“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
The way Adam and Eve saw God in the Garden is radically different than how we see Him today. Sin has distorted our image of the Most High’s love, protection, provision, and passion for us.
The enemy of our souls seeks to further this distortion so that Our Heavenly Father’s heart for His creation will be hidden to us.
And, unfortunately, he has succeeded all too well.
The verse above describes this distortion:
We see through a glass darkly.
And not only that, but we see in part:
That glass has been shattered by sin and our enemy.
So when each person comes back to a right relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, we each pick up one of those shards of broken glass and look through it, trying to see Him.
What I see of Him may be slightly different than what you see of Him, and our understandings may vary some as we do our best to apply ourselves to what we are learning of Him.
No one comes to the Father except through His Son, Jesus Christ, and with an acceptance of His sacrifice for our sins.
So our first caution needs to be that if we begin to look through any piece of glass that is so distorted that it implies any other truth than this one, that piece of glass needs to be dropped.
But as we walk in His Spirit in the newness of life He has given us, allowing His Word to be a portal to lead us into a deeper understanding of Him,
we receive from him the pieces of the dark glass that we see in part now.
And the first piece you look through that reveals something about God to you may be different than the first piece I look through.
I may not have your piece until I get to piece 553, and you may not see through the piece I started with until piece 27.
He leads us and teaches us as HE desires.
And while it is true that scripture is clear on some fundamental truths of our faith
that we all must agree on,
– the “essentials” as Augustine called them –
I think it is important that we remember this truth:
We all see in part.
None of us –
– no matter how closely we walk with Him
– or how much we know His word
– or even if we are the greatest theologian of all time –
none of us sees the full picture of Him or has a full understanding of Truth.
What that means to us practically is that as we interact with the Body of Christ, we must not assume we see everything clearly.
When I adopt this view, that I don’t see it all clearly, God can use a man or woman to speak His real truths to me, even if they don’t line up with me doctrinally.
The person who believes the church has replaced Israel in God’s eyes can be used by God to minister truth and power to me as much as the one who believes that Israel has been and will always be the wife of Yahweh.
The one who thinks the gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians are no longer active today can be used by God to speak truth to me just as powerfully as the one who believes fully that they are all in operation today.
Someone who interprets scripture differently than I do in the “nonessentials” of our faith may be someone who is looking through a different dark shard.
Is that person right?
Am I?
Or are we just seeing things a little differently?
I think when we get to heaven, where Paul describes that we will
“know fully as we are fully known”
we will then realize that we were all very wrong. . .
. . .but yet, all right to some degree.
The enemy of our souls uses these “dark shards” of revelation of God to cut up and divide Jesus’ Body.
If I hold so tightly to my shard and try to force it on you, I get cut deeply, and so do you – and we are not united, but painfully divided.
But the more we walk in humility and grace and His Divine Love for one another, the more we can thwart the enemy’s attempts to divide us.
What did Jesus say would be the sign to everyone that we belonged to Him?
That we all sing the same songs on Sunday mornings?
That we all read the same versions of the Bible?
That we all have the same end-times beliefs?
That we all understand clearly the biblical truths of the history and future of His people, what freedom in Christ means, and the meaning of being filled with His Spirit?
No.
He said that those who have received His redemption from sin by repentance and faith in His blood are already one in Him –
this is the only thing that unites us.
And how will the world see and know that oneness?
By our love for one another.
Imagine a Body of Christ that lives in agape love for others of different denominations, different eschatological understandings – even different views on how all things started.
Imagine if I picked up my dark shard of glass and looked through it with eyes of Divine Love.
How would that reveal God to me?
And how would it reveal God to you if you did the same?
And, just as importantly,
how then would it change how we see, love, and accept each other?
“By this all men will know that you are My disciples,
if you have love for one another.”
John 13:35
Lord, please show us what You mean by the oneness you so passionately want us to have with each other.