Note: I wrote this essay for a CE (Christian Endeavor) program that was themed “Looking to Jesus”. I allowed myself some minor edits from what I read in front of church, mostly because I ran out of time on Sunday and did not finish editing my concluding statements until they matched the predictions I made in the opening, but also to better match subheadings to the content.
Background
Theme verse: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:14-15
In these verses Jesus is predicting his own execution. By comparing himself to "the serpent in the wilderness", he is not only predicting the manner of his death, but also signaling the importance of this event to his audience, and also to us now as readers.
The event to which Jesus refers is a familiar one, but I will do a quick recap. The children of Israel had already been on the cusp of entering the promised land, but failed to possess it because of unbelief. For their sin of unbelief, the Israelites were sentenced to forty years of wilderness wandering. With forty years stretching out before them in which they could have expressed contrition, they chose instead to express their displeasure with God – again. They accused him of merely bringing them into the wilderness to die. Also, they disliked the food (Nu 21:4 - 5).
In response, God sent venomous serpents into the Israelite camp. As death and suffering consumed them, the Israelites recognized the error of their ways and entreated Moses to ask God for relief. When Moses prayed for the people, God did not simply end the plague as he surely could have. He instructed Moses to build a snake out of bronze and raise it on a pole, then required the people to look at it if they wanted to live.
We often hear terms like "looking to Jesus" or "going to the cross", but obviously these terms are not meant to be understood literally. We are two thousand years and five thousand miles removed from the time and place in which the cross was featured on that hill outside Jerusalem. Jesus is not raised up where we can actually see him, like the bronze serpent was for the healing of the Israelites. In the rest of this essay, we will examine what it means to look to Jesus in our modern context.
I will start by exploring who Christ is, taken primarily from Hebrews and the gospel of John. I will then look at what “looking to Jesus” means in the context of how it is used in the Bible. Before concluding, I will examine what Christ accomplished for us, and explore how what he did is universally relevant even though the story is very old.
Where do we look for Jesus?
To understand where to look for Jesus, it is important to understand who Jesus is. He was a person in a time and place, born thousands of years ago as the apparent son of a carpenter from Nazareth. He travelled around Samaria and Judea with a group that included fishermen, zealots, and tax collectors. He socialized with the dregs of society, argued with the religious elite, and died a criminal's death. But as remarkable as he was while a man on earth, it is because of who Jesus has always been and still is today that we continue to speak in the present tense about looking to him.
Jesus is God incarnated - or God who became man - the creator of the universe, and the radiance of the glory of God (Col 1:15-20, Phil 2:6-7, Joh 1:3, Heb 1:1-3). While a man on earth, he died to wash away sins, then rose in triumph from the dead and ascended to sit at the right hand of God, the only man worthy of that honor, where he lives eternally as our high priest (Heb 9 & 10). Perhaps the most important thing to understand when asking where we ought to look for him is that Jesus is the living Word, or Word made flesh (Joh 1:14-18). In simple terms, this means that Jesus can be sought and found in the Bible.
On one occasion when Jesus is speaking to the Jewish leaders, he faults them for how they study the Scriptures. He recognizes that they are diligent and studious, thinking that in the Scriptures they possess eternal life. Jesus tells the Jewish leaders that their mistake is in failing to acknowledge that the Scriptures testify about him. They were devoted to a book, while at the same time rejecting the book's main character who stood right in front of them (Joh 5:39-47).
It is important not to repeat the mistake of these Jewish leaders. The Bible is God's revelation, a testimony and witness of Christ; but the person of Christ is something more. While our search for Jesus must include searching the Bible, and while knowledge of Scripture is advantageous; the purpose of Bible study must be motivated by more than merely trying to know the Scriptures better. We should look into the Scripture to know our Savior better (Mt 11:29).
What does it mean to look to Jesus?
The concept of "looking to Jesus" appears in Scripture a number of times. In John 6:40, Jesus makes a connection between "looking on" him and "believing in" him. Jesus' comparison between himself and the snake that was raised in the Israelite camp makes the same connection - the Israelites looked at the serpent if they wanted to live; Jesus states that the purpose of his own lifting up is that whoever believes in him would live eternally. From this, we can conclude that if we believe in Jesus then we are also looking to Jesus.
Hebrews 12:2 reads: Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. In this passage, looking to Jesus is used as part of a larger exhortation to faithfulness and is a continuation of the faith chapter which precedes it. In the faith chapter, we read of Old Testament heroes who faithfully ran their race to win the prize at the end. Hebrews 12:2 identifies Jesus as both the prize for which the heroes of faith were running, and the ultimate example in how to run the race.
While the verses from John make the connection between looking on and believing in Christ, “looking to Jesus” the way it is used in Hebrews, is a reminder to persevere in this belief and to be faithful as Christ was faithful. He disregarded the shame of the cross and endured it for the joy that was before him. The Hebrews were to do the same in their turn, and fix their eyes on Christ who by his faithfulness became their joy.
When they were told to fix their eyes on Jesus, and to think of him who endured the cross, they were being told to focus their hearts and minds upon Christ. They were reminded to retain a firm grasp in their innermost and highest affection, for what Christ had done on their behalf that made all their suffering worthwhile. Christ is the reason and reward for perseverance.
What did Jesus accomplish exactly?
