We Know in Part - Glenn Conjurske

We Know in Part

More than forty years ago William R. Newell spoke of the present age as the shallowest which the world has yet seen. Yet matters are much worse today than they were when Newell lived, and at the present day shallow ignorance is one of the most prominent characteristics of the church of God—-shallow ignorance, wedded together with laziness, apathy, and intellectual pride. It is a strange anomaly, that while shallow ignorance reigns as king, even among the most eminent teachers of the church, that intellectual pride should reign as queen. Yet such is the fact. Pride is one of the greatest hindrances to the work of God everywhere, with almost every babe and novice thinking he knows better than his elders. Every greenhorn has all the answers, when he doesn’t yet know what the questions are. Every man holds to his own unfounded opinions—-opinions which he would know very well to be unfounded if he but knew a little more, but he is too apathetic to study, and too proud to be taught. Some few humble seekers for truth I have met, but alas, they are rare.

Ah! if only the church of God in this shallow day could come to grips with the statement of the great apostle Paul, “WE KNOW IN PART”! But this statement of the great apostle, which ought indeed to administer a check to the pride of the modern church, has actually been turned about by subtle sophistry to the opposite end, and made to aid and abet that pride. For the teachers of Fundamentalism commonly inform us that this text has nothing to do with the present age. No, it had its application only before the completion of the written New Testament. Then the poor saints knew in part, but now “that which is perfect”—-being the completed Bible—-has come, and we—-—-—--what? Know even as we are known? I would think that to state such an interpretation would be to refute it. Say, ye leaders of the Fundamental church, who put such a construction upon Paul’s words, do ye know even as ye are known? Can you seriously believe in such an interpretation yourself, or is this only a club with which to browbeat the Pentecostals?

The true interpretation of the passage has nothing to do with the completion of the canon of Scripture. The contrast drawn is between time and eternity. “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake 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 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.” (I Cor. 13:9-12). Even while I held to the interpretation which I am here opposing (for I was taught it at Bible school), I was uneasy with it. It seemed forced and unnatural. When Paul says, “then face to face,” the reference to the glorified state, “face to face” with Christ, seems so obvious that to apply it to anything else seems an impertinence. Moreover, the contrast which he draws between “now” and “then” is evidently a great one—-the contrast between seeing in a glass darkly, and beholding face to face. Did any such great change take place when the canon of Scripture was completed? Could Paul have anticipated any such great change when the canon of Scripture was completed? For recall, Paul not only says, “We know in part,” but also “I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Thus speaks Paul, who had received such abundance of revelations that a thorn in the flesh must be given him, lest he be exalted above measure. Paul knew in part.

But further, the glass—-the mirror, that is, for so it means—-in which we now see darkly, in fact is the word of God. To us, indeed, this mirror can be nothing else but the written Scriptures. Thus James speaks, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any 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.” (James 1:22-25). Here, without question, the mirror is the figure of the word of God. And Paul also says, “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.” (II Cor. 3:18). This is not the change “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” which shall take place when we see him face to face, but a gradual change, “from glory to glory.” And as it is gradual, so it is necessarily partial. John says, “It doth not yet appear”—-that is, we do not yet see it: it has not yet been manifested—-“what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (I John 3:2). John adds in the next verse, “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” This is the gradual change of which Paul speaks, the being changed into the same image from glory to glory. The complete and instantaneous change is reserved till that moment when we see him as he is, “face to face,” as Paul speaks. Now we behold his glory “as in a glass”—-imperfectly—-“darkly.”

The glass of which Paul speaks was obviously not the mirror of today, in which we may see an image as perfect as the face-to-face vision. The mirrors of that day were of polished metal, in which the image was dim. Moses “made the laver of brass, and the foot of it of brass, of the looking-glasses of the women.” (Ex. 38:8). “Looking-glass” is an old word for “mirror.” In this case they were of brass. It is such a mirror that Paul speaks of. To see “through” it means to see “by means of” it. By this means we have no face-to-face vision. We do not see him as he is, but “darkly”—-literally, “in an enigma,” or “in a riddle”—-in such a way, that is, as to leave many of our questions unanswered—-in such a way as leaves us saying, “WE KNOW IN PART.” This mirror is the revelation of God which we now possess. It is the word of God.

