The Future In My Past
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12
Have Been Fully Known – Too often we read this verse as if it is a declaration of divinely-promised IQ enhancement. We think that the day is coming when we will know it all, when the mysteries of life will be plainly understood and when we will finally have answers. We are so enamored with the idea of being at least partially omniscient that we don’t actually read this verse. We apply it to our own desires. It’s time to take another look.
Paul asserts that some day he will come face to face with the overwhelming character of God understood in the actions of love (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). On that day, he will know fully. The Greek verb is epiginosko. It means “the intelligent comprehension of an object or matter” (TDNT). The emphasis is on understanding, not simply perceiving, and on truth, not opinion. In other words, if I experience knowing as epiginosko, I have deep and penetrating insight into the true nature of the object of my inquiry. But what is it that Paul will know? Does he say he will know the secrets of the universe? Does he proclaim that he will have the answers to theological puzzles? Does he claim that he will finally know the real numeric value of pi? No, not one of these or any questions like them. What Paul says is that he will know (in the future) what has already been known about him in the past. He will finally see himself as God sees him. Someday what God knows about Paul will be known by Paul too.
This could be a wonderful event. How thrilling it would be to know myself completely from God’s perspective. All the guilt I carry, the remorse, the shame – gone! God sees me very differently than I see myself. Yes, we employ the metaphor “when God looks at me He sees Yeshua,” but it’s a metaphor. He sees me, for sure, but He sees me as I am redeemed by Yeshua. That’s exciting. I can’t wait to know myself completely through God’s eyes. But . . .
But wait a minute. God knows all about me. He knows how many times I have failed. He knows my struggles and defeats. He knows my hypocrisy, my broken promises and my arrogance. He knows all the things that I would rather not have anyone know. Why would I want to know those things completely. Just scratching the surface of them makes me feel worthless. I’m not at all sure that I want epiginosko to be the verb for my sins. I spend enormous efforts trying to hide them. Why would I want all of God’s light to shine on them?
It’s a mind-game, isn’t it? God already knows all my secrets. What’s the point in trying to hide them from Him? Paul isn’t suggesting that we look forward to the day when all the dirty laundry is hung on the line. He says that even the worst of who I am, even the tragedy I have made of some of my life, will be filtered through the God’s love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 isn’t about weddings. It’s about me. The day is coming when I will finally understand how He could love such an unlovable man – and that will change me. That doesn’t mean all my sins will evaporate in a spiritual hard drive reformat. It means that I will see just how much God’s love overcame all those tragic failures. It means I will understand what I mean to Him – and why He pursued me in spite of my self-centered myopia. It will mean that I will know what He saw in me when He chased me down. That is worth waiting for.
Topical Index: have been known, epiginosko, 1 Corinthians 13:12
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Skip
Skip,
I have a feeling that most of your readers know EXACTLY why God pursued you… “in spite of your self-centered myopia.” 🙂
This is very much related to the “White Stone” in Revelation 2; and George MacDonald wrote very beautifully about this…I wrote the following some time ago for an adult Sunday School class.
“Here are some thoughts penned by George MacDonald concerning the new name we will receive, based on the words of Jesus to the Church in Pergamum, recorded in Revelation 2:17b: “…I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it.”
MacDonald writes: “The giving of the white stone with the new name is the communication of what God thinks about the man to the man. It is the divine judgement, the solemn holy doom of the righteous man, the ‘Come, thou blessed’, spoken to the individual…The true name is the one which expresses the character, the nature, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man’s own symbol – his soul’s picture, in a word – the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is…It is only when the man has become his name that God gives him the stone with his name upon it, for then first can he understand what his name signifies. It is the blossom, the perfection, the completeness that determines the name: and God foresees that from the first because he made it so: but the tree of the soul, before its blossom comes, cannot understand what blossom it is to bear and could not know what the word meant…Such a name cannot be given until the man is the name. God’s name for the man must be the expression of His own idea of the man, that being whom He had in his thought when He began to make the child, and whom He kept in His thought through the long process of creation that went to realize the idea. To tell the name is to seal the success – to say ‘In thee also I am well pleased’.”
MacDonald continues this theme when he writes: “Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God. He is to God a peculiar being, made after his own fashion, and that of no one else. Hence he can worship God as no man else can worship Him…For each, God has a different response. With every man He has a secret – the secret of a new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter…There is a chamber also…in God Himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man – out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made – to reveal the secret things of the Father.” (Emphasis added).”
(All these readings can be found in C.S. Lewis’ book George MacDonald: An Anthology)
“All these readings can be found in C.S. Lewis’ book George MacDonald: An Anthology)”
Hi John,
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
You’re most welcome Michael! I love the way MacDonald expresses scriptual insights such as this…
John, this is certainly a beautiful portrait of the foreknowledge of God and His ability to know us as our Creator. Don’t we see instances where God changed the names of certain individuals such as Abraham, Sarah, Jacob?
This seems to also coincide with the ancient parental ability to name children according to their character. Interestingly, we read how the “shoe fits”and the name is lived out. Today, typically in our American culture, parents name their children before they are presented to the world but it doesn’t appear that they are concerned with the child’s attributes or integrity. I must admit, when my daughter was named, we were interested in naming her with family (matriarchal) heritage in mind, and, of course, the names were from women we well respected and admired.
Your thoughts and study also add fresh meaning to the term “etched in stone”. Thank you for sharing this wonderful insight with us!
Mary (and Carl), thank you for your comments. I find it very exciting that each of us can “grow into” the person God designed us to be, and love the passage in Proverbs about “training a child in the way he should go”, or words to that effect. This doesn’t refer to a form of discipline, as some view it, but a recognition of how the child “leans into” the person they were made to be….so your comment is well taken, Mary.
