What “perfect” is coming in 1 Cor. 13:10? Is it Christ? The rapture, when all believers are changed to immortality? Or is it the Eternal State of the righteous?
It does seem like it has an eschatological connotation having mentioned “perfection” and we do have a tendency to interpret passages in scriptures that has the word “perfect” within the “perfectionist framework.”
In this kind of framework, the modern-day reader presupposes perfection as something that you can always strive for but never achieve in this age. “No body’s perfect,” they say. And so we consign perfection to eschatology, to the end of time.
But is that what “perfect” in 1 Cor. 13:10 really means?
A long and lasting love.
After exhorting believers at Corinth for them to desire higher gifts from among that which the Holy Spirit empowers the whole body of believers with (1 Cor. 12:1-31a), Apostle Paul endeavored to show them yet something much better (1 Cor. 12:31b), the way of love (1 Cor. 13:1-13).
He told them that the gift of tongues, the gift of prophecy, the gift of knowledge (1 Cor. 12:8; 13:2, 8; 14:6), faith, and even self-sacrifice without love gains nothing (1 Cor. 13:1-3) .
He then described what love is and what love is not (1 Cor. 13:3-7) and how love will outlast all these other spiritual gifts (“Love never ends,” 1 Cor. 13:8). That prophecies, tongues, and knowledge will all pass away or be stilled (1 Cor. 13:8).
He then says that what they know is incomplete (“For we know in part”) and what they prophesy is incomplete (“we prophesy in part,” 1 Cor. 13:9). But they will be completed one day.
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. (1 Cor. 13:10)
That is, when the fullness of knowledge comes or when the prophecy is made complete (by its fulfillment), that’s when the imperfect knowledge or that’s when the partial prophecy will pass away.
And so, the completeness of knowledge or the fullness (fulfillment) of prophecy is the “perfect” in question here. When completeness of knowledge comes (“when the perfect comes”), incompleteness is done away with (“the partial will pass away”).
He further employed two analogies to prove this: First, through human maturity (1 Cor. 13:11); and second, seeing someone face to face (1 Cor. 13:12).
Human Maturity.
When he was a child his ways of speaking, thinking, and reasoning were childish. But when he reached maturity (“I became a man”), he gave up those childish ways (1 Cor. 13:11). In other words, when maturity comes, childishness disappears.
Seeing someone face to face.
There maybe a darkly glass obstructing your view now that’s why you only know in part who is behind it. But when that darkly glass is removed that’s when you’ll see each other face to face. Then you shall fully know who’s behind the glass and conversely, you will be fully known by the one behind it (“Then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known”).
That’s just how great love is. It will outlast all spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 13:13) but the “perfect” in question here in 1 Cor. 13:10 is the fullness of knowledge.