Could the perfect be the kingdom?

Answer:

"Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love" (I Corinthians 13:8-13).

The perfect cannot refer to the kingdom because the kingdom already existed and Paul is talking about a future event. When people become Christians, they become citizens of the kingdom. "For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins" (Colossians 1:8). Notice the use of the past tense in Paul's statement.

While the Scriptures are referred to as perfect, the kingdom is not. "But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does" (James 1:25). Individual Christians are perfected, but the kingdom, as a whole, is not referred to in these terms.