Beholding God in the Face of Jesus
Dr. John Snyder is the pastor of Christ Church New Albany, director of Media Gratiae, host of The Whole Counsel podcast, and author of multiple multimedia Bible studies including the Behold Your God series, Living with the True God: Lessons from Judges, and Behold Your God: Seeking Him Early.
In Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically, Dr. Snyder explains two key dangers we face when we want to behold God in the person of His Son.
There are two enemies which constantly threaten to trip up those who wish to return to a biblical view of God by looking at His Son.
There are two enemies which constantly threaten to trip up those who wish to return to a biblical view of God by looking at His Son. These enemies are hard to spot because they actually thrive best in a religious person’s life.
The first enemy is a casual familiarity with the biblical descriptions of Jesus. Imagine a man whose job moves him to one of the most beautiful locations in the country (for you it might be mountains or the coast). Each day he wakes up, drives to work, and is amazed at the beauty of what he sees. Just when he begins to think that he has seen it all, the season changes, and it starts all over again. But as the weeks pass into months and years, familiarity with these scenes causes him to lose that sense of wonder. He has become blinded to the beauty that surrounds him.
What astonishing truths about God are revealed in His Son when you become reacquainted with Him in the Gospels!
All who have attended a church that teaches from the Bible will be tempted to treat the familiar accounts of Jesus’ life in that same way. You forget how to be filled with the sense of wonder that once characterized your early Christian Bible-readings. You can miss what God is saying, just as the Jews did in the days of Christ, because you mistake a shallow acquaintance with these passages for a real knowledge of God. The good news is that you can return to them and read them as if you are reading them for the first time. What astonishing truths about God are revealed in His Son when you become reacquainted with Him in the Gospels!
Jesus’ actions are not primarily a picture of salvation. Rather, even the work of redemption is at its heart a revealing of God’s glory.
The second enemy is a tendency to read every passage about Jesus as if it is primarily about us. This is an easy error to fall into because so much that He did has to do with our rescue. However, Jesus’ actions are not primarily a picture of salvation. Rather, even the work of redemption is at its heart a revealing of God’s glory. Jesus is mirroring His Father perfectly as He goes about doing all that is needed to save us. We must be very intentional in how we read these accounts of Christ. Ask yourself: “What do I see God revealing of Himself in His Son here?” If you start there, with seeing God, you need never fear that you will miss the secondary truth of what Jesus is doing for your rescue. But if you start with the question “What do I see Jesus doing here for me?” you may very well live your whole life without knowing God.