Now there are many reasons why it is not possible that we shall ever have anything other than a very partial knowledge, so long as we remain on this earth and in these bodies. The first and most obvious of those reasons is that God has not revealed very much to us. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deut. 29:29). There are many secret things, which the Lord has not chosen to reveal to us. The book which he has given to us is a very small one, which we may hold in our hands. It contains but little of those things which God might have revealed. For every fact which it contains, there are untold millions of them which we shall never know in this life. No searching can bring them within our reach. And this is undoubtedly Paul’s meaning in this passage.

But alas, we know but little even of those things which may be known. The depths of Scripture have never been sounded—-not by any individual, and not by the whole church of God. Those who know the most struggle with many unanswered questions. Those who are the wisest are the first to confess that there is much in the Bible which they do not understand. John Wesley truly says, “There are many scriptures, the true sense whereof neither you nor I shall know, till death is swallowed up in victory.” This is a very bitter pill for me to swallow—-idealist that I am, and strongly committed as I am to the propositions that the truth may be known, and that the Scriptures are meant to be understood. Yet for all that, I believe Wesley speaks true. The truth may be known indeed, but it may not be known easily, and we all of us labor under such severe limitations that we shall certainly never know all of it. Even in the sphere of “those things which are revealed,” we know in part. There is not a one of us who has a perfect understanding of revealed truth. Nay, there is not a one among us who has anything but a very partial understanding of it. We fail, all of us, to appropriate many even of those things which God has placed within our reach. We all of us go down to our graves still learning, and with much still to learn. Neither has the whole church of God yet fathomed the depths of revealed truth. Many ages of the church have added each their mite or two—-while others have done no more than let slip what the previous ages had attained—-and the church certainly knows more today than it did in the days of Luther or Wycliffe, but yet when the church of God hears at last the sound of the trumpet, and the voice of the Lord calling “Come up hither,” we shall yet know in part.

This, to stick with Paul’s figure, not only because the mirror itself is dim, but because our eyes are dim also. To speak first of the mirror, the image which it gives is a dim one. “We see in a glass darkly”—-in an enigma. Not only does it leave very much unrevealed, but many of the things which it reveals are not revealed clearly or explicitly, but “darkly.” Many of its statements are partial, cryptic, dark, enigmatic. Its doctrines are not revealed after the manner of a treatise in systematic theology, but piecemeal—-here a type, there an example, yonder a precept, and occasionally a plain didactic statement. And all of this is handed to us like some immense jigsaw puzzle in its box, and we are left to piece it together. Former ages of the church have done much, but they have not always done their work soundly, and a part of our own work must necessarily be to take apart what they have put together.

Such are the limitations which the Book itself places us under. But we find in ourselves further limitations. First, we are limited by the weakness of the flesh. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” I may offer this very statement as an example of the difficult process to which we are subjected in order to understand the Scriptures. For years I wrestled to know the meaning of this simple statement, “The flesh is weak”—-trying all the while to give to “the flesh” the theological sense in which Paul uses it. But taken in that sense, it seemed to me that the real difficulty was that the flesh was strong. At length (and only recently) I was forced to abandon such thoughts, and find in “the flesh” nothing other than its literal meaning, as a designation of the body. And this suits the context of the statement exactly. The disciples were spiritually weak, and therefore needed to watch and pray, lest they enter into temptation. This their spirit was fully disposed to do, but the body was weak, and they all fell asleep instead of praying. “Watch and pray” means literally to “wake and pray,” but the body was weak, and must needs sleep, and the determination of the spirit was not strong enough to overcome the weakness of the flesh.

Now all of us are subject to this weakness of the flesh. Besides the natural dullness of brain which belongs in some degree to all of us, the flesh is weak in many other ways. We are weary and languid. “Much study is a weariness of the flesh” (Eccl. 12:12), and we cannot acquire knowledge as we would, howsoever determined our spirits may be. And as we grow older, and become better equipped spiritually to understand those things which we need to know, the flesh becomes weaker. Our eyes begin to dim, and we cannot read as we once did. Our memories become dull. Our weary frame calls for sleep. We cannot concentrate as we wish we could. For all of these reasons “we know in part,” and always shall till we put off this tabernacle.

But we are limited in our very spirits. Though the spirit may be willing—-yea, determined, eager, avid, ardent—-yet the spirit is not so willing as it could be, or ought to be. Who among us can say that we have all the zeal which we ought to have? Who does not fall short in commitment? Who is not lacking in motivation? For these reasons, “we know in part.” I speak of the best and most zealous among us. Alas, the most of Christians are too apathetic and lazy even to appropriate that learning which former ages have handed to them cut and dried.

