“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” John 12:32
Dear Ones:
Just before the crucifixion of Christ, when the Lord Jesus was brought before Pilate to be questioned by him privately, He said to him: “To this end I was born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” (Jn. 18:37) There is in the declaration of Jesus to Pilate a stroke of the Master Painter’s brush, to portray to godless and lost Pilate, that which is true of God standing before him. However, it will be when the Lord Jesus will be “…lifted up from the earth” at His crucifixion, that the strokes of the Painter’s brush will reveal the Divine nature of God in such a dramatic, specific, and powerful way, that the whole of human history will be changed.
In our consideration of this subject of the portrait of God as it is in Christ, there must first be a disclaimer made in two parts. The first part is that there is no man who has ever lived on the face of the earth, apart from the Lord Jesus, who could ever begin to communicate by the strokes of a paint brush, both truthfully and accurately, the essential essence and qualities of the Divine Nature, God Himself. Scripture tells us in both the Old and New Testaments: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.” (1 Cor. 2:9; Is. 64:4) This statement reveals to us just how limited, even blind, we are in every dimension of our being, with regard to even having a right thought of WHO and WHAT God is. The Apostle Paul tells us very clearly that the ONLY way that we can know, and grasp, something of the truth of the Divine, is by revelation, by the Holy Spirit. (v.10) So that, if man cannot in and of himself truly grasp the truth of God, how can he possibly communicate by a portrait with accuracy and truth, the person and holy nature of God?
The second aspect of the disclaimer that we must consider is that, with regard to the revelation of God to the heart and mind of man, man is extraordinarily limited in his capacity to truly understand and grasp it. His capacity is so very small. Jesus would illustrate the fact of the disciple’s limitations to understand Him by saying: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now..” (Jn. 16:12) He would also say to Philip on one occasion: “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not known Me?” (Jn. 14:9) Though the disciples were exposed to the revelation of God in Christ, yet their capacity to grasp and understand Him, was limited. How then can we consider that there is a portrait of God, one that we can understand in truth, though in such a limited way? And how should it transform us?
On his return from worshiping in Jerusalem, to Ethiopia, after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, and the events of Pentecost, a eunuch of great authority, in charge of all the treasures of the Ethiopian Queen, Candace, was in his chariot reading the writings of Isaiah. He was reading a passage, Isaiah 53, which was written about seven hundred years before Christ. So arrested was he by the portrait of Christ in this passage, that he readily received Philip the apostle, into his chariot to explain to him this picture, this portrait. There in precise, Divine strokes, the Spirit of God had painted an exact, and truthful portrait of the heart of God, of the Son of God. So gripped was the eunuch by the vision, that he asked to be baptized, confessing that Jesus Christ was indeed the Son of God.
Dear Father, open our eyes to see in truth Thy Son in Thy word, by the Spirit. Grip us as you gripped this eunuch, and change us ever-increasingly into the image of Thy Son, for Thy glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad