Through a Glass Darkly

After his famous discussion on charity, Paul wrote, as we read it in the King James Bible, “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” (1 Corinthians 13:12).  I learned today that a possibly more accurate translation of the word glass here is mirror.  As this site shows, many translations do in fact use the word mirror here, and to me that does change the meaning slightly.  The word glass seems to suggest that we see the world out through the glass; in other words, to see through the glass darkly means that we don’t see the world or spiritual things as they really are.  It’s as if we have glasses that aren’t quite the right prescription so that we can see some things but they are blurred.  That’s how I’ve always viewed this verse.  But using the word mirror suggests that we don’t see ourselves clearly.  If we look in a mirror darkly, we can see ourselves in the mirror but the picture is not clear.  This seems consistent with the last phrase of the verse; we don’t see ourselves clearly now, but some day we shall know ourselves even as we are known by God.       

               It’s interesting to me that in Mormon’s comparable sermon on charity he has similar language about seeing clearly.  But he spoke of how we will see God as He really is some day: “When he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (Moroni 7:48).  Ultimately it seems that seeing God for who He really is in fact the same thing as seeing ourselves as we really are, for we are created in the image of God.  And what is the link to charity?  Perhaps coming to see God as He really is—and thus to see ourselves as we really are—is only really possible when we can feel the things that God feels.  And since “God is love,” we come to feel as He feels only as we are filled with the pure love of Christ (1 John 4:8).  This seems to be what happened in the story of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables: it was only the power of love from the Bishop to this ex-convict that provoked Jean Valjean to see himself for who he really was.  Being given love for the first time in decades, this forsaken man learned both about God and about himself.  Christlike love is the great power that helps us to see our true nature as God’s children and to “be like him” and “be purified even as he is pure.”