A Sermon by Hugh Martin
1 Corinthians 13:12. 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.
- The comparison – the antithesis – is applicable to our knowledge of ourselves. Now we see ourselves only, as it were, through a glass, darkly; then shall we be face to face with our own souls. Now we know ourselves only in part; then shall we know even as also we are known.
The very duty of self-examination proceeds on the fact that we do, and in this life can, know ourselves only in part. Not that it is impossible to know ourselves truly, even so as to make our calling and election sure. God forbid. Says the Apostle John: “We know that we are of God, little children”. Says Paul: “I know whom I have believed”. And Job said, long ages before, “I know that my Redeemer liveth”. Blessed be God, we may understand God’s dealings with us in grace far better than His dealings with us in providence. In providence He asks for an implicit faith in Him; in His grace He gives an intelligible and satisfactory explanation. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him”. True. “But God hath revealed them to us by His Spirit . . . that we may know the things that are freely given us of God.” And “the secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him”.
Still, even of the conscious believer, of him who knows that he is in covenant with God, it is true that he knows himself only in part. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” And it is believers, “holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling,” who are warned against “the deceitfulness of sin” (Heb 3:1,13). Hence the prayer: “Search me, O Lord, and try me, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”. Hence also the command concerning the celebration of the Lord’s Supper: “Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat”. So it is “now”. But “then” the faithful shall sit down to the marriage supper of the Lamb with no note of mournful caution ringing in their ear, with no preparatory self-searching exercises needed, with unbounded brightness of the full assurance of worthiness, for they shall be surely like Jesus, because they shall see Him as He is.
This is not attainable here. Even Paul not only says, “With me it is a very small thing to be judged of man’s judgement”, he adds, “Yea, I judge not mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified; but
1Taken, with slight editing from The Family Treasury for 1866. The first part, last month, dealt with the contrast between the believer’s knowledge of God now and hereafter.
he that judgeth me is the Lord.” What indeed are all upright appeals to the Omniscient Lord Himself – like that of Peter: “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee” – but acknowledgments that our own judgement of ourselves may possibly be wrong, even in the very act of reacting mentally against the idea that it is wrong? They are at least acknowledgments that our judgement of ourselves requires to be countersigned by One who cannot err? Thus “now”. But “then”? Will anyone “then” think of saying, “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee?” The very grief with which Peter uttered these words was an admission of the somewhat mournful truth – above which the best cannot rise here – that we know even our own selves but in part.
How could it be otherwise in the Christian warfare? It is otherwise in the wars of the world. Laying aside the unwonted circumstance of spies in the camp, the enemy are all in front of the united band of patriots. In the Christian warfare, the enemy is always partly within. The Lord spreads a table for His people even in the presence of enemies within, as well as of enemies without. And commanding deliverances for Jacob – as when all Israel convened to Jerusalem’s peaceful feasts, and no foe dared invade a land which a wall of fire unseen defended – the Lord permits the weary, way-worn, war-worn sufferer to rest a while beneath His shadow with great delight. But still he is a soldier who is enjoying this repose. He is forbidden to ask for tabernacles, as on the mount of Transfiguration. He drinks of the brook in the way, but he must rise and fight again and expect yet again to cry out about his wounds: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
He can believe in the fulness and finality of his justification by faith; and he can enjoy peace with God and access by faith into the grace wherein he stands, crying, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died; yea, rather, that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God; who also maketh intercession for us.” He can believe also in the perseverance – the perseverance because of the preservation – of the saints; and he may be able to take up the other triumph: “Who shall separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” He may thus, by spiritual appropriating faith, enter into the eighth chapter of the Romans. But he may also be able with equal sympathy to read on into the ninth: “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow of heart”.
But “then” – when he has kept the faith and finished his course and received the crown of righteousness – he shall wholly know himself as wholly
free both from sorrow and from sin. And O the abounding joy of seeing himself wholly as he is and of trusting himself wholly; of knowing that, as all around there is nothing that can enter to defile, so all within there is no root of bitterness to spring up and trouble; that in all this manifold heart there is no fold unrevealed, no tangled knot, no plaited wrinkle, nor any such thing!
Here you often feel, O child of God, that you neither know yourself wholly, nor are wholly known by others. Your worst certainly is not known, and that makes you sometimes ashamed to accept the esteem and love of those who in holy charity would seem to take you as if always and entirely at your best. Your best possibly is not known; and capabilities of intensely-loving, confidential friendship, that slumber within, give a feeling of deepest pain and weariness and longing wistfulness – a mournful echo as from an aching void – for want of being called forth by others, trusted to, drawn upon, exercised, gratified.
