Jesus Christ, The Manifestation of God

The character and glory of God are made visible in Jesus Christ, whose life reveals the Father without making him the Father Himself.

By Simon Keene

Read Time: 7 minutes

Over two thousand years ago, a man walked the earth who changed the course of history. He was the most influential person to have ever lived. So influential that many have doubted that he could be a man. He lived a life so different from any before or after him. But although he lived a perfect life, he was treated as a criminal and put to death by crucifixion, when many people at the time wanted to crown him king. Shockingly, he only remained in the grave for three days before he was resurrected, after which he ascended to heaven. Who is this man—or was he God? And why did he live a perfect life just to be crucified? Was he really like us, or did he have special powers that caused him to overcome sin? These are questions people have wondered for thousands of years, with many different conclusions being drawn. But ultimately, what does the Bible say?

God’s Glory

In Exodus 33, we have a fascinating account of Moses asking God to show him His glory. In Exodus 34, God does what Moses asked. But the only thing Moses sees in chapter 34 is His back and a cloud, for if Moses had seen God’s face, he would have died (33:20). However, God still shows Moses His glory; He tells it to him, rather than having him see it. As God passes by, He says

The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. (Exodus 34:6-7).

Our God’s glory is not what He physically looks like, but is His characteristics. Now, Moses only heard these characteristics—and so we know God’s ways far better than Moses did.

We have been shown God’s glory by a perfect man who had God’s characteristics. We have never seen God, but God has been made known to us by His perfect Son, Jesus Christ (John 1:18). Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the imprint of His nature (Hebrews 1:1-3). He showed God’s characteristics so well in his life that we can see God’s glory in his life. Jesus is the manifestation of God. To manifest means to show or explain. Jesus shows and explains God to us by revealing God’s glory.

Every characteristic that God used to describe Himself in Exodus is a characteristic that Jesus has. And God’s characteristics are His glory. Jesus is merciful (Matthew 20:30-34), gracious (John 1:14-15), long-suffering (1 Timothy 1:16), abounding in goodness, and truth (Matthew 22:16). He keeps steadfast love (Ephesians 5:2), forgives sin (John 8:10-11), and will one day punish the guilty (Matthew 25:31-46). Because Jesus has all these characteristics perfectly, he is the manifestation of God.

Moses only heard the characteristics of God. We have seen God in the flesh (John 1:14) because we have seen God’s characteristics in a perfect man. Jesus is the brightness of God’s Glory (Hebrews 1:3), meaning that he reflects that glory, or that character. Instead of cycling between sinning and repenting every day, constantly wandering off and on the straight and narrow path, Jesus stayed on it his whole life, reading God’s word, and obeying it, not needing to learn from his mistakes, but only needing to obey his Father’s Word the first time (Romans 5:19). He was tempted to stray off the path by his human nature, but still, he stayed firmly obedient and did not sin (Hebrews 4:15).

And yet Jesus was the same as us in every way. Jesus had the same human nature as we do and was tempted in the same ways we are. He had to be like us so that he could help us when we are tempted (Hebrews 2:14-18). We see his temptations many times, like when he wants to abuse the Holy Spirit to satisfy his flesh (Matthew 4:3, 6, 8-9), or when he prays to God and states he doesn’t want to go through the trial of being crucified (Matthew 26:39, Luke 22:42), or even when he wants to be alone from people (Matthew 14:13-16). He was also born of a woman, just as we are (Galatians 4:4), the only difference being that his conception was miraculous rather than natural (Luke 1:30-35). In fact, the Bible gives us his entire genealogy, all the way back to Adam (Luke 3:23-28). And people in Jesus’s genealogy, such as Abraham, Issac, Jacob, and David, were assured that the promised one would come from their own body, meaning their seed was a human descendant (2 Samuel 7:12). He had no consciousness or existence before his birth. However, he had been in God’s plan since the beginning (1 Peter 1:20). Before Jesus was resurrected, he was a mortal man. Yet unlike us, by prayer and obedience to God’s word, he overcame his own human nature, putting it to death on the cross. And because he did not sin, God raised him, for he had not earned death (Acts 2:24, Romans 6:23).

