1 Peter 1:8

whom having not seen, ye love Some of the better MSS. give whom not knowing ye love, but the reading adopted in the English version rests on sufficient authority and gives a better meaning. The Apostle, in writing the words, could hardly intend to contrast, however real the contrast might be, his own condition as one who had seen with that of these distant disciples. Did there float in his mind the recollection of the words "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29)? In any case he emphasizes the fact that their love for Christ does not depend, as human love almost invariably does, upon outward personal acquaintance. He too, like St Paul, has learnt to know Christ no more after the flesh (2 Corinthians 5:16). The next clause, which seems at first almost a tame repetition of the same thought, really points to a new characteristic paradox in the spiritual life. The exulting joy of human affection manifests itself when the lover looks on the face of his beloved (Song of Solomon 2:14). Here that joy is represented as found in its fulness where the Presence is visible not to the eye of the body, but only to that of faith. Like all deeper emotions it is too deep for words "unspeakable," as were the words which St Paul heard in his vision of Paradise (2 Corinthians 12:4), as were the groanings of the Spirit making intercession for and with our spirits (Romans 8:26), and it was "full of glory" (literally, glorified) already, in its foretaste of the future, transfigured beyond the brightness of any earthly bliss.