But could we suppose ourselves to be perfect in spirit and strong in body, yet we are very severely limited by the shortness of time. Supposing we have the will to read the great theological controversies of the past, supposing we have the desire to read the histories of the great movements of God’s Spirit in the history of the church, supposing we have the determination to read the great biographies of evangelists and missionaries and men of God, we really have not the time to do so. There is so much which we positively need to know, in order to do the will of God, in order to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, in order to walk circumspectly, in order to deal effectually with the souls of men, in order to steer a straight course between the manifold snares on the right hand and the left, in order to lead the church of God—-and the little vanishing vapor of our lives is altogether too short in which to learn it. We scarcely begin to learn how to live, and we die! Oh! for a thousand years in which to live and learn! Oh! for the life of an Adam, a Noah, a Shem! What giants of understanding must these men have been, who had nine hundred years in which to experience, to observe, to inquire, to meditate, and to discuss! What manifold wisdom must they have possessed! What knowledge of all of the ins and outs of human nature! What dwarfs and pygmies must all of us necessarily remain in comparison with them! They knew in part, and how much more we!

Even supposing that we had nothing else to do with our fast-fleeting lives but to gain understanding, yet would our case be lamentable enough. But the case is far otherwise. Most of us must spend much of our precious little time laboring to keep the wolf from the door, and to keep body and soul together—-to pay the rent, to put food on the table, to pay the doctor and the dentist, to put clothes on our backs, and to keep the old car on the road. Beyond this, some of us are called to spend ourselves in endeavoring to impart our little store of understanding to others. And we are all our brothers’ keepers, and must do what we can, in spite of our scant ability, to turn the wicked from his wicked way. What little time is left us in which to learn! Yet the wisest of men admonishes us, “Wisdom is the principal thing: therefore get wisdom, and with all thy getting get understanding.” (Prov. 4:7). Yet those who take this admonition most to heart, and labor the most diligently through all the little vapor of their lives to gain that understanding, will do no more than make a small beginning ere the hand of death cuts them down, and while they live will feel the most deeply that “we know in part.” Whatever little we may gain of wisdom we shall find to be “more precious than rubies” (Prov. 3:15), but it will be little enough after all. There is much to be gained from books, and much to be gained from experience and observation, but our time is too little in which to gain it. Therefore “we know in part”—-and, alas, too often know amiss, so that if men will write books when they are young, they must write “retractions” when they are old.

But we are further limited in means. Even supposing that those books which would contribute the most to building us up in understanding were readily available on the market (and that we knew what those books were), most of us have not the money to buy them. But those books are not available. We cannot obtain them. Half of our lives we spend learning what books are worth reading, and the other half trying to find them. And then (alas!!) when after years of searching we find such a book, it often so happens that we cannot afford to buy it. For while we know the spiritual value of the book, the bookseller knows well enough its monetary value. But many of those books we shall never see for sale. Many of them we shall never find in a library. Copies of them exist—-somewhere. They are in the Bodleian Library, the British Museum, the Methodist Archives, the New York Public Library—-but we have no means to go there, even supposing we had the time. Therefore “we know in part.”

But further, all who make a serious pursuit of understanding will very soon find that they are limited by language. Those of us who speak English, to be sure, have the advantage over every other people on the globe, but still we are greatly limited. What treasures of understanding lie locked up in the French and German tongues—-or, if a man is French or German, in the English tongue. What treasures of wisdom and knowledge lie locked up in the Latin tongue—-thirty volumes, for example, of the writings of John Wycliffe, most of them never translated into English. Alas, when I was young, I had the Latin handed to me on a platter, but I was too lazy to learn it. I had no purpose, and no motivation. I mocked the Latin tongue, calling it a dead language which was as dry as a desert in a drought. Little did I know that there were springs of living water in that desert, and little did I care. But now I must pay the price for my former ignorance and folly. Now those wells of water remain all but sealed up, and only by tedious labor may I drink a little of them.

We are all of us, then, very severely limited in our pursuit of “the principal thing.” Like it or not, “we know in part,” and what we know is indeed a small part. We know little even of that which may be known. We know little even of that which ought to be known. On this point Paul says plainly, “If any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he OUGHT to know.” (I Cor. 8:2). We know but little even of those things which most concern our own spiritual welfare, and the welfare of the work of the Lord which is committed into our hands, for again Paul says plainly, “We know not what we should pray for as we OUGHT.” (Rom. 8:26). So little do we know of human nature that we often find ourselves unable to deal effectually with those who are nearest and dearest to us. We cannot find the root of the difficulty, so as to deliver a beloved soul from the slough of despond. And if we know where the root is, we know not how to root it out, so as to deliver beloved souls from the snares of the world, or from the complacencies of a lukewarm evangelicalism. And if we know not this, what do we know? “We know in part”—-all of us—-the wisest among us.

