The Face of Christ
2 Corinthians 4:4 - 6
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,”made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
One of the great challenges of studying the Bible is to try to put ourselves in the place of the person who wrote a particular passage. Doing this helps us get a better understanding of what the writer was trying to get across. In applying this to the above passage I cannot help but notice the Apostle Paul’s two references to the appearance, or image of Christ:
1. “they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
2. “knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
In all of the Bible we do not have one physical description of Jesus, not one. It seem odd to have a book written about a person yet never describe what that person looks like. But in the mind of Paul there is a description of Christ even to the details of his face. Paul describes Jesus through the gospel. He describes in words what he had seen, a glorious Jesus.
The image of Christ is so amazing that it can only be really captured in the beauty of the gospel. Paul’s encounter with Jesus was after the resurrection. What Paul encountered was the risen Christ in all his splendor. I wonder then if when he says “the glory of God in the face of Christ” he was thinking back to his own experience on the Damascus road when the glory of God shown in blinding light.
When you read the Gospel story does its glory change your path? For those who are blind it does not. But when your eyes have been opened, hearing the Gospel causes you to keep changing as you see Jesus face to face.
Doug Hon
