Through a Glass Darkly

1 Corinthians 13:12
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

How many times have you realized that you were once looking through a glass, darkly?
I realize this verse is about a specific realization. A mystery not yet known.
Still though a realize I've looked at many things through a glass, darkly.
One that comes to mind is how I once viewed a particular group of people.

Artfuldodger said:

How many times have you realized that you were once looking through a glass, darkly?
I realize this verse is about a specific realization. A mystery not yet known.
Still though a realize I've looked at many things through a glass, darkly.
One that comes to mind is how I once viewed a particular group of people.

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How many times have you realized that you were once looking through a glass, darkly?

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I ain't done counting.

I do not know that I have yet seen clearly.

Paul always pics my curiosity when he ventures into the mind of man. Between the wisdom of God and the mind of man which Paul has a sure confidence to dive into, it seems he see's there's need of a few steps in faith.

Paul said; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

I wonder what that means? Some interpretations say this; but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Artfuldodger said:

Paul said; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

I wonder what that means? Some interpretations say this; but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

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I don't really see a basis for "everything".

Does this work: "Then I shall know myself even as God now knows me"?

re:

Perhaps one's life work of sanctification is all about finally coming to fully understand justification, thereby finally seeing 'clearly'. Just a thought!!!

formula1 said:

Perhaps one's life work of sanctification is all about finally coming to fully understand justification, thereby finally seeing 'clearly'. Just a thought!!!

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Yes, possibly. And at the resurrection ( ours ) what we know of the Holy Spirit might be very different than what we think we know now. God knows us from a pure spiritual perspective and at the resurrection maybe we will reciprocate.



Paul ends his monologue with this I think regards face to face:

13And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

So what I get is that now we are locked into a spirituality with faith, hope and love, but the greatest is love he says, and I assume that at some point we will be as this or to this love only, having no need of faith or hope and therefore this is perhaps what Paul's getting at.

There are a few places Paul makes similar references to being known.

(This one includes a sort of self correction)

But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, the Lord knows those who are His.

And of course that reference to knowing...as being known.

"but then shall I know even as also I am known."

Unlike some of the other brothers (whose standing is less clear as to their position in their religious observance) we are left little doubt as to Paul's. He was, in perhaps one sense, a paragon of religiosity. He was not only a Jew, (a Hebrew of Hebrews as he declares) but of such devotion as to be a Pharisee. If the other disciples are sort of "run of the mill" Jews, not this Paul. (And I say that meaning nothing derogatory).

I am not saying he was chosen because of this, that is, or would be, a presumption. But, who better to help any and all with any religious bent than a man who is compelled to navigate through all the religious traps he himself had illuminated in himself, than such a man? A man once so enamored of his own practice (and as to their consequential deceits in self reliance) forced by grace to see past them.

Do we think such knowledge came without some fear and trembling? As planks of standing are removed, torn away, shown as rotten and immaterial in this pursuit of grace.

"But whatever was an asset to me, I count as loss for the sake of Christ."

And Paul had enumerated all those prior things.

What does a man find in such pursuit? That his "I don't eat this, I don't eat that" or "I don't do this, I don't do that", once a place of seeming devotions in exercise, are nothing more than "will worship". Where can such a man stand when all previously thought props...are shown just that, props...for the self? The self hoping to wring an approval of "right standing" before God.

"This one thing I do" was arrived at through much reduction, much disclosure of all the "other things" and places in which a man might falsely seek hope.


Yes, I believe Paul was sometimes amazed at how well, both he was known...and seeing that bent in all, taken advantage of in man's so called pursuit of God, learned to delight in how thoroughly he has been captured.

For he knew as he was being known (in this process) that this love so once eagerly sought to win...could rather, not be avoided.

"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life..."