And here it should be observed that Paul does not merely say, “We know in part,” but “I know in part.” He is not speaking merely of the ignorance of the carnal Corinthians to whom he writes, but of his own ignorance, though he was an apostle of Christ. And I myself, though I have no doubt whatsoever of my divine call to teach the people of God, must yet affirm with heart-felt conviction, “I know in part.” The most common answer I give when spiritual questions are put to me is, “I don’t know.” Many subjects I dare not say much upon. Many texts of Scripture I dare not say much about. A decade ago I began to write a book on God and Mammon—-feeling as I do that there is so much in the Scriptures that is so clear and so forceful on the subject, and so little heeded in the church of God today, and so important to the spiritual health of the people of God, that a book on such a subject is very greatly needed at this time. But I had not written far when I began deeply to feel my unfitness for the task. I simply do not know enough to be able to write such a book. I have too many unanswered questions—-deep and important questions, which are really at the heart of the matter. So the book lies by me yet, unfinished, and scarcely begun. Some are offended at me because I speak so authoritatively. Little do they know how often I refrain from speaking at all, because I feel so deeply my own ignorance. I do indeed speak authoritatively, when I happen to know something, and so offend those who know the answers without knowing the questions. So did Peter, and John, and Paul, and Amos, and Ezekiel. Yet they knew in part, and “I know in part.”

We may consider ourselves to be making good progress if we but understand what the issues are, without being able to resolve them. I was once speaking with a very good and zealous man, who questioned me concerning a matter of deep practical importance. I told him that I certainly did not have all the answers, but proceeded very briefly, in about five minutes’ time, to run through the various scriptures on the subject. When I had finished, he immediately responded with, “I used to think I knew something. Now I don’t know anything.” But I replied, “Before you had all the answers. Now you know what the questions are.”

When God would make Job to feel his littleness, he did not reprove him concerning sin, but only began to ask him questions—-none of which Job could answer. And there are a thousand deep (and important) doctrinal and practical questions which none of us can answer. What is the real extent of human depravity, and of what exactly does it consist? What exactly is “the body of sin” of which Paul speaks? What exactly is “the flesh”? In what does “sin that dwells in me” consist? How is it related to the body? To the soul? To the spirit? To the mind? To the emotions? To the will? How does the Spirit of God dwell in me? How does he strengthen me with might in the inner man? What is the relationship between means and the power of God, and what the place of each? Of what exactly does a spiritual gift consist? When and how is it communicated? What is the difference between faith and hope? What took place in King Saul when “God gave him another heart”? It may be that you can answer some of my questions, and I some of yours, but it yet remains that every sincere seeker of truth has a thousand questions which no one can answer. “We know in part,” and those who have the most ready answers are commonly those who know the least of what they are talking about.

And yet in spite of all of this ignorance, what pride of intellect goes about preening itself in the church of God—-men strutting about with unsound doctrines, false assumptions, foolish reasonings, shallow cliches, and unconscionable rationalizations fairly dripping from them, and yet priding themselves that they hold the true doctrines of the Scriptures, and despising all who do not see eye to eye with them! Babes and novices, despising those who are twice their age, and who know ten times more than themselves! Yea, and many who are neither babes nor novices, who seem to know everything except the real extent of their own ignorance. They have no sounder basis for their certainty than their own pride, and yet they are generally just as sure as Job’s friends were, and generally just as wrong. Yet they will hold to their own opinion, though it has no more basis in truth or fact than Humpty Dumpty. Yet they must despise those who really do know a few things. Yet they must dispute and set their neighbors right, or stand up to preach and teach, or write and print and publish, when they had by all means better go to the back side of the desert to learn a few things. Really, the church of God is in a very sorry state, and it is really no wonder that the work of the Lord so little prospers.

Now to know that “we know in part” is a very great gain. It is in fact one of the most valuable nuggets of knowledge which we shall ever possess—-especially if we have any proper understanding of the real extent of our ignorance. And to feel that “we know in part” is a greater gain still—-and the more deeply we feel it, the better. Not that our feeling this will cure it. No, but it may cure some other things. “We know in part,” and there is really no cure for that, but our feeling it as we ought may contribute a good deal to curing our pride, and that may contribute a good deal towards our acquisition of a little of true knowledge and genuine wisdom.

Glenn Conjurske