Often also it is only through a process of self-examination and prayer – self-examination most humiliating, and prayer perhaps prevailing by a conflict in which the thigh is out of joint, and some halting follows afterwards even to the grave. Only thus can you reach, in some present crisis of affliction, the assurance that the whole river of God’s pleasures is yours for consolation. Only thus can you reach, in some impending great responsibility, the assurance that you can trust yourself to meet it through grace. And when it comes, who that has known it does not know the painfulness and difficulty of keeping the undercurrent of your faith in Christ, in whom you must be trusting, if you are in any right sense to trust yourself – of keeping the undercurrent of your faith in harmony with the upper-current and flow of necessary action!
But “then” I shall know even as also I am known; I shall know myself and can absolutely and wholly trust myself, because grace has become glory. Then I need no more say, “I judge not mine own self”, or, if I do judge myself, I can say with Christ, “I know that my judgement is true”. Then my bright and undimmed intellect takes in the whole meaning of what my Lord appoints; joyful consent in my will leaps up to acquiesce, and more than acquiesce, in the appointment. Moral sense adoringly owns its rectitude; the finest moral sensitivity appreciates the beauty of its holiness; gratitude responds to the perception of its goodness and blissfulness toward me; and trust in my Father’s wisdom anticipates the grand result I know must follow. Then no inward foe disputes the ground and no halting thigh has to be dragged on the heavenly mission; no adder haunts the heavenly path. And then I shall do the will of God as the angels do in heaven, hearkening to the voice of His command and excelling in my strength to do His pleasure.
But it is not so yet. “Now” I see myself only as through a glass, darkly; scarcely face to face with my own soul. I have to summon it, as from a distance, before I can get explanations – as when I have to ask, for instance, Why art thou cast down, O my soul?
Still, while this is partial, it should be progressive too. And there are two great means or instruments of progress – faith and works. First, faith; a believing contemplation of the character of God. “We all, with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor 3:18). Second, works; the dutiful obedience to the word. “For if any man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (Jas 1:23-25).
- This antithesis is verified in our knowledge of the brethren. Now we see each other through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now we know each other in part; but then shall we know even as also we are known.
I do not speak of the misunderstandings that frequently occur through mutual infirmity and which occasionally become inexplicable and therefore inextricable too. But even in kindliest brotherhood, what sensitive mind is not painfully aware of manifold inevitable causes ceaselessly in operation to set limits on our knowledge of each other? Even in the brief and blissful love of David and Jonathan, one can see elements that might have painfully embarrassed their communion had it been much prolonged on earth. Perhaps it was well for its blissfulness that it was brief – that the beauteous bud was broken off to bloom where no chill wind can blight its beauty. Would Jonathan always have understood “David and all his afflictions”? Would he have always stood true, both to righteousness and David, in all David’s sins? “Very pleasant hast thou been to me, my brother Jonathan.”
Yes, but far more pleasant now is thy friend, O Sweet Psalmist of Israel. You both have higher thrones than Immanuel’s earthly land conferred on either of you. You both have sweeter harps than the earthly Zion hill re-echoed. And you sway your thrones and sweep your harps while face flashes upon face a mutual knowledge all unbounded, each face shining with the fulness of a love that is purer than the snow and brighter than the sun in its strength.
We know each other “now” only “in part”. And little wonder. For if we know ourselves only in part, we can hardly think our knowledge of each other could be more complete. We are indeed not to judge others with the
severity and jealousy which we are to apply to ourselves; nor are we to demand in a friend’s case the same amount of evidence that we need if we are to be satisfied even tremblingly about our own. Our text occurs amidst the matchless praise of that charity which “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things”. And all these special actings of the love which is born of God are impossible save on the ground that our knowledge of each other is in part. We know each other’s disposition, experience, trials, fears, hopes – only in part.
Above all, we know each other’s Christian conflict only in part. In the great general features, no doubt, marvellously does your own conflict answer to your Christian brother’s, even as face answers to face. But in particulars, how very different may your cases be! And how little may you be able to understand each other’s! The principalities of darkness against which you wrestle are legion; their wiles are manifold; and their drift may be exactly to engage you on far distant sides of the field and shut you out from each other’s sympathy. May you not have experienced this very device of the enemy? Ah, there doubtless came a blessing, and you were shut up more fully to the sympathy of Jesus as alone unlimited and perfect. But you yearned to see more truly eye to eye – to speak more freely and more frequently “face to face” – with your friend. And yet it might not be. “David arose and departed; and Jonathan went into the city.”
Yes, the manifold discipline of providence varies wondrously with different souls, and sometimes it removes Christian friends from each other’s full intelligent sympathy. The trial may be so unusual as to carry you, or seem to carry you, outside the range of all experience but your own. The effort to profit may but pain your sensitive spirit sorely. The well-meant proffered comfort may but extort the cry, “Miserable comforters are ye all”. And you may be doomed to feel that you neither “know” nor “are known” as you would.
But the conflict ends at last with all the faithful. The toil-worn warriors meet, no longer each engrossed greatly with the single portion of the field assigned to him to keep, or with the special onset of his own foe. No unintelligible aspect of anxiety rests now on any brow among them all, as it often was on earth while every man had his sword on his thigh by reason of fear in the night. The righteous all have dominion in the morning. And the unmingled joy with which they clasp hands tells that they are meeting truly “face to face” now – that they “now” know as they are known.
