Often times when I share with people about Jesus Christ, I speak of His self-authenticating beauty. What does that mean? It means that the display of Jesus when seen is perceived as inimitably beautiful! Therefore, real, true, and authentic.
Beauty is self authenticating when it is beheld. For example, when I go to Yosemite and stand at the lookout over viewing Bridal Veil Falls and the panorama of the entire Yosemite Valley, with Half Dome in the distance, I see self-authenticating beauty. There is something exceptional and breathtaking when this is seen.
If you have ever watched a sunset in Hanalei Bay on Kauai, with all of it’s amazing pallet of color, you’d know what I mean when I speak of self-authenticating beauty. All one can do when lingering at the sight of a Hawaiian sunset is to be amazed.
Is it not a wonderful pleasure to gaze and admire beauty? I truly believe that the human heart was made to stand in awe of beauty. Yet all of the beauty on this earth is but a pale reflection of infinite beauty. The ultimate beauty there is, is the self authenticating beauty of Jesus Christ.
The human heart was made to stand in awe of ultimate excellence. You were made to admire Jesus Christ the Son of God, King of kings and Lord of lords and God desires for us to see this beauty, (2 Corinthians 4:4); to cherish this beauty, (John 17:26, 1 Peter 2:7); and to be transformed by this beauty (2 Corinthians 3:16).
Jonathan Edwards has awakened me more to the beauty of Jesus than anyone. He is like a docent taking me on the PCT Trail guiding, describing, and pointing me to the self-authenticating beauty of Jesus in his writings and sermons. What makes Jesus Christ so admirable, so precious, so beautiful, and so glorious is what Jonathan Edwards calls “an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies”
The beauty of Jesus Christ is not a simple thing. It is a unique coming together in one person of extremely diverse qualities. Jesus has a glory in himself that has a combing of attributes that would seem to be impossible in one person. He is unique, one of a kind. There is no one and nothing we could compare Him to.
Listen and see what he points to in Jesus. In the person of Jesus Christ, he says, meet together:
"Infinite highness and infinite condescension . . . infinite justice and infinite grace . . . infinite glory and lowest humility . . . infinite majesty and transcendent meekness . . . deepest reverence towards God and equality with God . . . infinite worthiness of good, and the greatest patience under sufferings of evil . . . an exceeding spirit of obedience, with supreme dominion over heaven and earth . . . absolute sovereignty and perfect resignation . . . self-sufficiency, and an entire trust and reliance on God."
The list could go on and on in proclaiming the excellencies of our self-authenticating Savior. Do you see what I mean when I say that the beauty that we find in Jesus is not a simple thing? It is complex. It is a coming together in one person of the perfect balance and proportion of extremely diverse qualities and that's what makes Jesus Christ so irresistibly and ultimately admirable and excellent.
What happens to us when we see Jesus self-authenticating beauty? Jonathan Edwards has so profoundly written:
“The excellency of Christ is such, that the discovery of it is exceedingly contenting and satisfying to the soul. The carnal soul imagines that earthly things are excellent-one thinks riches most excellent, another has the highest esteem of honor, and to another carnal pleasure appears the most excellent. But the soul cannot find contentment in any of these things, because it soon finds an end to their excellency. Worldly men imagine that there is true excellency and true happiness in those things which they are pursuing. They think that if they could but obtain them, they would be happy. But when they obtain them, and cannot find happiness, they look for happiness in something else, and are still upon the pursuit. But Christ Jesus has true excellency, and so great excellency, that when they come to see him they look no further, but the mind rests there. It sees a transcendent glory and an ineffable sweetness in Jesus! It sees that until now it has been pursuing shadows, but that now it has found the substance. It sees that before it had been seeking happiness in the stream, but that now it has found the ocean!”
The beauty of Jesus Christ is a spiritual beauty. It’s not something you see with the physical eyes, but with the eyes of the heart (Ephesians 1:18). that is why when Jesus was alive , most people never saw His self-authenticating beauty. They were like blind men and women in Yosemite and Kauai who at best can only hear second hand about the beauty that others see. The only way that blind men and women can see earthly beauty is to be given sight and the only way men and women can see Jesus is to be given spiritual sight.
God has a way for us to see! He has means to heal and open up our blind eyes to true beauty. We look at the way he speaks and acts and loves and dies in the Bible, and by the Holy Spirit and His grace, we see a self-authenticating, divine glory, or beauty. Paul put it like this in 2 Corinthians 4:4, 6, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God...God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. ” The “glory of Christ who is the image of God” is what John 1:14 calls “glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Remember, Paul is talking to people who never saw the earthly Jesus, and John is writing his Gospel for people who never saw the earthly Jesus—people like us. The glory of John 1:14 and the glory of 2 Corinthians 4:4,6 is a glory, a self-authenticating beauty, that you see spiritually when you hear the story of Jesus.
You don’t have to see him physically. Jesus said in John 20:29, “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet have believed.” You meet Him in the writings of the Bible, and when you meet him, through these inspired stories of his words and deeds, His beauty shines through, the self-authenticating beauty of that "admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies."
Edwards wrote of this transforming beauty in his sermon The Highway of Holiness.
'Tis the highest beauty and amiableness, vastly above all other beauties; 'tis a divine beauty, makes the soul heavenly and far purer than anything here on earth-this world is like mire and filth and defilement [compared] to that soul which is sanctified-'tis of a sweet, lovely, delightful, serene, calm, and still nature. 'Tis almost too high a beauty for any creature to be adorned with; it makes the soul a little, amiable, and delightful image of the blessed Jehovah. How may angels stand with pleased, delighted, and charmed eyes, and look and look with smiles of pleasure upon that soul that is holy!
Oh pray for eyes to see, savor ,and glory in ultimate beauty, the self authenticating beauty of Christ. When you see His beauty, you will have a joy that "is inexpressible and full of glory" ( 1 Peter 1:8).
Living to see, savor, and tell others of the self-authenticating beauty of Christ,
Pastor Bill
2 comments:
Just to say that reading this article about Jesus has initiated a deep reverence for Him, and desire to know Him, as He knows me.
I remember the day I was born again. It was the happiest day of my life. I knew I was accepted by God, and immediately I realized I could talk to God, and then I discovered this treasure, that He also 'talked' to me, but not with any audible word, but by another way, an unseen and unheard, and unthought way. At that point,I was truly amazed. As you pointed out, pastor Bill, "that when they come to see Him they look no further, but the mind rests there."
Since that day, many years ago, I knew there was no other 'truth' of life, and nothing else worth seeking, and nothing else worth wanting, and nothing else worth giving my life to. To Him be the glory and honor always and forever.
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