Face to Face

A “perfect” condition requires “perfect” people, a “perfect” relationship to God, and “perfect” knowledge. Paul envisioned all these for the saints:

But when that which is perfect (Gk. teleios) has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. (1 Cor 13:10–12 NKJV)

We examined “perfection” in a previous post. “Mature (teleios) can mean ‘perfect’ (KJV) or ‘complete,’ but can also refer to a person who has full membership in a group, one who is fully initiated.”¹ This describes saints in the messianic age. 

The Mosaic age was the state of imperfection or immaturity. But, the messianic age is the state of perfection and maturity. “The rude beginnings were there of all that exists in comparative perfection now.”² The New Testament does not use “perfect” (Gk. teleios) to describe the eternal state.

Our last post said Paul used “perfection” as a corporate metaphor. The church was “a child” under the tutelage of the law in the Mosaic age. Now, in the messianic age, it no longer needs this guardian. The church has reached a state of maturity or perfection.

A reader objected to this view of “that which is perfect.” He asked challenging personal questions. One was, “do you really think that you now see him face to face?” Another was, “Do you … now know as fully as you are known?” Both queries originate in 1 Cor 13:12.

This post will provide our answer to the first query. A future post will (D. V.) respond to the second.

What did Paul mean by “face to face”?³ Almost all commentators assume he is referring to the eternal state. Inmillennialism suggests Paul is referring to something consistent with the “perfect” messianic age.

Paul’s Time Orientation

We need to establish Paul’s “now … then” time orientation to understand 1 Cor 13:12. His “now” was the “last days” (Heb 1:2) of the Mosaic age. His “then” was the full arrival of the messianic age. A short passage from Hebrews shows⁴ this perspective:

Now these things having been thus prepared, the priests go in continually into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the services; but into the second the high priest alone, once in the year, not without blood, which he offereth for himself, and for the errors of the people: the Holy Spirit this signifying, that the way into the holy place hath not yet been made manifest, while the first tabernacle is yet standing; which is a figure for the time present; according to which are offered both gifts and sacrifices that cannot, as touching the conscience, make the worshipper perfect, being only (with meats and drinks and divers washings) carnal ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation. (Heb 9:6–10 ASV; emphasis added)

Paul uses present-tense verbs to describe his “now.” Priests were offering sacrifices. The way into the holy place was not fully manifested. The Temple stood and was “symbolic for the present age” (Heb 9:9 ESV). 

Paul’s “now” in such passages was not the messianic age. The Temple represented the Mosaic age. Paul often wrote as someone living in the “last days” of the Mosaic age. That was his “now.”

Paul’s “now” would last until the “time of reformation.” Jesus had already entered into the true holy place in the heavenly Temple made without hands (Heb 9:12, 24). The reformation would happen when Christ returned to destroy the Temple. This would occur in Paul’s near future (Heb 10:36–37; cp. Matt 24:1–3, 34).

This event would establish the new age. Adam Clarke says, 

The time of reformation…signifies the Gospel dispensation, under which every thing is set straight; every thing referred to its proper purpose and end; the ceremonial law fulfilled and abrogated; the moral law exhibited and more strictly enjoined;… and the spiritual nature of God’s worship taught, and grace promised to purify the heart: so that, through the power of the eternal Spirit, all that was wrong in the soul is rectified; the affections, passions, and appetites purified; the understanding enlightened; the judgment corrected; the will refined; in a word, all things made new.⁵

This about-to-change perspective permeates the New Testament. So, when Paul says “now we see in a mirror” (1 Cor 13:12 NKJV) he means the time before the reformation when the Mosaic-age ceremonies continued to exist. They were visual images of messianic-age realities.

Paul’s future, his “then” in 1 Cor 13:12, was the messianic age or “Gospel dispensation.” In it, men would see “face to face” after the reformation.

The Old Testament Background

The Old Testament prophets described Israel’s face-to-face problem. They also showed how the messianic age would resolve it. Their writings provide the context for Paul’s statements in 1 Cor 13:10–12. 

The Problem

Isaiah describes the problem. He says to Israel, “your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear” (Isa 59:2 NKJV; emphasis added).

Commenting on this verse, John Gill says Israel’s sins were 

like a partition-wall dividing between them, so that they enjoy no communion with [God] in his worship and ordinances.… [They had] caused him to hide himself; withdraw his gracious presence; neglect the prayers put up to him; deny an answer to them; or, however, not appear as yet for the deliverance and salvation of them, and bringing them into a more comfortable, prosperous, and happy condition.⁶

Other prophets also describe this “face to face” problem. God said:

My people have forgotten Me, They have burned incense to worthless idols. And they have caused themselves to stumble in their ways, From the ancient paths, To walk in pathways and not on a highway, To make their land desolate and a perpetual hissing; Everyone who passes by it will be astonished And shake his head. I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will show them the back and not the face In the day of their calamity.” (Jer 18:15–17 NKJV; emphasis added)

They have not been humbled, to this day, nor have they feared; they have not walked in My law or in My statutes that I set before you and your fathers. “Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I will set My face against you for catastrophe and for cutting off all Judah.’” (Jer 44:10–11 NKJV; emphasis added)

I will turn My face from them, And they will defile My secret place; For robbers shall enter it and defile it. (Ezek 7:22 NKJV; emphasis added)

This was a bilateral problem. God said, “And they have turned to Me the back, and not the face; though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction” (Jer 32:33 NKJV; emphasis added). 

