Seeing in a mirror

This is part 1 of a 2-part miniseries. Part 2 is here:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/10/when-perfect-comes.html

I'm going to quote some exegesis of 1 Cor 13:8-10. To my knowledge, these are not charismatic scholars. After quoting them, I will take stock of where that leaves us.

Miguens contends that Paul presents three contrasts–partial/complete, infancy/adulthood, now/then–which refer to the gradual development of the Christian faith. This view would translate to teleion as "the maturity"–"when maturity arrives." It assumes that he wants these gifts to pass away in their lives because they are obstructing love. This last argument clearly is wrong. Although these gifts are neither essential for, nor indicative of, Christian maturity in an individual, the variety of gifts is necessary for the functioning of the body. Paul's discussion of love is not intended to persuade the Corithians to abandon their prized spiritual gifts but is meant to convince them to employ the gifts with love. Unless they are governed by love, they are spiritually barren. 

"The perfect" refers to the state of affairs brought about by the parousia. Paul uses the verb elthein in Gal 4:4 to refer to the coming of the fullness of time. Here, the battery of future tenses, the disappearance of the partial replaced by the complete, and the reference to knowing as God knows us, all point to the end time. He contrasts the present age with the age to come. The "perfect" is shorthand for the consummation of all things, the intended goal of creation, and its arrival will naturally displace the partial that we experience in the present age. 

"Face to face," "mouth to mouth," and "eye to eye" are OT idioms (see Gen 32:30; Exod 33:11; Num 14:14; Deut 5:4; 34:10; Judg 6:22; Isa 52:8; Ezk 20:35) that imply that something comes directly, not through an intermediary or medium, such as a vision or dream. D. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Baker 2003), 622-623,625. 

To what "the perfect" refers is much debated. It is scarcely related to the completion of the NT canon, as some have tried to take it; such an extraneous meaning is foreign to this context. To teleion has been understood as Christian maturity, as in 2:6. It seems, however, to express rather some sort of gaol; it has undoubtedly something to do with the eschaton or what Paul calls "the Day of the Lord" (1:8; 3:13; 5:5) or with the telos, "end" (of the present era ), as in 15:24. 

but then face to face. I.e., when "what is perfect" will have come. The phrase prosopon pros prosopon is derived from LXX Gen 32:31, were Jacob is said to have seen God; cf. Deut 34:10 (Moses knew God prosopon kata prosopon); 5:4. This phrase, which is borrowed from such OT passages and with which blepomen is understood, further suggests that Paul is thinking of God as the object of the verb, even though no object is expressed. J. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians (Yale 2008), 498,500.

Some scholars have argued that the "perfect/complete" thing to which Paul was referring was the completion of the canon or the maturing of the church, one or the other of which they attribute to the disappearance of the more spectacular gifts from most if not all churches in the postapostolic  period. The context (esp. v12) makes it abundantly clear, however, that the point at which Paul expects the gifts to pass away or disappear is when we see the Lord "face to face" and "know [him] fully, even as [we are] fully known."
Paul alludes to Num 12:6-8, which contrasts Moses' own prophetic experience with that of all other prophets…While other prophets receive revelation through visions and dreams (12:6; cf. Joel 2:28 [3:1]), Moses experiences the presence of the Lord face to face, not indirectly, and he sees his form (LXX: glory). Paul says, "Now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then face to face." 

Paul's alteration of "mouth to mouth" in Num 12:8 LXX to "face to face" may reflect the influence of Deut 34:10, which refers to Moses as a prophet whom the Lord knew "face to face."…Paul's allusion to Num 12:8, then, is consistent with the other early Jewish interpretations in understanding that in the age to come all God's people would have an experience similar to that which distinguished Moses from the other prophets. We already see the Lord as through a mirror (imperfectly) and know him as well as that experience allows (cf. 2 Cor 3:18), but the day is coming when we will see him as Moses did, face to face, an experience of knowing him as fully as we are already fully known by him. R. Ciampa & B. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Eerdmans 2010), 656,658,660.

If this interpretation is correct, then it's a death blow to cessationism. But assuming that's the case, it has limited implications. It doesn't single out a particular continuationist alternative:

i) Paul doesn't define "prophecy" (or tongues), so even if those won't terminate until the Parousia, that, of itself, doesn't tell us what continues until the Parousia. We must still endeavor to identify the nature of the charismata in question. The closest Paul comes to explicating his usage is in 1 Cor 14:25, which indicates supernatural insight into things naturally hidden from view. Tom Schreiner (a cessationist scholar) finds it necessary to supplement Paul's references to prophecy with prophetic phenomena in Acts in order to fill out the verbal placeholders. Paul, Apostle of God's Glory in Christ (IVP 2001), 360-61. 

ii) Likewise, Paul refers to the continuance of "prophecies" rather than prophets. So does this mean there will be prophets until the Parousia? Are "prophecies" equivalent to a "gift of prophecy?" Or is prophecy separable from prophets?  If, say, a Christian happens to receive a revelatory dream, does that make him a prophet? Or is that an isolated incident? A one-off event? 

iii) Trying to answer that question brings us to a related question. Assuming the continuance of these charismata, the passage says nothing about the frequency of their occurrence. It could be quite intermittent. Some or most Christians might never experience it. Some Christians might experience it once or twice in a lifetime. It might skip Christian generations. It might occur in some places, but not others. Perhaps under special circumstances. During times of crisis in church history. Or a personal crisis. 

iv) In addition, 1 Cor 13:8-10 only specifies the continuance of tongues and prophecy. So where does that leave the status of the other charismata, like healing? Is 1 Cor 13:8-10 sampling the charismata? Is that representative of the charismata generally? Or is it more restrictive? 

So even if we reject the cessationist interpretation of 1 Cor 13:8-10, that doesn't mean we should default to Jack Deere, Wayne Grudem, or Samuel Storms. For rejecting the cessationist interpretation leaves many detailed questions to be answered. We must still develop exegetical models. And we may need to leave some questions to church history to answer.