¹² Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.^[a] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

² Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.

¹⁸ So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

⁹ Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! ¹⁰ But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

Pressing toward the Goal

¹² I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.

⁷ For we live by believing and not by seeing.

⁴ And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads.

²³ For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.

³ But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.^[a]