Israel had turned their faces from God and he had turned his face from them.

The Solution

The Old Testament prophets showed how the messianic age would solve this problem. The solution pertained to all peoples, not just Israel. All had sinned and forsaken God’s presence. Isaiah says,

And in this mountain The LORD of hosts will make for all people A feast of choice pieces, A feast of wines on the lees, Of fat things full of marrow, Of well-refined wines on the lees. And He will destroy on this mountain The surface of the covering cast over all people, And the veil that is spread over all nations. (Isa 25:6–7 NKJV; emphasis added)

John Gill says this refers to “the covering of the face…which has covered the face of all people…which now will be removed…through the clear ministration of the everlasting Gospel, which will be spread with power, and in its purity, throughout the whole world.”⁷

Matthew Poole says “in this mountain” means “Mount Zion, to wit, in God’s church, which is very frequently meant by the names of Zion and Jerusalem, both in the Old and in the New Testament.”⁸ 

Paul mentions this mountain in his letter to the Hebrews. He told the saints of his generation,

You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect. (Heb 12:22–23 NKJV; emphasis added)

The church came to the assembly of “perfect” men on Mount Zion. There, God removed “the covering of the face” that prevented “face to face” communion. Perfection and the removal of the nations’ veil belong together in the messianic age. 

Isaiah provides another description. He exclaims,

How beautiful upon the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who proclaims peace, Who brings glad tidings of good things, Who proclaims salvation, Who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” Your watchmen shall lift up their voices, With their voices they shall sing together; For they shall see eye to eye When the LORD brings back Zion. (Isa 52:7–8 NKJV; emphasis added)

Paul knew these prophecies. He knew that when the “perfect” messianic age came, men would see “face to face” and “eye to eye.”

Glory to Glory

Paul’s statement about the face-to-face problem in 1 Cor 13:12 is brief. He gives a more detailed analysis of it in 2 Cor 3:1–18.

The Apostle draws several contrasts between the Mosaic age and the messianic age. In the former, God wrote his law “on tablets of stone.” In the latter, “on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart” (2 Cor 3:3 NKJV).

The Mosaic-age ministry was “of the letter.” The ministry of the new covenant in the messianic age is “of the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:5–6 NKJV). 

Moses and the age he represented had a glory, but that glory was passing away. Christ’s messianic-age glory excels Moses’s. It “is much more glorious” (2 Cor 3:7–11).

Israel could not see Moses face to face after he received the law. He “put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away” (2 Cor 3:13 NKJV).

This veil symbolized Israel’s unbelief. It remained until Paul’s day. But the Apostle says, “the veil is taken away in Christ” (2 Cor 3:14 NKJV) for those who believe the gospel. He says,

When one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Cor 3:16–18 NKJV; emphasis added)

This is a transformation from one age to another. Paul is speaking about the change from the glory of the Mosaic age (e.g., 2 Cor 3:7) to the glory of the messianic age (e.g., 2 Cor 3:11). He went on to say, “it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6 NKJV; emphasis added). 

In the messianic age, we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces. This glory exists in “the face of Jesus Christ.”

Conclusion

The Scriptures say much about seeing “face to face.” Sin prevents men from communing with God in this intimate way.

The Mosaic age offered no remedy. Paul tells us why this was so: “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Heb 10:4 AV). The Temple and its ministry did not establish a “face to face” relationship.

But the situation has changed. The messianic-age has solved the problem. Jesus has “offered one sacrifice for sins forever.” He now sits “at the right hand of God” (Heb 10:12 NKJV) where we behold the glory of his face. Our sins no longer prevent this intimate communion.

This change happened in the “time of reformation” (Heb 9:10 NKJV). God made it on Mount Zion (Isa 25:6; Heb 12:22–23). It came when the glory of the messianic age replaced the glory of the Mosaic age (2 Cor 3:16–18).

Jesus once said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” How, then, can we say, “Show us the Father” in the eternal state? (John 14:9 NKJV). “That which is perfect”—the messianic age—has come. We now see “face to face” (1 Cor 13:10, 12).

1. John F. MacArthur Jr., 1 Corinthians, MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: Moody, 1984), 60.
2. Patrick Fairbairn, Typology of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1989), 1:177.
3. The graphic file (here) in this post is a silhouette (c. 1810-1815) from the second edition of Mansfield Park inscribed “L’aimable Jane” and presumed to be Jane Austen. It has been attributed to a silhouette-maker, Mrs. Collins, who worked in Bath around 1800. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 70 years or less.
4. Paul’s authorship of Hebrews is uncertain.
5. Adam Clarke, The Old and New Testaments With a Commentary and Critical Notes, 6 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon, [1970?]), 6:746. Emphasis in original.
6. John Gill, An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments in The Baptist Commentary Series, 9 vols. (1809–1810; repr., Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 1989), 5:345.
7. Gill, “Exposition,” 5:140.
8. Matthew Poole, A Commentary on the Holy Bible, 3 vols. (1685; repr., Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1962), 2:382.