But Who Is Jesus?

Sometimes I wonder if I would have recognized Jesus, had I lived on the earth when He walked among us. The forty weeks of pregnancy can feel interminable when excited expectancy jousts against intellect and the resolve to remain patient; the forty generations from Eve's sin to Mary's delivery must have carried an even greater tension. Just as each week of pregnancy adds to the development of the unborn child, so the passing generations added a new layer to the promise of the Messiah. He would be a woman's son (Gen. 3:15) of the lineage of Abraham (Gen. 12:3) and of King David (2 Sam. 7:12-16). He would willingly sacrifice Himself to save the world (Gen. 22:1-18). He would fulfill the foreshadowing of the Passover lamb (Ex. 12), the bronze serpent (Num. 24:17), and the kinsman-redeemer (Ruth 4:4-9). Can it really be that the subject of such effusive Old Testament prophecy emerged from the unseen realm into the visible world as a tiny, human baby with a navel and kneecaps? Did the embodied wisdom of God really have a stomach that growled when He was hungry and a nose that wrinkled when He cried?

No wonder the skies split and the angels shouted "goodwill" at His birth, even though the Pharisees would question His legitimacy, the Romans would doubt His sovereignty, and rulers throughout the ages would seek to destroy His legacy. The fulfillment of Isaiah 9 had a face. The promise of Genesis 3 had a form. Divinity became human--a cooing, sneezing, spitting-up infant who grew up to become a life-altering, miracle-performing, compassion-filled adult. This is Jesus. To know Him is to know the Father. To study Him is to learn the Father. He is the fullness of God. He is the One who makes us like Him; and--most incredible of all--He is a Man.

The more we gaze at the Son of Man, the more He shapes us into the image of God.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3:18)

Remember that the Scriptures describe Jesus Himself as the exact image of God. The word "image" in 2 Corinthians is different in the Greek than the word used in Hebrews 1:3. In 2 Corinthians, Paul says that our meditation on the glory of the Lord changes us into His "eikon " or reflection. In other words, the more we spend our time studying the person of Jesus in His glory, the easier it is for our lives and our motives to imitate Him. Perhaps His desire for us to be His imitators was one of Jesus' strongest reasons for praying, "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world" (Jn 17:24). Jesus knew that the only way for us to be able to walk out our salvation was to witness Him in His glory.

In contrast, Hebrews says that Christ is the express image, or "charakter ," of the Father; and is the only place in Scripture to use the word. "Charakter" connotes an engraving tool; it is akin to the mark of a branding iron. Jesus is not just the reflection of God on display for us to observe. Rather, in the person of Jesus, the consuming fire God branded Himself onto human flesh, imprinting it for all eternity, never to be removed. His perfect sacrifice on our behalf offered a way for us to receive cleansing from the stain of sin on our hearts. We will always be able to look at Jesus and see a human standing clean before God. There will always be a Man seated on God's throne.

When humanity looks at Jesus, we see the fire of God still burning in the imprint on human flesh, and we are changed in beholding. When the Father looks at Jesus, He sees Himself in our frame and remembers we are simply animated dust (Ps. 103:14). His divine humanity is why Jesus is the perfect mediator between God and humans; why He will always be the High Priest, serving as the bridge between our frailty and God's omnipotence. The God-Man is squarely in the center of everything, worthy of worship because no one else can bring God to us or present us to God. No one else can be fully God and simultaneously fully man.

Who is Jesus? He is God who looks like me. He is the Word made flesh.