Through a Glass

Seeing the Divine Narrative

Seeing

One of the central themes running throughout Scripture is not simply believing, but seeing. Long before our theology changes, our vision changes. We begin to see God, ourselves, and the world differently.

The Apostle Paul uses two beautiful metaphors involving glass in his letters to the Corinthians. The first speaks of seeing "through a glass, darkly." The second speaks of "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord." Together they describe both our problem and our hope. We see reality, but not clearly. Then, as Christ is revealed, our vision begins to clear.

Perhaps this is one way of describing the entire human journey. We all see life through some kind of glass. Our experiences, traditions, assumptions, fears, and even our theology shape what we see. The world itself has not changed, but our seeing has.

 

Through a Glass Darkly

"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

Have you ever lifted a glass Coca-Cola bottle up to your eyes like a pair of binoculars? If not, grab any kind of jar or bottle and give it a try. Try different colors of glass as well and notice how each one gives a different perspective to what you see. The objects are still there, but they appear distorted according to the thickness, color, and imperfections of the glass. They become blurred and unclear rather than sharp and distinct.

Perhaps Paul's words describe more than our future knowledge. Perhaps they also describe the way we often see God in the present. We recognize something of Him, but our vision is incomplete. We see enough to know He is there, yet not enough to understand Him clearly.

Then another picture comes to mind.

Imagine that we were fish living beneath the surface of a lake. Looking upward, we would see only blurred and wavering shapes moving through the strange world above us. We might spend our entire lives trying to describe what we thought we saw, yet everything would remain distorted by the water through which we looked.

The world above would be real.

Our understanding of it would simply be limited by our perspective.

Looking Up Through the Water

If you could speak fluent fish and your assignment today was to explain water to them, how would you do it?

Would they even know what water was?

It had always been there. Every moment of their lives had been lived within it. They were born in it. They played, struggled, created, loved, and survived because of it. Water would simply be the way things are. They would have nothing outside of it with which to compare it.

Which side of the surface understands the larger picture?

The fish looking out?

Or the one standing on the shore looking in?

The answer seems obvious.

Their understanding is not limited because they lack intelligence. It is limited because they have never seen beyond the world in which they have always lived.

Perhaps our situation is not so different.

 

Someone Who Has Seen Clearly

How then could the fish ever understand the larger world?

Only if someone entered their world who already knew the one beyond it.

Our world is much the same.

When God created Adam, He breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living soul. Paul tells us that the last Adam “became a life-giving Spirit.” The same word translated "Spirit" also means wind or breath.

Like the fish surrounded and sustained by water, we are surrounded and sustained by the breath of God.

God has always been as close as our next breath. Every breath we take is a quiet reminder of His nearness. He is not separate, distant, uninterested, or uninvolved. He is our very life. Yet, like the fish who seldom think about the water surrounding them, we often remain unaware of the Presence in whom we already live and move and have our being.

Jesus came from the Father's presence into our world to reveal what has always been true.

He came, not to bring God near, but to open our eyes to the God who has always been near.

The fish would never discover the larger world by looking harder through the water. Someone from beyond it would have to enter their world and reveal it.

 

Seeing Jesus

Do you think my story is a little fishy?

This is the One who stepped into our world. The One John describes in John 1:1-4 and again in 1 John 1:1-4. The Logos, the eternal Word, who was face to face with the Father before the beginning and through whom all things were made. The One who upholds all things by the word of His power. The One who entered our humanity so that we might finally see the Father clearly.

He shines His light into our darkness.

He is the One we have seen, heard, and touched.

He is the One who removes the distortion from the glass.

 

Becoming What We See

Paul's two metaphors belong together.

First, we see through a glass darkly.

Then, with unveiled face, we behold the glory of the Lord as in a mirror.

As our vision changes, we change.

"But 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 Corinthians 3:18

Transformation begins with seeing. Not becoming someone we were never intended to be, but awakening to the life the Father has always purposed for His children.

The glass becomes clear.

The mist slowly lifts.

And as we behold Him, we discover that we are being transformed into His likeness from glory to glory.