Jesus became immortal. (Romans 6:9). He now sits at God’s right hand in heaven. He is our high priest, being able to save anyone who draws near to God through him (Hebrews 7:25). And unlike priests of old, he does not have to offer sacrifices, because his sacrifice was done once and for all when he was crucified (Hebrews 7:27). Jesus is also in heaven to prepare places for us in his Kingdom (John 14:2, Luke 19:12-27) which will be set up on earth (Daniel 2:44). But Jesus will not stay in heaven forever. When everything is ready, he will return and set up his Father’s kingdom (Acts 1:11), which will last forever.

Why This Matters

Jesus’s life, his message, his death, and his resurrection don’t have meaning unless he was fully human. Jesus lived a perfect life, and we are called to try to live up to it (Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 2:8-10). Of course, Jesus had the greatest motivation ever to live perfectly; as God was his physical Father, he was called to the most important mission ever, had a unique connection to God, and he had an incredible vision for his future. Along with this, he had countless chapters in the Bible directly talking about him to motivate him. We do not have these things to the degree he did. Nevertheless, we can at least be deeply impressed and moved by the life that he lived. At least we can try to live up to his example. However, if Jesus were God, then it wouldn’t even be worth trying to follow his example, for it is impossible to be like God by definition (Isaiah 55:8). Jesus’s life would have been a play, pretending to be tempted to sin, but not being tempted at all, pretending to have our weaknesses but never partaking in them himself. By Jesus being God, everything about his life is ruined. It also means that we have not seen God’s glory in the flesh, in a way that we can understand, so that we can please God, as Moses longed for, but rather just God pretending to be a man and living a perfect life. Further, if Jesus were God, he wasn’t even tempted or tried in the ways that we are. The example would be meaningless since he wasn’t even like us.

But we are supposed to follow his example. Paul warns that if we are committed to living for Christ through baptism, then we can not continue to live in sin (Romans 6:1). We will receive grace if we are baptized into Christ’s death, committing our lives to trying to live the perfect life Christ lived, asking for forgiveness every time we sin, and each day refocusing on following his example after we fail. It’s not about perfection; only Christ could do that, but about faithfully striving to follow his example.

Jesus’s death would also lose its meaning if he were God. If God loved us so much that he died for us to save us from his own wrath, what effect does that have on our lives? If we believe God has already satisfied his own wrath, then why would we need to try to please him more? If God is already pleased, then salvation is just permission to do whatever we want. But the problem with this idea is that God is not pleased with sacrifices; he is pleased with a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:16-17). God is not a wrathful God who demands sacrifice to be appeased. Rather, he is a God who loves His creation and wants His creation to love him and glorify and love Him in return (Numbers 14:21). God set up sacrifices in the first place so that people would see that animal as their example, would see its death to God as a dedication to Him, and would choose to give themselves over to Him (Hebrews 10:1-4). Jesus died so that we could actually see that example in a human, but again, if he were God, that example loses much of its power (Hebrews 10:4-12).

The Antichrist

Some people mistakenly believe that there will be an antichrist who comes in the last days. In fact, 2 John 7 warns the believers of the day that the antichrist was already there: those who deny Jesus came in the flesh were the deceiver and antichrist. And at John’s time, the confusion about Jesus’s relationship with God was already starting to run rampant. So do not be deceived. Jesus came fully in the flesh, as a mortal man, giving us no license to sin.

Jesus calls us to act. He calls us to deny our natural desires, to take up our cross, and follow him. He calls us to lose our lives for his sake (Matthew 16:24-28). He also commands us to love one another as he loved us (John 15:12-17). So let us do what Christ commanded us every day. And when we fail and break his commandments, there is always forgiveness through Christ to turn back and follow him. So let it be our greatest hope that one day we will reign forever with the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, the savior of the world, the most incredible man to ever live, Jesus Christ.

The saying is trustworthy, for: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:11-13 ESV).

Simon Keene,
Grand River Ecclesia, ON