We are promised that we will see the King in His beauty, and through we have not yet seen Christ's physical glory, yet we have seen the glory of the Lamb that was slain to redeem us!
That beauty fills us with unspeakable joy, and a longing to see Him with our own eyes one day soon.
The Lamb's beauty is no physical beauty, but rather the beauty of One Who loves us and died as our sacrifice to redeem us from death and hell.
The Lamb's beauty is what provokes songs of praise from the Saints, even in the glory of heaven itself. It is the beauty that changes us, as we are confronted by it, into Christ's image. It is a beauty more glorious, Paul tells us, than the physical glory of God that Moses saw on the mountain.
And yet, it is a fact, that most of mankind cannot see Christ's beauty like we see it. No doubt, all men would readily acknowledge His glory were they to be confronted with the physical beauty of the King.
This truth is driven home by Isaiah's sad report, that when lost men saw the Savior, there was seen in Him no beauty at all!
But most heart-rending is this: that following Isaiah's sad lament, he describes in detail how Christ suffered in our place as God's Lamb, how He was despised and rejected by men, how He was falsely accused, how God judged Him for our sin, and how by dying for us, Jesus saved us for all time.
It is Christ doing all those things that the world looks upon, and sees nothing of beauty in Him!
What the Saints see as the beauty of God's Lamb, the world despises and rejects as ugly and tragic and pointless.
The cross is an offense and stumbling block to the lost, but to those who trust, it is God's mighty power to save! |