The prophecy from which the text is taken is obviously not yet
fulfilled. It waits for the perfect condition of redeemed manhood in
another life. But even then, the chief reason why the Christian is
warranted in cherishing an unpresumptuous hope that he will know even
as he is known is not that then he will have dropped the veil of flesh
and sense, but that he will have dropped the thicker, more stifling
covering of sin, and, being perfectly like God, will be able perfectly
to gaze on Him, and, perfectly gazing on Him, will grow ever more
perfectly like Him.
The choice for each of us is whether the veil will thicken till it
darkens the Face altogether, and that is death; or whether it will thin
away till the last filmy remnant is gone, and 'we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is.'