The Cost
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. 1 Corinthians 13:12 NASB
Fully known – “It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage, to pay the price . . . One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.”[1]
You and I know a lot. We are the most informed generation that has ever occupied the planet. And we are drowning in information. In fact, the more we collect facts and observations (ginosko in Greek), the less it seems we know about ourselves. We are acquainted with who we are, but very few of us epiginosko. This is knowing with penetrating insight. This is knowing at the depths. And the reason most of us know a lot about things that don’t really matter is simple: we’re afraid of what we will find in those dark recesses of our being. We have a pretty good idea that uncovering all that pain and fear and trauma will not benefit the carefully-controlled persona we display to the world. In fact, we might even conclude that the face in the mirror is good enough. We don’t really need to ask that person looking back at us how she feels.
Then Paul comes along with a fire hose.
He tells us that we are on the path to knowing fully as we are fully known. But we don’t want anything like that. I don’t want to know everything about you. You might scare me (maybe) or, worse yet, if you share all that you are with me, I will be inclined (perhaps even obligated) to share all I am with you. And that is truly terrifying. Then you will for sure find me unacceptable. Better to know just enough (only the facts, please) so that neither one of us ever has to go through the trauma of rejection. Of course, we can never experience the joy of acceptance this way, but it seems (when we look in the mirror) that this is just an inevitable trade-off of living. Surviving is perhaps a better term. Because I don’t really live this way, and I know it. The problem with Paul is that he makes it quite clear that I can’t go on avoiding this forever. That isn’t in the game plan. I will have to look into the depths—and share them. And at that point, I will know the cost of being a fully alive human being. And it will hurt!
Look! What I want is security. I want to know that you will care about me after I tell you who I am. But that’s exactly what I cannot know beforehand. That’s the cost. So I just keep postponing and the interest accumulates. One day I won’t be able to look in the mirror at all because I won’t recognize the face that looks back at me.
Paul’s words are more frightening than “The wages of sin is death.” I would take death over this. This is the walking dead. I desperately want to be known, and just as desperately want to hide. I’m Adam among the leaves. And what a sad fate he had.
Topical Index: ginosko, epiginosko, fully known, human, 1 Corinthians 13:12
[1] Morris Turner, in The Shoes of the Fisherman, cited in John Powell, why am i afraid to tell you who i am, p. 119.
The very first glass mirrors were made, it is thought, in Sidon some time in the 1st century. According to Gordon Fee (The First Epistle to the Corinthians [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987], pp 647-648), the Corinthians were well-known for making “some of the finest bronze mirrors in antiquity”. This likely accounts for Paul’s analogy here. But when “perfection” (teleios), “completion”, comes (v 10), most probably speaking of the eschaton, we will ‘see’ “face to face”—as opposed to a mere reflection, an imperfect ‘seeing’—knowing completely. If this is speaking of the hereafter (“love never fails”, but spiritual gifts will cease [v 8]), and I think it does, this means we will “see” love completely, i.e. we will ‘see’ God. Hallelujah!
Because then He will be perfectly reflected in His Body, Craig!
If my identity is wrapped up in the identity of all other, then I will only know who I am when I “know” (experience of the connection of) all other. In other words, “perfect” means complete connection (which is an experience by the way); not some mystical attainment of a certain ideal state. Experience is the only true source of knowledge available to us now. All the head stuff is therefore what I call “Mentene” – mental chewing gum – UNLESS or UNTIL it has been made manifest by profound experience, anyway.
Experience, I am starting to suspect, is simply connection with reality, or, truth. Truth is not some eschatological one-up-manship or esoteric initiation into the mysteries, either: truth is what gets itself out of its own box and walks around in broad daylight on its own two legs, perfectly disguised from all who are either burying their heads in the sand of some altered experience of that reality or running from the light of their own reflection in the face (which is a mirror) of that reality like roaches from a light switch; not to mention those of us who are conjuring up our own version of reality to fit our current paradigm so that we won’t have to change (um, that would be ALL of us confirmation-bias people!).
