Paul closes his meditation on love by placing our current state of knowledge in eschatological perspective: what we know now is real but partial; the fullness awaits the face-to-face encounter with God that love is already moving us toward.

From the writers we read together

George MacDonald

Scottish Author and Theologian, 19th Century

MacDonald was drawn to the mystery of partial knowledge — the sense that reality is deeper than what we can presently see. He wrote repeatedly of the longings that point beyond themselves, of the 'northerness' that cannot be fully named. First Corinthians 13:12 gives that longing its Christian shape: we are not deceived by what we see; we simply see incompletely. The image in the mirror is real. It is just not the whole face.

The most striking phrase is not the limitation but the promise: 'I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.' God already knows us completely — not partially, not mistakenly, not with selective attention. The fullness of our future knowing is a catching up with a knowing of us that has always already been complete. You are already fully known by the One you only partially know. How does that change the way you relate to the gaps in your understanding of God?