1 Corinthians 13:12

For now, we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.

In this there surely must be a glimpse of eternal things; and it evidently occurred to Paul in connection with what he had just said of the childhood age of the church giving way to maturity, applicable to the current era of that day; but like many other examples in the Bible, it has a secondary reference to something much more remote. (Other examples of this same type of thing are in Matthew 2:15; 2:18 ... See my comments in my Commentary on Matthew, pp. 18-19). We may therefore refer the words about seeing through a mirror darkly, and knowing "in part" to the present dispensation of God's grace, and the words about being "face to face" (presumably with the Lord) and knowing "fully" may be understood as descriptive of conditions in eternity. That there is, in fact, just such an emphasis in this 1 Corinthians 13:12, is proved by Paul's prompt return to the "now" in the final verse immediately after this. A failure to observe this limitation of 1 Corinthians 13:12 is fatal to any true interpretation of this passage.

In a mirror darkly ... Ancient mirrors were of polished metal, easily tarnished, and any image was only dimly seen. Paul himself referred even to the Christ as "the image of God" (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15); and although it would be sinful and incorrect to suppose any deficiency in the blessed Saviour, mortal life is limited. Nothing is dim about Christ as God's image except the tarnished mirrors by which mortal men behold it. There shines in these words the essential need for people to walk by faith; because what they may "see" even under the best of circumstances must be described as seeing "darkly." See my Commentary on Hebrews, pp. 209-210.

Then face to face ... In the resurrection, we shall behold the face of the Beloved. "We know that if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is'" (1 John 3:2).

Now I know in part ... Note the temporal "now"; and note also that Paul was not referring to the Corinthians who knew far less than he did; for it is of himself that this is said. What a shocking rebuke of intellectual arrogance is this! The greatest mind of the apostolic age, other than that of Christ himself, here stressed the partial and incomplete nature of that whole body of revelation which Paul, more than any other, delivered to mankind. "The permanent danger of intellectual eminence is intellectual snobbery,"[29] as Barclay said; but there is surely an antidote for it in such a passage as this.