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 have been known.”

The ordinary application of the two parts of this verse to the gift of knowledge seems to me mistaken. Why should the apostle in this application omit the gift of prophecy? We shall find that the terms of the first half of the verse apply as naturally to the last gift as those of the second half to knowledge. As to tongues he omits them, as already in 1 Corinthians 13:9. He does not think it necessary to revert expressly to their future disappearance.

The object of βλέπειν, to see, is here God Himself, with His plan of grace and glory toward us. The mirrors of the ancients were of metal; those made at Corinth were famous. The image which they presented could never be perfectly distinct. There is no ground for Rückert's idea that what is meant is a window formed of semi-transparent glass or of a square of horn. Tertullian already understood it so: Velut per corneum specular (see Edwards). The διά, through, on which this view rested, may signify: by means of. Or the term through may be suggested by the fact that the image seems to be placed behind the surface of the mirror.

We perceive Divine things, says the apostle, only by means of their image in a mirror. Plato had already expressed a similar idea in his famous comparison of the cave. This figure signifies two things: knowledge of a mediate character, and for that very reason always more or less confused. ᾿Εν αἰνίγματι, literally: in the form of enigma. The word αἴνιγμα denotes a sentence which, without expressly saying the thing, leaves it to be guessed. It thus serves to bring out the relative obscurity in the manifestation of Divine things, which we now possess. If we apply the expression exclusively to the gift of knowledge, we shall see in the mirror, with some, space and time, those necessary forms of all our ideas, or the categories of reason which determine all its processes; Paul in that case would have here anticipated Kant. Or, according to others, Paul is thinking of the facts of sacred history as manifesting God's character and essence, or of the revelations of Scripture in general. Holsten combines these two last interpretations. But do we not arrive at a more natural explanation of the apostle's words, if we apply them to the gift of prophecy? The image in the mirror corresponds in this case to the inward picture which the Spirit of God produces in the prophet's soul at the time of his vision, and in which the Divine thought is revealed to him. And the expression: in the form of enigma, which we have translated darkly, exactly renders the character of such a picture. The prophet required in every case to apply his whole attention to the vision to extract from it the idea of the fact revealed to him; comp. 1 Peter 1:10-11. What seems to me to confirm this meaning is the analogy of the terms used by Paul to those of the Pentateuch, particularly in the passage Numbers 12:6-8, where the Lord says: “If there be a prophet among you, I will make Myself known unto him, ἐν ὁράματι, in a vision, and I will speak unto him, ἐν ὕπνῳ, in a dream; but My servant Moses is not so....With him I speak mouth to mouth, στόμα κατὰ στόμα, and he seeth Me, ἐν εἴδει, manifestly, and not δἰ αἰνιγμάτων, in enigmas (confused representations).” With this mediate view of the Divine, by means of prophetic picture, the apostle contrasts the immediate intuition which will be the character of future contemplation; and he here uses expressions which remind us of what is said in the Old Testament regarding the incomparable mode of communication between God and Moses (Deuteronomy 34:10: mouth to mouth, and Exodus 33:11: ἐνώπιος ἐνωπίῳ, face to face). The communication which God granted to Moses, and to Moses only, was a kind of anticipation of the final mode of intuition here described; comp. Numbers 12:8 (LXX.): καὶ τὴν δόξαν τοῦ κυρίου εἶδε, and he saw the glory of the Lord.

The second part of the verse relates to the gift of knowledge. With the fragmentary, successive, analytic, discursive mode of our present knowledge, there is contrasted the intuitive, central, complete, and perfectly distinct character of our future knowledge. The verb γινώσκω, strictly: I learn to know, denotes effort and progress. Then Paul substitutes for the simple active verb γινώσκω, the compound ἐπιγινώσκω in the middle form to denote the complete assimilation of the knowledge to come: to put the finger on the object, so as to possess it entirely. And, to give the fullest idea of this kind of knowledge, he uses the boldest conceivable parallel, identifying the knowledge which we shall have of God with that which He now has of us. The καθώς, according as, as, indicates the immediate and perfectly distinct character, and the καί serves still more to emphasize the notion of identity.

The first person singular is substituted in this second part of the verse for the first plural, we see, to emphasize more strongly the absolute inwardness of this wholly personal relation. Meyer, Kling, Hofmann, Holsten think that the aorist I have been known refers to the date of conversion; comp. Galatians 4:9; but this restricted sense is unnatural in our passage. Paul is speaking of the knowledge which God has of man during the whole course of his life. From the standpoint of the life to come, at which the context puts us, this knowledge appears to him as a thing of the past.

With this whole view opened up, what became of the superiority of knowledge and speech on which the Corinthians prided themselves so greatly (comp. 1 Corinthians 1:5; 1 Corinthians 1:7)? As the faint glimmer of dawn gives place to the brightness of the rising sun, so those confused conceptions and those fragmentary knowledges in which they glory will vanish in the brightness of immediate vision granted at the hour of the Advent (the ἀποκάλυψις, 1 Corinthians 1:7). What will then remain of the present state? Nothing? No; that would mean that all the present labour of the believer is vain. Something will remain, undoubtedly: but it will not be gifts, it will be the virtues which constitute the essential elements of the Christian character, without which, as Heinrici says, the Christian personality itself is extinguished: