#3. “Face to face”, or future “recognition” of the truths that lie behind the imagery of human speech.
The earliest use of epiginosko by Paul, is that found in
I Cor. xiii. 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 am known.”
In this passage the first “know” is ginosko, the second and third in italics, are epiginosko. The apostle has been speaking of the transitory character of the gifts enjoyed by the church, and contrasts the partial knowledge which then obtained, with a future day, when, in exchange for seeing “through a glassdarkly”, the believer would see “face to face”: when, instead of the partial knowledge which our very nature imposes, we shall “recognize” even as we are “recognized”. This day of full recognition does not refer to the present dispensation of the mystery, for, however transcendent the blessings and superior the calling and sphere of the church of the Body of Christ, no member of that body sees “face to face”, or “recognizes” even as he himself is “recognized” by the Lord and the higher intelligences of the spiritual world. That day is future, not only for the Corinthians, but also for us.
Before we can appreciate the Apostle’s teaching in I Cor. xiii. 12 it will be necessary to attain some element of certainty as to the figure he uses when he speaks of seeing through a glass darkly. There is a division of opinion among commentators as to whether the world “glass” refers to a mirror “by” which objects are seen, or to a semi-transparent window, “through” which objects are seen. Bloomfield understand esoptron, “glass”, to refer to the lapis specularis of the ancients, thin plates of some semi-transparent substance with which windows were glazed. But as he admits that there is no other example of the use of this word esoptron for dioptron his case is very weak. Alford’s comment on this usage is:
The idea of the lapis specularis, placed in windows, being meant, adopted by Schöttgen from Rabbinical usage . . . . . is inconsistent with the usage of esoptron, which (Meyer) is always a MIRROR . . . . . the window of lapis specularis being dioptra” (Strabo xii. 2, p.540).
If we keep to the known examples of the use of esoptron, we must reject the idea of the specular, the semi-transparent window, and retain the figure of a mirror. The only other occurrence of the word in the New Testament is James i. 23, where the fact that a man is said to behold his natural face “in a mirror”, makes it impossible to translate esoptron by the word “window”. Two occurrences in the Apocrypha are helpful.
“The unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of His goodness” (Wisdom 7:26).
“Never trust thine enemy: for like as iron rusteth, so is his wickedness. Though he humble himself, and go crouching, yet take good heed and beware of him, and thou shalt be unto him, as if thou hadst wiped a mirror and thou shalt know that his rust hath not been altogether wiped away” (Ecclus. 12:11).
From these references we may learn two items of interest:
(1) That it was no uncommon thing for a mirror to be spotted.
(2) That the reference to “iron rust” indicates that such mirrors were made of metal, not of glass.
That the mirrors which the women of Israel brought out of Egypt were made of “brass” and not of “glass”, we know, for out of them were made:
“the laver of brass, and the foot of it” (Exod. xxxviii. 8).
Job compares the firmament to “a molten mirror” (Job xxxii. 8); and Nahum speaks of the nation of Israel becoming a “gazing stock”, or perhaps better, a “mirror”, so that the nations might see in Israel’s punishment an example for themselves. The LXX departs from the literal here, and translates the Hebrew by paradeigma, “an example” (Nah. Iii. 6). Shakespeare’s conception of drama runs parallel with this Biblical usage:
“Whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as ‘twere the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn here own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure” (Hamlet iii. ii. 23).
“As water, face to face;
So heart, man to man.”
“If I bring rock together, it abuts, but there is no mixture. If I pour sand together, it meets, but I may trace the parcels if they differ; but ‘water’ is a fine picture of ‘heart’ . . . . . two sparkling drops, as they touch, instantly are blended” (Miller).
There seems no room for doubt but that the apostle speaks of a “mirror” here. No one having any acquaintance with language will be stumbled by the use of dia, “through”. We see “through” a mirror in the sense of “by means of” the mirror and dia with the genitive is translated “by” or “through” in the sense in I Cor. i. 1, 9, 10, 21; ii. 10; iii. 5, 15, to give no more instances.
What does the apostle mean when he says “in a glass darkly”? The word translated “darkly” is ainigma, our English “enigma”. There is an allusion here to Numb. xii. 8.
“Mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches” (ainigmaton).
Ainisso, the verb from which ainigma, “enigma”, is derived, means to hint, intimate with obscurity, insinuate, teach by figurative language.
We have discussed the necessary limitations of human knowledge and of Divine revelation to human hearers in the series entitled “Fruits of “Fundamental Studies” (Volume XXIX, p.161), and to this limitation the apostle refers when he says that “Now we see by means of a mirror enigmatically”.
Are there no images, figures, or symbols in the epistles of the mystery? Is not the very title “Christ” a condescension to our limitations? It means “Anointed” and we can appreciate the symbols involved, but when we see “face to face” will not the title “Christ” be, for the first time in our experience, “recognized” even as we are “recognized”? Do not the facts that lie behind the figures “head”, “body”, “members”, “temple”, “citizens” await fuller recognition? If we now “know” even as we are known, what is the meaning of the words:
“The Love of Christ which passeth knowledge”
or
“The peace of God which passeth all understanding”?
There are a few, who, by reason of temperament and circumstances, torment themselves with problems concerning the future glory. One such problem that we have had put to us is “Will the saints recognize their loved ones in glory?” For our own part, we have no problem. Recognition is incipient in individuality, and individuality is vitally bound up with memory, and I cannot remember things pertaining to myself without remembering things pertaining to others. Peter, even in this life, apparently had no difficulty in recognizing Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration, even though he had met neither of them in the flesh. Should any reader of these lines still be worried by this question of future recognition, perhaps the amended translation of I Cor. xiii. 12 will come as a relief:
“Then shall we recognize even as we are recognized.”
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