September 17

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” —HEBREWS 1:3

As Jesus Christ is the Truth, what is He the truth of? He is firstly the truth about God. God is nothing that Jesus is not, and everything Jesus is, God is. We do not come to know God simply by learning propositional facts about Him. We can certainly believe that God is all powerful, all knowing, omnipresent, unchanging and eternal, but that will not make us love Him or get excited by Him. The more we come to know and love Jesus, the more we come to know and love God. In fact, we cannot come to know God except through Jesus. 

Secondly, Jesus is the truth about humanity. When the writer of Hebrews says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory” he is not only speaking about His deity, but His humanity. In the beginning, God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…” (Genesis 1:26). If we were to look at Adam, we would see what God is like, but then Adam sinned and fell short of the glory of God. In Jesus, we have what Paul calls, “the second man”, the “last Adam”, because He is the truth about humanity in which we were created to be a physical and visible expression of the moral character of God.

We all fall short of the glory of God, but the marvelous thing is that not only is Christ the radiance of God’s glory, but bringing God’s glory to earth was the objective of His work and ministry. Hebrews 2:10 says, “In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.” That does not mean bringing many sons and daughters to heaven. In evangelical slang, the word ‘glory’ has often been construed to mean heaven, but it is the character of God, His glory.

John writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son…” (John 1:14). What they saw in Jesus was the way He lived; His selflessness, kindness, compassion and the fact that He is love. In all Jesus did, they saw what God is like. In Him, we have the one whose goal is to bring many sons and daughters to glory; to put back into humanity what was lost in the Garden of Eden and restore to us the glory of God for which we were created.

PRAYER: Dear Jesus, help transform my heart into a heart like yours; one filled with love, compassion and kindness toward everyone I meet. Thank You, Lord.

TO REFLECT UPON: In what area of my life do I need the Lord’s help most in reflecting His character?