Now
and Then
In this tumultuous political climate,
the believer in Jesus must continually remind himself of what is
conveyed in the chorus: “This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’
through, My treasure is laid up somewhere beyond the blue.” The apostle
Paul lived with this awareness nearly two thousand years ago. He wrote:
“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).
Paul lived with the assurance he
would one day see Jesus face to face. Blessed is the man who lives his
life knowing that one day his FAITH (now) will become SIGHT (then).
“Darkly” is the translation of the Greek word from which we get our
Eng. “enigma.” It means “in an obscure way.” The “glass”
(mirror) is a reference to scripture.
What a man can know about God now
pales in comparison to what God knows about him. But in that face to
face, a believer will have as crystal clear a knowledge of Jesus THEN
as Jesus has of him NOW.
The phrase “in part” means “a
constituent part of the whole, an allotment, installment.” What God
teaches us about himself NOW through the study of scripture is sort of
an installment plan, a layaway plan, a part here, a part there, in
anticipation of a full disclosure THEN. The day is coming for
the believer when there’ll be no more enigma, no more obscurity, no
more limitations to his knowledge of God.
Jesus told the religious elites: “Search the scriptures; for in
them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of
me” (John 5:39). The pathway to knowing the LIVING Word is
searching the WRITTEN Word. But in our human flesh, the most
enlightened believer, the most insightful interpreter, must confess he
has but bits and pieces of the whole, that there’s far more to be
learned THEN than we can possibly know NOW.
While we live in the nasty ‘now and
now’, be assured there’s a glorious ‘by and by’ for us
believers, a knowledge explosion that will make the trials of this life
MORE than worth the trials!
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