Sadly, I still find myself being that ostrich and that roach reaching for that crystal ball for vast amounts of each day, because one of the fruits of the sin that is still in my life is that it makes me afraid of reality; or, the truth. To the extent that I do still act in those insane ways, however, I am also still wondering who I am!
Interestingly, in this passage Paul has stated that, along with prophecies and tongues, knowledge, gnōsis will be of no effect/nullified (v 8), and in the subject verse he juxtaposes the verbal form of this same word, ginōskō, with the much stronger epiginōskō, thereby stating that current “knowing” will not only be surpassed but will be made null/void. I hope this means that we forget…
We can’t forget, or else we would just go do it again. We are told that it is laughter that will wipe the tears away; not forgetfulness. Sin is absurd. Being able to laugh at it will be the best inoculant against repeating it, I would think.
Current experience is few and far between. I think in our new bodies (capacities returned to us) and face to face with our Connector, we will no longer hide from reality in our bushes, but will experience the full monty of being completely connected all the time. Now THAT is knowing!
I think the “knowledge” and “knowing” go all the way back to that first Tree, thus reversing the curse. I think that also means that our ability to sin vanishes.
Craig and Luarita thank you for an interesting reflection. Seeing imperfection in current knowledge or rather shared knowledge.
Question When will we see the complete truth? In this life or here after… If in this life we can still make amends if here after well what will that benefit. Or is this an analogy implying when we stop thinking like man and start thinking like God… I read somewhere it is the fish thinking process… Using the current by bypassing it into understanding the implied… The same as Yeshua reprimanded Simon.
Since Paul here parallels ‘seeing’ face to face with fully-knowing and juxtaposes each with seeing in a mirror and in-part-knowing, I think this refers strictly to the new Garden of Eden. See the language of Rev 22:1-5, especially 3 (no curse), 4 (see His face and His name on our foreheads), and 5 (no more night/no need of lamp or light of the sun).
Craig thank you
You’re welcome!
Skip…I’m sad that John isn’t still alive to be able to read your TWs that touch on this kind of vulnerability. This was one of the passions in his life and profession and I have no doubt that he would have definitely given you a “Thumbs Up” on this one!! I do also.
I am sure he is reviewing them for comment in the ‘olam ha’ba. I look forward to his contribution.
What a lovely, loving thought, Judi! John Powell’s book found its way into my hand and my heart and my mind when I was so lost so long ago. His work was one of the first to help me out of the darkness. And, Skip, these posts have reawakened the strength John Powell offered my, which I accepted. Thank you for helping renew my strength!
“The Walking Dead” …. a popular series on tv…and yet it is so alive in our world today…I meet them every day and sometimes … well, I am one. This month has been one of those times when I truly feel like part of the ‘walking dead’. So many things have happened in such a short span of time that it feels as if I’m stuck in a revolving door – unable to escape. Through all of this trauma the leaves I have carefully and faithfully held in place in strategic places have withered away…. I am left with nothing except what is raw and vulnerable – totally emotionally exposed. Accusations abound – is this the fate of my sins? is this the lash of disobedience? is this all there is? Why go on then!? Those pointed fingers resound within my nephesh at the most inopportune times! How do I cover my ears and they not still penetrate? I don’t know.
But what I do know………is that I am facing the mirror. The depths of such pain of losing a child is a bottomless pit. I have not hit that bottom yet and the fall continues. Yes, there are jutting rocks that my hand grasps on to at various levels of the pit, but another finger will point and the descent continues. The face in the polished mirror I have held through the years is fast showing it’s tarnished state, something I had not noticed before. It is warped. Like my ‘view’ of living. My living to ‘know’.
