What is the perfect thing and has it come?

1 Corinthians 13

    In chapter 12 he ended by saying I show you a more excellent way. It only stands to reason that the content of chapter 13 is that way. Love is a vital part of the better way, along with the coming of the perfect thing. We are told powerfully what love is not and what it is. We are told all the negatives that it avoids and all the positives that it embraces. Then we are given a time line on Spiritual Gifts. There is a point at which they will end.

1. The superiority of love (1-8a, 13)

2. The ending of the spiritual gifts (8-12)

    The announcement is made in verse 8 that love never fails, but prophecies will fail, tongues will cease, and knowledge (word of knowledge) will vanish away. So at the time of Paul's writing there was a future time coming when these things would not be operating anymore.
    We are told the reason for this transition in verse 9. At the time of Paul's writing they only had partial knowledge and the rest was given to them through prophecy. It is difficult to imagine a time when the word of God was not completed, but these people were living in that time. They only had the Old Testament.
    We are told the event that will cause the transition in verse 10. When that which is perfect is come then that which is in part (their knowledge made up by prophecy) would pass away. So what is this perfect thing and when will it come?
    When we think of perfection we tend to think of flawlessness or no error, so let's start there. I only know of two things that are flawless. One is God's word. It is said to be perfect in scripture (Psalms 19:7, James 1:25). Of course, Jesus is perfect in the sense of having no error as well. These are the two common things thought of in trying to understand this scripture and the timing of the transition.
Spiritual gifts which were designed to be a bridge until the perfect things come would either last until the Bible was completed or until Jesus came.
    The word perfect here from the Greek is teleios. The true meaning of this word is beyond flawlessness it really means completion. I certainly believe that that perfect thing is the Bible and that once it was completed the partial things (Prophecy, tongues, etc.) passed away. Even a study of history is very interesting. You can review church history and see that these things vanished. As more of the Bible was completed they are mentioned less and less. During the 2nd century they disappear and are not seen again until the late 1800's. Do we really believe that something so vital to the function of the church just went dormant for 1700 years? I don't. I believe it served its purpose until the completion of the Bible and then it ceased or vanished.
    In verses 11-12, Paul gives us two examples of the transition. Before the word was completed it was like our childhood and we needed many helps and crutches, but when we came to maturity, we put those things away. Before the completed word it was like we were looking in a mirror that was dirty and we could not see clearly, but once the word was completed it was very clear, as if the mirror had been cleaned and we are seeing face to face. With the completed word of God we are able to know just as we are known (Hebrews 4:12).

1 Corinthians 14

1. The superiority of prophecy over tongues and warnings about the misuse of tongues (1-40)

    Obviously the Corinthians had misused the gift of tongues and perhaps other gifts that were available to them in the first century. Sad thing is, as you read this chapter you discover that practically every group who still claims to have these gifts is still violating the rules that are established here about their use.