Meantime, however, let us guard against disparaging the value of Christian brotherhood on earth because of its present imperfection. Let Christian brethren whom providence brings into special fellowship cultivate each other’s con-
fidence in all honourable and holy affection. Let “the fear of the Lord” be imperatively demanded in all mutual interchange of spiritual experience. “Come, all ye that fear God, and I will tell you what He hath done for my soul.” Be not unhandsomely inquisitive into the experience of your friend. Abhor talking too much about your own. Err, in these weighty things that are divine, rather by defect than by excess. Remember that the Lord is between you, according to your oath implied if not uttered, and think upon His name which is great and dreadful.
But when observing these simple rules, take the comfort from what was spoken by the prophet: “They that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name” (Mal 3:16). Great even “now”, for mutual help and blessing, are the resources of the communion of saints; and often very easy is obedience to the command, “Let each esteem other better than themselves” – partial though their knowledge of each other may be here and “now”. “Jewels” are such friends to one another even “now”. And “then” – in the day when the Lord makes up His jewels – how fully shall you be revealed to one another! Then the weak shall be as David, and David as the angel of the Lord; when every David and his Jonathan shall be locked in an embrace of love glorified by light on their faces from the jasper walls. And very pleasant shall you be to one another, your love to one another wonderful!
- Now we see the Church as through a glass, darkly; but then face to face; now we know the Church of God in part, but then shall we know even as also we are known.
How infinitesimally small is our knowledge of God’s glorious universal Church here and now! We pray indeed for Christ’s kingdom – for all that in every place call on the name of their Lord and ours. But how poor is the ideal that stands before the mind’s eye in doing so! When we pray saying, “Thy kingdom come”, how very much do we pray as in the dark! In your closet, praying for the Church, how “darkly” do you see it “as in a glass”!
O how faintly do we visualise even your own branch of Christ’s Church – your own congregation, with her numerous other assemblies worshipping with you in our own land, and her many gatherings in many lands, some of them indeed small, yet dotted here and there throughout the globe, almost from the rising to the setting sun. This one portion of the Church, which is in our hearts so specially to live and die with her, has her Home Mission labours, her large Colonial fields whitening to the harvest, her families of sons and daughters to the Lord rescued from the horns of the idol’s altar and bound a loving sacrifice with cords to the altar of the cross, her sons of
Israel, her daughters of Jerusalem, brought into captivity to Israel’s King.
And when we try to take into our embrace of thought and love all faithful brethren in all communions, our minds, alas, faint within us in the weakness of our apprehension of the glorious vision of the kingdom. But if we yet further try to gather into one view – as at last they shall be gathered into one assembly – all pilgrim-patriarchs, psalmists and prophets; all seers, apostles, martyrs and confessors of olden times; all elders who obtained a good report and the countless hidden ones whose report is only in the remembrance-book of God; all Christians also of the new dispensation hitherto; and the millions in the bright millennial days, numerous as the dew drops from the womb of the morning – all as they shall stand around the throne of Shiloh when to Him shall the gathering of the people be. Ah, we are seeing them but through a glass very darkly!
But all the vast assembly will congregate on Zion Mount above; from their numbers without number the praise of heaven ascends: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain”, for He was slain for us. Then the whole family will find themselves at home – at home with the Father, and with the Elder Brother, and the Spirit of glory glorifying them all, the oil of gladness gladdening them all. Then the table will be spread in the presence of no foe, now that they dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. Then looking round on the wondrous hierarchy of kings and priests, and with vision large and clear enough to see and know them all, will not each be ready to exclaim, How darkly in yonder dark world did we see what we now see face to face! How small the “part” we knew of what we now fully know even as we ourselves are known!
And is it true that this Church of the living God – this Bride of the Lamb that was slain – will suffer me, a sinner, now to cry, “Entreat me not to leave thee, nor to return from following after thee”? Is it true that I hear her answering me with myriad voices crying, “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good”? Is it true that “the Spirit and this bride say, Come”?
What an assemblage of motives to holiness does the gospel present! I am a Christian; what then? I am a redeemed sinner, a pardoned rebel – all through grace, and by the most wonderful means which infinite wisdom could devise. I am a Christian; what then? Why, I am a temple of God, and surely I ought to be holy! I am a Christian; what then? Why, I am a child of God, and ought to be filled with filial love and reverence and joy and gratitude. I am a Christian; what then? Why, I am a disciple of Christ and must imitate Him who was meek and lowly of heart and pleased not Himself. I am a Christian; what then? Why, I am an heir of heaven and hastening on to the abodes of the blessed.
I find satisfaction in looking at nothing that I have done. I have not fought, but Christ has fought for me. I have not run, but Christ has carried me. I have not worked, but Christ has wrought in me. Christ has done all.
Edward Payson