“Knowing” or knowledge almost did me in … the quest for knowledge tripped me up on the path of living. Oh there were some good things I learned, still are – to be sure. But simply LOVING and LIVING were left behind at some point. The death of my youngest son at 41 – has catapulted me out of that state of decay. LIFE and LOVE is where my heart needs to be. Living and loving my fellow man/woman is at the top of the priority list. That is the only way to become fully human! I want to BE fully human! And that means that my ‘face’ does not always need to smile, look wise, be confident…no… it means that I am like you! I am just a work in process, striving towards being fully known, being fully human……and that will result in being ‘fully known’ …. but then, at that point – I will fully know, that He already knew.
Thank you for this. In your suffering, I am once more reminded that life is not in the facts stored in my head. The real world knows pain, and that is where we are called to be.
In the 40+ years of my Christian walk I have spent countless hours in introspection, prayer, meditation, conversation, therapy and counseling, as well as having spent many thousands of dollars on self help/ self awareness/self improvement books, courses, CD’s and seminars (primarily Landmark Education) all with the Greek goal of “Knowing Myself”. But here Paul says we WILL be fully revealed when we see Him… so what’s my hurry? Has any of this “navel gazing” really done me any good? Would not my time, efforts and money have been better spent on the things that Torah and Yeshua say really matter: loving my neighbor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting the widow and the orphan. Oy vey! Very likely I have only traded one problem in for another and like an addict I am not sure I can quit cold turkey, but I finally admit I need HELP….can any one recommend a good book, seminar or sermon to help me?….oh, wait, forget that.
Compare these two verses, both written to the Corinthians by Shaul. “We see obscurely in a mirror, but then it will be face to face. Now I know partly; then I will know fully, just as God has fully known me.
1 Corinthians 13:12 CJB
“So all of us, with faces unveiled, see as in a mirror the glory of the Lord; and we are being changed into his very image, from one degree of glory to the next, by Adonai the Spirit”.
2 Corinthians 3:18 CJB
Apparently there are 2 different mirrors; in the first mirror we see ourselves (darkly), but in the other mirror we see the Glory of (ourselves in) Him. I have been looking in the wrong mirror. No wonder I never liked the image staring back at me. Time to upgrade mirrors …and images. Shabbat Shalom.
Amen brother Michael. I note in the words ” and we are being changed into his very image, from one degree of glory to the next, by Adonai the Spirit”. We are “being changed” That implies to me an external force or power to ouseselves “the Spirit ” is in fact utilizing the seamingly random events of our lives to effect this change “into his image”. I find that actually most encouraging. These days, for us in Sonoma and Napa counties are days of “disaster ” yet here is all about us opportunities for transformation. It is happening. The community is comeing together focus is on helping and recovering. Peoples lives are now “being changed”. Most would not have vaulentered to have absolutely everything the loved or as some, put their identity into , go up in smoke and have only ashes remain. But it happened, it happens and will happen agin. We are being changed into his image. Like it or not, resistance is futil. Become fully human is not optional. We can resist and slow down the process or even give up and give over becoming beastial. We are of ashes and dust and into those we will return, except that which is formed, grown by and changed into “His very image”.
Yes and Amen Mark. The only thing in the universe that is random are my thoughts! He does use anything and everything to bring us into maturity. And fire is often used in Scripture, both figuratively and literally, to not only bring us into repentance and then restoration, but to bring us to shalom, wholeness and into being fully human. Some have further to go than others, some are more resistant, some are slow learners, some have no clue, some have experienced things that are devastatingly traumatic and are damaged, seemingly beyond repair, some are content and don’t want to grow at all-thank you very much, some are lazy, some are late, some are hazy, some irate. But it makes no difference who you are, where you are, the Hound of Heaven will find you out. Thanks for the reminder of those in your area given this “opportunity for transformation”. I hope many take it. How did you fare in the fire? Anything you need that this community can supply?
We are well, no real losses personally. All around us are opportunities to trust and share compassion and kindness. Thanks for asking. Prayer is aways appropriate.