is the defining characteristic of the Godhead (an eternal, self-giving communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), when we love, we participate in the activity and essence of the divine nature. Faith and hope are instruments suited for a fallen and incomplete world, but love is the atmosphere of heaven itself.
Never Ending
As Paul states earlier in the same chapter, “Love never ends.” Prophecies will pass away, tongues will cease, and knowledge will vanish. But when all earthly institutions, theological debates, and mortal struggles have faded away, love remains because the object of our love (God) is eternal, and the community of the redeemed will forever exist in a state of perfected charity.
A sacramental reflection
In the Anglican tradition, the theological virtues are understood not merely as abstract moral duties, but as graces infused by the Holy Spirit that draw us deeper into the sacramental life of the Church. Faith instructs our minds, hope sustains our endurance through suffering, but love is the visible embodiment of Christ’s self-oblation upon the cross. It is the greatest because it is the very pulse of the kingdom of God, transcending the boundaries of time and enduring into the unending liturgy of heaven.
Pax
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