What people see and hear is strongly conditioned by what they expect to see and hear. Along the same lines, people are only able to receive the truth about God to the degree that their innermost hearts are aligned with His character. The good news is that John proclaims that when Christ appears, "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is," which is why "all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure" (1 John 3:2, emphasis added). While all who are in Christ have had the veil over our minds "taken away" and can therefore "contemplate the Lord's glory" (2 Cor 3:14, 18), we still "see only a reflection as in a mirror" (1 Cor 13:12). But when the process of our transformation into Christlikeness is completed, we will finally have the capacity to grasp Christ in all His beauty. And it is only because "we shall be like him," that we will finally be able to '"see him as he is."