What did Jesus do for the Hebrew audience, and for us? Jesus, in obedience to God, willingly made an offering of his body on the cross in order to make us holy. By this offering, all whom he makes holy are perfected for all time (Heb 10:14). He does this for those who acknowledge their sin and its accompanying destiny of death and – like the snake-bitten Israelites – trust in the remedy that God provides for health and life (Lu 5:31, Mt 9:12, Mk 2:17).
I find myself questioning whether holiness has any meaning or attraction to humanity in the twenty-first century, and I believe it can. I think that the human conscience is in part an instinctive desire for holiness with which every human is born. It is our conscience that first gives us the inner conviction that morality exists. It is too underdeveloped to know what it is doing, but is initially felt as inner condemnation when we do something wrong, and the conviction that something about us is lacking - that we are not quite complete. While the concept of biblical holiness is foreign to most modern people, I think that anyone who is honest with themselves is familiar with some version of this inner experience.
An anguished conscience can be a great motivator. Hundreds of years ago, seeking relief for the torments of conscience, men like John Bunyan and Martin Luther went on spiritual quests whose outcomes still affect us today. But when we journey into God looking for the relief of a stricken conscience, we do not just find relief. While God is delighted to provide us the relief that we seek, he wants to give us so much more than we even know how to look for. That is why he gives us holiness.
When Christ gifts us the perfection of holiness through his atoning blood, we put on the holiness of Christ in the same way that parents might dress their children in clothes which are too big but which they are expected to grow into. We are given Christ's holiness, Christ who is himself the radiance of God's glory. As far as God is concerned, we now possess all the merits of his Son.
To use a borrowed example,1 imagine that a man has committed a traffic offense. For some of you, this will be easier than it is for others. This offense requires that he appear in court to pay the fine that he owes. Acknowledging his guilt, he shows up in court on the specified day. When it is his turn to face the judge, the judge surprises him by taking out his wallet, paying the fine, and ripping up the ticket. At this point, his guilt is paid for, his offense forgiven and struck from the record. This forgiveness grants wonder and relief to his troubled conscience.
But the judge is not done yet. He next takes this man, already grateful and in his debt, to family court, where he informs the court that he is adopting the man. But not only adopting him, he is immediately written into the judge's will, recipient of a full measure of his vast inheritance with his eldest and favorite son, and looked on as possessing all the favored son's attributes. Because the favorite son is the exact image of his father, the adopted man knows the differences between them are actually stark, but he can tell by the way this judge treats him, that he truly does esteem him just as highly as he does his eldest son. The attributes for which the adopted man is loved by his father, are those of perfect holiness; the righteousness of which Paul writes, that is imputed to those who believe (Ro 3-5).
This kind of holiness far exceeds anything toward which mere conscience could spur us on its own. Conscience makes us contrite, and eager for relief. An appetite for holiness can only be given to us by God, when we look toward him for this relief. And it is Jesus' blood by which the gift of perfect holiness is made possible.
The holiness that is gifted to us is of the same kind that we read about in Scripture. It is radiant and pure, a consuming fire; and while on one hand it paints our shortcomings into stark relief in a more devastating manner than our conscience ever could, on the other hand it is the portrayal of the very holiness which God has given to us. We now belong to his holiness, it is part of us, and we partake in him.
Growing into holiness
When we look to Christ who authored and finished our faith, when we appeal to him and pin all our hopes on him; then we in one sense finally become a complete creation. While the ant, lily, and sparrow – all of whom merit recognition in Scripture – are all doing what God created them for; and while the mountains and night sky testify of God by simply being; we humans become fully who we were meant to be when we take on new life in Christ.
But there's more! God is not done with us the minute we confess Christ as lord. The Christian who puts on Christ, who is clad in the outsized holiness of Christ, has room to grow, and is expected to. We are counted on to grow more Christ-like. Not in a way where we have to pressure ourselves to grow, but in that he gives us an appetite for his goodness of which we cannot get our fill. This appetite can become blunted - the people who first received the book of Hebrews were suffering and it dulled their appetite. But when this happens, be reminded as they were, to look to Jesus. Search him out in Scripture which is his revealed Word, and in nature where we are told that his divine attributes can be understood through that which he has made (Ps 19:1, 104:24, Ro 1:20).
Finally, being made holy is required to be accepted in the sight of a holy God. Not in an austere, arms length, condescending tolerance like we can sometimes feel from each other. But in the way a parent welcomes a toddler into their arms or the way we picture Jesus taking a child on his lap (Eph 3:12, Heb 4:16, 7:25). The desire for this kind of acceptance is interwoven, I think, into the ache of conscience for relief from guilt, or the sense of yearning that accompanies the joy we take in beauty.2 Only a God this holy and loving and complete can fulfill these desires for us. We do not have the capacity to receive this entirely while in this life, but in part enough that we can acquire a taste for going farther in, seeking him wherever he can be found. And so—look to Jesus. It is through him alone that we find access to all encompassing fulfillment.
If you know where I heard this example, please let me know so I can give credit.
Slipped in this bit about joy and beauty because of something I remembered from this blog post. I probably shouldn’t have pulled it in as a throwaway line this late in the essay - it’s a compelling idea that deserves more space.
A good thought provoking read! Thanks Fred
Thanks for posting this! I enjoyed your reading of it and the thoughts on holiness.