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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
Face to face – “You don’t know me.” Have you heard that expression? Maybe you were the one saying it. It might be true when talking to a stranger, but it is painful when we are speaking to someone we love. Unfortunately, many times those we love are the same ones we feel don’t really know who we are. Why? The sad truth is that we haven’t communicated. If we aren’t really known, it’s probably because we have been afraid to be known. We wear the masks that keep our image in place while all along wishing we could just let someone else see our real faces.
Paul offers a solution. prosopon pros prosopon (face to face) will happen. In God’s purposes, being truly known is inevitable. For most of us, this is a scary thought. We have no practice in this arena. In fact, we have done everything possible to remain hidden. “Face to face” is just too difficult to imagine. And yet, God promises that “face to face” will occur. Ready or not.
John Powell discusses the many different ways we behave in order to avoid prosopon pros prosopon. These “games,” the masquerade used to keep us in protective hiding, are all self-defeating. Why? Because as fearful as we are of revealing who we really are, we are even more fearful that no one will actually love us as we are. This internal conflict manifests itself in some very destructive choices. We seem not to be able to take a step back and ask some telling questions about the games we play. Powell notes: “In all of these games, we must ask ourselves what it is that we really want, why we want it (which will always tell us something about ourselves), and why it would be better to give up our game.”[1] But we don’t ask, do we? We go right on pretending—pretending that living behind the mask protects us, pretending that we can survive without really being known, pretending that we are loving when we know we are just playing a part.
It is the agonizing dilemma of being human. “I must be able to tell you who I am before I can know who I am. And I must know who I am before I can act truly, that is, in accordance with my true self.”[2] Genesis 2 confirms Powell’s remark. Adam cannot know who he is until she arrives. That’s what God means when He declares that the creation is not quite good. “It is not good for man to be alone,” is another way of saying that I don’t know who I am until I can tell you who I am and I can’t act from the center of who I truly am unless I know who I am. Adam doesn’t need the woman for companionship. He needs the woman for self-identity. He is “Mankind” (Adam—the anonymous being) before she comes. He is a man (ish—this particular man) after she comes. All that masks do is prevent us from becoming what God intended in Genesis.
Topical Index: Genesis 2:18, Adam, ish, masks, identity, face to face, prosopon, 1 Corinthians 13:12
[1] John Powell, why am i afraid to tell you who i am, p. 135.
