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Living Portrait

March 3rd, 2013

RG AUDIO 030313

John 7:14-24

We have no eyewitness drawings or descriptions of Jesus’ physical appearance. The earliest portraits date from several hundred years after he returned to heaven. Some depict Jesus as a youthful and beardless good shepherd, others show him as the masculine ideal with long hair and beard displaying a noble aspect of serene holiness, and still others depict him crucified with weeping women kneeling at his feet.

The Bible contains a much older word picture: “See, my servant . . . his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness . . . He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isa. 52:13-14; 53:2).

Evidently some in Jesus’ own day felt he did not fit their picture of the Messiah, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?” (v. 15). Correct spiritual judgment, Jesus reminds us, comes when we choose to do the will of God. Only then can we see the picture.

Author: Duane C. Brush

 

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One Response to “Living Portrait”

  1. Barbara Says:

    March 3rd, 2013 at 10:58 pm

    “We have no eyewitness drawings or descriptions of Jesus’ physical appearance.”

    Maybe this is the result of God’s wisdom?

    Have you ever seen one of the pictures of a person made up of many different people? Usually, it is an advertisement showing the many faces of its employees.

    Or, have ever heard someone refer to the “face” of a disease by the “attributes” of that disease. We have been given HIS attributes and need to search for HIS face through the face of Jesus (which is given to us in detail through the gospels 2 Corinthians 4:6).

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