And I very much look forward to meeting George MacDonald one day!
thank you John for the short piece from George MacDonald. I agree. Each of us who belong to Him have been given a new name! There is so much to say about this “new name”- it must wait for another time.
Yes, brother Skip, we each identify deeply with this- “He knows my name.. He knows my every thought- He sees each tear that falls and hears me when I call..
This is also why we identify so deeply with the heartfelt cry- “G-d, be merciful to me, the sinner.” This at our “root level” is who we are. “Sinners, saved by grace.” I’m not going to deny this any longer, hear, O Israel, this man writing these words is a sinner. By birth, by nature and by choice, I am “a sinner.” How do I know (yes, epignosko) this? “It is written.” For all have sinned.. (Romans 3.23). I agree with these words- “all have sinned”. It seems we (alll) have a universal problem.
A very foreign to most folks, three-letter word.. “sin.”
I haven’t tried this (yet) but I wonder if you were to stop twenty random people at (say) the airport and ask them- “what is sin?”- I wonder how many out of twenty would be able to come up with any kind of answer. “What is sin?” would probably be a common answer. We (today) have lost all concept of what “sin” is.
Let’s do a follow-up question and ask these same twenty people- (if they haven’t already lost all patience with us)- do you believe God is holy? What do you think the numbers might indicate on this one? One out of twenty? I wonder..
And now for the third (and final question)- do you believe Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world? (or maybe we could ask- “why did Jesus die?” What was the purpose of the crucifixion of Christ? Was this just a random, soon to be forgotten event? Who was Jesus, (the) Christ?
And now for the fourth question (just full of questions today!..) Is is possible for us (the readers of TW) to know (epignosko) Him? (If the answer is yes, how is this possible?)
Was this not the heart-cry of Rabbi Shaul in Philippians 3.10? (-that I may know Him..)
Why was Paul so anxious to know Him?
Hi Carl,
My sense is that Paul’s mystical experience of Christ and his understanding of that experience resonates deeply in you.
For me, Paul is part of my early Catholic religious education and now an important part of my current interest in Hebrew Word Study.
As I understand it, Paul was in his own mind a persecuter of Christ who saw the light and then felt called to proclaim the good news of Christ.
Nothing in my experience corresponds to Paul’s “conversion;” for me, “seeing the light” has more to do with meditation and prayer or walking on the beach.
For me, the transformative religious experiences have more to do suffering and pain and make me think of the following lyrics of Rufus Wainwright:
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah
And just to provide you with some feedback to your questions, please see my responses below:
Carl: I agree with these words- “all have sinned”. It seems we (alll) have a universal problem.
Mike: I agree.
Carl: A very foreign to most folks, three-letter word.. “sin.”
Mike: I agree and rarely think in terms of sin or talk about sin. But I say the Lord’s Prayer daily.
Carl: “What is sin?”
Mike: Sin is not serving God or others IMO. It is feeling “Derailed.”
Carl: Do you believe Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world?
Mike: I think Jesus Christ is the model for serving God.
Hi All,
We thought you might be interested in this [source:sichosinenglish.org – The Maamar Issa B’Midrash Tehillim] and its links with 1 Corinthians Ch13 v9-13…
Quote: “Glass is used to view images in a number of ways. The first – a mirror – is a piece of glass coated with a silver film that simply reflects the image. Glass is also used in the lens of a telescope to magnify an image. A distant object now becomes a near reality. What is seen is not only an image (as in the case of a mirror) but the object itself.
The Talmud likens the difference between the prophecy of Moshe and the other prophets to that between a mirror and a magnifying glass. Other prophets only reflected in their visions the Supernal image they were viewing. Moshe beheld a magnified image “face to face” with Hashem.
The way Hashem views the creation may also be through either a magnifying glass or through a mirror. This is the meaning of the verse, “the heavens opened and I saw Divine visions.” As previously mentioned, “heavens” in this context refers to Torah. When Hashem views us from the perspective of Torah the vision is clear, magnified and praiseworthy. Therefore we request, “Look from heaven and behold,” – a request to Hashem to look at us through the perspective of Torah, thus magnifying our image.
Furthermore, what may seem to us an insignificant action, is of huge importance when seen through Hashem’s magnifying glass.” End quote.
Blessings!
Yeshau said of Himself, “I am the light of the world.” (John 8.12). And from another source, simply put, “light is that which reveals.” Darkness conceals, light reveals. Yeshua is the full revelation of the Father to us. He said again, “He that has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14.9) and again, “I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30) It is very much a mystery, but He is, no doubt, G-d Incarnate.
As first revealed in Leviticus 17:11: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” And again in 1st Peter 1:18,19: “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; BUT WITH THE PRECIOUS BLOOD OF CHRIST, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” Yeshua truly was/is the Lamb of G-d which takes away the sin of the world, (including, praise His name, my own!)
I read this at 4AM today like the last four mornings – on my cell and in a lonely hotel room. You will never know what today’* word meant to me. Yes, there is inner turmoil but I believe I came face to face with God’s love. Thanks.
Skip, this is such an encouraging post. When I first became convinced I needed the Yeshua’s sacrificial offering to cleanse and renew the “true me”, I admittedly could not understand my new life and this Kingdom I had become a citizen of. I behaved in many ways always, giving in to the same old desires and feelings thinking that my sins were “all under the blood” and surely God would understand. But as He has so graciously and mercifully allowed me to look at Him more closely and to talk with Him more honestly and to be able to hear Him more clearly, I can truly appreciate how He sees us with far greater sensitivity than we can possibly know or comprehend now. This takes faith and a trust that He also provides. Truly He is Jehovah Jireh! Praise YHWH!