The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum Help with Tongues

What does Paul mean when he says "face to face" and "know as I am known"? Taking what I believe about his words here in 1 Cor 13 - that spiritual gifts are needful at the present time of Paul's writing to help the church grow as the canon of revelation is being completed through the apostles - the church will one day reach a point to where they are no longer a child. They become a man, who is no longer dependent upon babyish things. In the context of 1 Cor. 13, this would be spiritual gifts. It is particularly the 3 mentioned in 13:8, prophecy, knowledge and tongues, which represent the categories of gifts discussed in chapter 12.

Paul is basically saying that at the time of his writing of 1 Corinthians, he, along with the saints at Corinth, only know a part of God's whole revelation. They had, as it were, just the various pieces of a much larger jigsaw puzzle. Eventually, that entire puzzle will be put together. When Paul says that they will see "face to face," he is not talking about the actual, physical presence of Christ. In fact, the idea of Christ's second coming and the eternal state are not even in this text; at least in my estimation. If we examine Paul's metaphor, he writes about seeing in a mirror darkly. The idea is that the image he is seeing is obscured in some manner. The word for mirror is the same one James uses in James 1:23. Paul has in mind a looking glass, but the image in this looking glass is marred, and he is unable to fully see the image. However, eventually, he will be able to see face to face. In other words, he will be able to see his own face in the mirror, and the image is no longer obscured. What I believe Paul to be saying is that at that point, the full revelation of God was yet to be completed in the word of God. He and the Corinthians only had a part of it. In essence, the full revelation was obscured because it was not yet complete. But, Paul was confident that one day, he would be able to see it all clearly, just like looking in a polished mirror that reveals the entire image of a man's face. Now the next phrase,"know as I am known," is a tad more difficult to interpret, but I believe Paul is simply saying that he will have all knowledge for spiritual maturity. He has already discussed knowledge in 13:8, and there, knowledge is connected to prophecy; both divinely enabled gifts. What I think Paul is conveying is that there will no longer be a dependence upon direct, divine revelation revealed through gifted men, but all revelation will be contained in the canon of the NT.

I understand the perfect as the completed canon, and I do so for a couple of reasons:

1)First, "teleion" is better rendered "the completed," rather than "the perfect." During the time of the apostles, the divine revelation of prophesy and knowledge would still be in transmission. God was still in the process of giving revelation to the church through the apostles and the prophets. However, I believe Paul had in mind that a new covenant document, just like the OT, would be provided by the Lord. Thus, the completed revelation of God's New Covenant revelation would eventually come to the Christians.

2)Furthermore, the illustrations Paul uses are analogous to this idea of partial revelation in comparrison to completed revelation. Paul uses three major illustration: (1) A child replaced by an adult (13:11); (2) the hazy replaced by the clear (13:12) (by the way, I understand the phrase "face to face" not to refer to seeing Jesus in his full glory, but as a analogy of a person being able to see a clear reflection, as opposed to a hazy reflection); (3) Imprecise knowing replaced by precise knowing (13:12). The whole point of Paul's words in 13:8-12 is to inform us that these gifts had a specific purpose for a stated period of time. Eventually, they will come to an end. I think tongues ended at the destruction of Jerusalem, and prophecy and knowledge at the finishing of the NT canon.