1 Corinthians 13:11-12 meaning
1 Corinthians 13:11-12 illustrates the transition from this age of partial gifting to the next age of completion, as highlighted in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, by applying two pictures drawn from ordinary life, and Paul again casts himself as the subject: When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things (v 11).
A child's speech, thought, and reasoning are right for childhood; the capacities match the season. Adulthood retires them. The phrase rendered did away with is "katargeo" once more, the same verb applied to prophecy and knowledge in 1 Corinthians 13:8-10, which can be translated "to render entirely idle," "to put out of operation." Earlier it was used to describe how those gifts will be done away. The grown man has put childish capacities permanently aside, as no longer applicable.
The retirement of childish things is an advancement toward maturity. Growing up gains him the man's speech, thought, and reasoning that the smaller, childish versions prepared him for. And, in fact, the "perfect" that is to come could be translated as the "mature" that is to come in 1 Corinthians 13:10.
When I was a child keeps the chapter in the first person. The apostle places his own speech, thought, and reasoning under the church's childhood and he counts his own present knowledge among the capacities that will retire. Paul again corrects the church from inside his own testimony, and he invites every reader to make the same admission about the present season.
The picture interprets the gifts of 1 Corinthians 13:8-10 (prophecy, tongues, and partial knowledge) as the church's childhood capacities; they are genuinely from God, appropriate for the present season, and destined to be outgrown when the "teleios" (the complete, perfect, or mature) arrives (1 Corinthians 13:10).
The picture may also carry a subtle correction for Corinth. The church appears to treat its most dramatic gifts as marks of maturity; Paul files the gifts themselves under childhood. Maturity in this chapter looks like the fifteen verbs of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, the action verbs that manifest agape-love. The gifts are the child-sized capacities God supplies while the church grows toward what it will become; every believer is destined to be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).
The picture leaves the present use of the gifts standing. A child ought to speak, think, and reason as a child—the season calls for them, and Paul will spend Chapter 14 explaining the healthy exercise of gifts in the assembly. But the application is to love, to act in love, seeking the best for others. Believers can simultaneously maintain gratitude for the gift and humility about the season.
The second picture moves from human development to sight: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known (v 12).
Ancient mirrors were polished metal, and Corinth was a noted producer of bronze mirrors. Paul's readers likely handled the very object he chose as an illustration, and knew its limits: a real image, and a dim, indirect one. James uses the same object for the man who "looks at his natural face in a mirror" (James 1:23). What a believer sees of God now through the gifts and the Scriptures is a true reflection, though dim. But in time we will see the real thing.
The word rendered dimly translates the Greek noun "ainigma," the source of the English word "enigma." It could also be translated "riddle" or "obscure saying." God made a similar distinction between His speech to prophets and His speech to Moses: "With him I speak mouth to mouth, Even openly, and not in dark sayings" (Numbers 12:8), for "The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend" (Exodus 33:11).
The church's present knowledge, even by prophecy, arrives in the riddle-and-vision mode; the ultimate destination is the Moses mode and beyond: face to face. Now we know part of the picture, and even that part is seen through faith. In time we will get to see the picture directly.
Seeing face to face means direct knowledge; infinite knowledge belongs to God alone. It is worth noting that in the current age angels are watching us to understand God's wisdom (Ephesians 3:10). So we can infer from this that our capacity to understand when we see face to face will be substantially shaped by the extent to which we came to know by faith.
As this passage makes clear, this life will be our only opportunity to know by faith. Riddle and enigma knowledge allows the exercise of faith; once we know directly, faith will not be possible, as faith is believing in something that is unseen (Hebrews 11:1). Since knowing God is the fullest experience of eternal life (John 17:3), our opportunity to know by faith will be limited to our experience in this life. It is reasonable to expect that our capacity to know face to face will, in turn, be largely shaped by the capacity we develop through knowing by faith.
Such a compounding effect of blessing for being a faithful witness through a walk of faith could be a major reason for the claim in 1 Corinthians 2:9 that the reward God has in store for those who love Him is beyond our natural capacity to comprehend.
The Greek verb "ginosko" is translated know in the clause now I know in part. This is the ordinary Greek verb for relational knowing. But the phrase I will know fully as well as the phrase have been fully known translate the Greek verb "epiginosko," an intensified form meaning to know thoroughly and completely.
Peter uses "epiginosko" and the noun form "epignosis" six times in his short letter of 2 Peter (2 Peter 1:2, 3, 8, 2:20, 21). His goal is to point believers to a deepened, intimate knowledge of Christ. Paul’s point here in this chapter is that God already has a deep, intimate knowledge of us, and He sees us. We can know Him intimately through faith, as in a dim mirror, but in the future we will know Him intimately by sight, just as He knows us by sight. The phrase that makes up the last part of verse 12 breaks down as follows:
- now (in this life)
- I know ("ginosko") in part,
- but then ("in the coming age")
- I will know fully ("epiginosko")
- just as I also have been fully known ("epiginosko")
God knows us; just as I also have been fully known (v 12). The final phrase changes voice: the believer's full knowing lies in the future while God's full knowing of the believer is already complete.
God already knows His child fully; nothing about the believer awaits discovery. The One who knows the believer fully is the One who gave His Son so that "whoever believes will in Him have eternal life" (John 3:15). The believer looks forward to knowing as he has all along been known. John describes the destination: "We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is" (1 John 3:2).
David stood in the same comfort a thousand years earlier: "O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up" (Psalm 139:1-2). Being fully known now, ahead of knowing fully then, grounds the believer's honesty. Prayers are intimate conversations that include listening. Confession can be given without rationalization; God already knows. And we can trust God's judgment of our deeds; He knows our hearts, and desires our best.
The reflection in the mirror is dim but real. Believers walk by faith in what is dimly seen, through the eyes of faith, awaiting full sight; as Paul says elsewhere: "for we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Believers live currently in childhood, and every dispute about spiritual gifts is a dispute among children about capacities that will one day retire. That perspective counsels humility for things about which we know only in part. And love operates the same on both sides of the mirror, which sets up the chapter's final sentence.