1 Corinthians 13:2

“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and [though I have] all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not charity, I am nothing.”

The apostle rises to the higher gifts. The gift of the prophet and that of the teacher (knowledge) are here joined together by the expression: knowing all mysteries, which, from its position, seems to be connected with both. And in fact both relate to the understanding of God's plan of salvation. Now this plan is the supreme mystery, and contains within it all particular mysteries (comp. 1 Corinthians 2:7). It is to the latter, to certain details as to the final accomplishment of salvation, for example, that the revelations granted to the prophets specially refer; whereas knowledge denotes the understanding of salvation itself in its totality, and as already accomplished and revealed in Christ. The expression εἴδεναι γνῶσιν, to know knowledge, is a familiar form in Greek. To be remarked is the article before γνῶσις, the knowledge, a form by which Paul means: all it is possible to have; and the adjective πᾶς, all, thrice repeated, with the words mystery, knowledge, and faith, supposes each of those gifts possessed in its ideal perfection, like that of tongues in 1 Corinthians 13:1.

Commentators explain otherwise than I have done the relation between the three propositions concerning prophecy, the understanding of mysteries and knowledge. Heinrici finds two gifts here: (1) prophecy, with which he connects the understanding of mysteries, and (2) knowledge properly so called. But how can knowledge (γνῶσιν) be thus separated from (εἰδῶ) knowing? Edwards rather connects the second proposition with the third. Meyer applies the three propositions to one and the same gift, prophecy; but 1 Corinthians 12:8 expressly distinguishes prophecy from knowledge.

Faith is taken here in the same sense as in 1 Corinthians 12:9; the assurance, founded on the feeling of reconciliation, that nothing can resist us when we are really doing the work of God. Possible obstacles are represented under the figure of a mountain to be removed, as in Matthew 17:20. The abrupt brevity of the phrase which closes this paragraph: I am nothing, contrasts with the long developments given to the preceding propositions. Behold the fruit of all those magnificent gifts: all speech, all knowledge, all power, and yet nothing! What such a man has done may be of value to the Church; to himself it is nothing, because there was no love in it. Love alone is anything in the eyes of love.

But how is it credible that a man can reach this height of knowledge and power in God without love? Here, again, are we not face to face with an impossible supposition? No; the faith of first days may develop more or less exclusively in the direction of knowledge (1 Corinthians 13:2 a) or of force of will (1 Corinthians 13:2 b), as well as in the direction of sensibility (1 Corinthians 13:1); comp. Luke 9:54, where James and John ask the Lord to bring down fire from heaven on the Samaritan village. Faith is there, but where is charity? This is what Jesus points out to them. Or there are believers who may have preserved the gift of prophesying, of driving out demons, of working miracles, while in the eyes of Him who tries the heart and reins they are only workers of iniquity; comp. Matthew 7:22. In our day, too, one may be a celebrated theologian, the instrument of powerful revivals, the author of beautiful works in the kingdom of God, a missionary with a name filling the world; if in all these things the man is self-seeking, and if it is not the Divine breath of charity which animates him, in God's eyes this is only seeming, not being. The apostle goes further still.