Tag Archives: Jesus Christ

The King in His Beauty

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“Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty…”
Isaiah 33:17

I am preaching tonight at a celebration of life service for a sister in Christ.  Family members are sharing the eulogy and reflections on her life, and I was asked to give a message of hope and encouragement.  This is a welcomed privilege and honor, and I pray that God will be glorified and our spirits blessed by our time of worship and reflection upon God’s word.

In preparing for this service, my eyes kept turning to the title of a book that I’ve been reading by Thomas Schreiner called, “The King in His Beauty.”  It is a Biblical theology book that unfolds the revelation of God through the Old and New Testaments.

The title of the book, and the passage of Isaiah from whence it is taken, captivates me.  How often do we think of Christ our King as beautiful?  Sure we call upon Him as gracious, loving, mighty to save, and faithful.  We acknowledge that He is the only begotten of God, in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, that He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.  But do we say that He is beautiful?

I think we have lost something in our appreciation of who Christ is when we fail to reflect upon His beauty.  It’s not surprising, but the Puritans were able to articulate the beauty of Christ brilliantly.

As the Word of God through whom all things were created, all the beauty we see today is derivative of Christ’s beauty.  Johnathon Edwards wrote,

“When we are delighted with flowery meadows, and gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that we see only the emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ. When we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see his love and purity. So the green trees, and fields, and singing of birds are the emanations of his infinite joy and kindness. The easiness and naturalness of trees and vines are shadows of his beauty and loveliness. The crystal rivers and murmuring streams are the footsteps of his favor, grace, and beauty. When we behold the light and brightness of the sun, the golden edges of an evening cloud or the beauteous bow, we behold the adumbrations of his glory and goodness, and in the blue sky, of his mildness and gentleness. There are also many things wherein we may behold his awful majesty, in the sun in his strength, in comets, in thunder, in the hovering thunderclouds, in ragged rocks, and the brows of mountains. That beauteous light with which the world is filled in a clear day, is a lively shadow of his spotless holiness, and happiness and delight in communicating himself; and doubtless this is a reason that Christ is compared so often to those things, and called by their names, as the Sun of Righteousness, the morning star, the rose of Sharon, and lily of the valley, the apple tree amongst the trees of the wood, a bundle of myrrh, a roe, or a young hart.”

Our eyes are naturally drawn to that which is beautiful, and there is nothing more wonderful that the beauty of our Savior.  The promise that we will one day look upon our King in His beauty is a glorious assurance.  It is the fulfillment of our heart’s desire.  Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”

May we know the King in His Beauty.  May we long for the King in His Beauty. May we see the King in His Beauty!

SDG

 

We Stand in Christ’s Triumph

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Today I offer another gem from A.W. Tozer:

Among evangelicals it is a commonplace to say that the superiority of Christianity to every other religion lies in the fact that in Christian its a Person is present, active, filling, upholding and supporting all. That person, of course, is Jesus Christ.

That is what we say, and say truthfully, but my own experience has shown how difficult it is to make this belief a practical force in my own life.  And a little observation reveals that my fellow evangelicals for the most part are not doing much better. This mighty world-beating truth gets lost under a multitude of lesser truths and is allowed to lie forgotten while we struggle, must unsuccessfully, with the world, the flesh and the devil.

The unique thing about the early Christians was their radiant relation to a Person. “The Lord,” they called Him tenderly, and when they used the term they gave it its own New Testament meaning. It meant Jesus Christ who a short while before had been among them but was not gone into the heavens as their High Priest and Advocate.

It was this engrossment with a victorious Person that gave verve and vibrancy to their lives and conviction to their testimony. They bore witness joyously to the One who had lived as a true Man among men.  Their testimony was not weakened by the pale cast of metaphysical thought.  They knew that Jesus was very Man and very God, and He had died, had been raised from the dead and had ascended into heaven.  They accepted literally His claim to be invested with authority over everything in heaven, earth and hell.  How it could be they never stopped to inquire. They trusted Him absolutely and left the detail to their triumphant Lord.

Another marked characteristic of the witness of those first Christians was their insistence that Jesus was Lord and mover in a long-range plan to restore the earth and to bring it again under divine control. He is now sovereign Head of His body the Church, they declared, and will extend His rule to include the earth and the world in His own good time.  Hence they never presented Him as Savior merely.  It never occurred to them to invite people to receive “peace of mind” or “peace of soul.” Nor did they stop at forgiveness or joy or happiness. They gathered up all these benefits into one Person and preached that Person as the last and highest sum of every good possible to be known and enjoyed in this world or that which is to come. “The same Lord over all,” they said, “is rich unto all that call upon him.” The seeker must own Him Lord triumphant, not a meek-eyed Lover of their souls only, but Lord above all question or doubt.

Today we hold the same views, but our emphasis is not the same.  The meek and lowly Jesus has displaced the high and holy Jesus in the minds of millions.  The vibrant note of triumph is missing in our witness. A sad weeping Jesus offers us His quiet sympathy in our griefs and temptations, but He appears to be as helpless as we are when the pressure is on.  His pale feminine face looks at us from the “holy picture” of the Catholic and the Easter card of the Protestant.  We give Him our sympathy, but scarcely our confidence.  The helpless Christ of the crucifix and the vacuous-countenanced Christ that looks out in sweet innocence from the walls of our evangelical homes is all one and the same.  The Catholics rescue Him by bringing a Queen of Heaven to His aid. But we Protestants have no helper. So we sing pop choruses to cheer our drooping spirits and hold panel discussions in the plaintive hope that someone will come up with the answer to our scarce-spoken complaint.

Well, we already have the answer if we but had the faith and wisdom to turn to it.  The answer is Christ Victorious, high over all.  He lives forever above the reach of His foes. He has but to speak and it is done; He need but command and heaven and earth obey Him.  Within the broad framework of His far-looking plans He tolerates for a time the wild outlawry of a fallen world, but He holds the earth in His hand and can call the nation to judgment whenever He wills.

Yes, Christian pilgrim, we are better off that the sad Church can see.  We stand in Christ’s triumph. Because He lives we live also.  Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Tozer, A.W. The Root of the Righteous. (Harrisburg, PA, Christian Publications Inc., 1955), Pg. 70-73.