Nobody likes a fake. Especially when you paid a lot of money for it. The Saudi Crown Prince had da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” proudly displayed, hanging in his personal yacht – or so he assumed. Imagine how he must have felt then, having paid $450 million for the work of art, only to find out it was a fake. Art professionals determined it wasn’t actually an original, but rather a copy. Nobody likes a fake.
Fake art is one thing; fake people are another. When we refer to someone as a fake, we are not paying that person a compliment. What we’re saying is that they may present themselves one way, but it isn’t an accurate representation of who they really are. They are pretending, like an actor so immersed in the character he’s playing that he refuses to ever depart from the role.
If people didn’t know who Jesus was, it wasn’t because he was a fake. Jesus wasn’t pretending to be something he was not. No, any groups or individuals who had an issue with trying to figure out who Jesus was struggled because of their own preconceived notions or opinions about who he was or who they thought he should be. Jesus didn’t hide who he was. Nonetheless, even though he wasn’t hiding who he was, he did still need to reveal himself.
That’s what the season of Epiphany in the church year is all about: revealing who Jesus is. At Jesus’ baptism the voice of his Father’s approval was revealed. At a wedding in Cana his divine power over nature at even a molecular level was revealed when he changed simple H2O into the finest wine. Through his words and actions, his teaching and preaching, at a pace which allowed the Holy Spirit to work in the minds and hearts of the slow-to-believe, Jesus was revealing who he was over the course of his ministry. As his time on earth drew to a close, he knew the view that awaited his disciples and onlookers on Good Friday. So he gathered on a mountain with just three of his disciples and made his most spectacular revelation yet.
That event – the Transfiguration – could have been what Paul had in mind in verse six. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.” Where else was God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ as it was at the Transfiguration, where the Gospels describe him as emanating a light brighter than any natural light they had ever witnessed? “There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light” (Mt. 17:2).
Jesus’ face shifted supernaturally right before the disciples’ eyes, and the glorious light beaming from it was more than the human eye could handle. If you’ve ever had the chance to watch a solar eclipse and tried to view even the slightest bit of it without the recommended eye protection or other protective measures, you learned the hard way how unwise that is. Staring into the sun is a sure-fire way to go blind!
But seeing that light in the face of Christ was so very important for the disciples, for in a short matter of time, it would appear that that light would be snuffed out. They would descend from that glorious experience to the foot of the mountain, where the final walk of Jesus would end in Jerusalem. There he would endure a week of enemies plotting to extinguish that light. Finally, as the last breath of life escaped from Jesus’ lips on the cross, surely it looked as if the light of Jesus’ life had given way to darkness, that death had won yet again, continuing its 100% success rate.
For death had always won up to that point, with the exception of two miraculous occasions by which God chose to circumvent death and usher his own directly to heaven without experiencing it (Enoch and Elijah). Otherwise, death darkened the light of life in everyone who was ever born. No one has ever been able to manufacture a method of keeping that light of life burning forever. Nor will they.
So Jesus revealed who he was, pulling back the veil briefly for his inner circle of disciples to witness. And in the face of Christ the disciples could truly see a taste of what God was all about. God and his glory were and are inextricably linked to the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Savior of all.
While God did in fact reveal his glory in the Old Testament, we notice that God’s glory in those cases was terrifying. Why should his glory be terrifying in those cases? Because God’s holiness was so clearly and profoundly on display, not only through the giving of the law, but in the show of holiness that was powerfully manifested both audibly and visually. That glory was terrifying! Yes, his righteousness, his perfection, his holiness rightly cause sinners to crumble in his presence. But it was only one side of the coin of God’s glory.
Christ, however, completes the picture of that glory. Christ not only embodied the righteousness, the perfection, and the holiness in his flesh and flawless life, but also the grace, the compassion, and the mercy of God, which are also very much included in the full picture of his glory. We could not know that forgiving grace apart from knowing Christ, and God’s glory would remain only a terrifying thing. But in the face of Christ, God’s glory is made complete. That makes perfect sense, because in Christ we see what God looks like. That is the big reveal: Christ shows us the face of God.
Yes, in Jesus, we see what God looks like. Paul states it plainly in verse four: “Christ… is the image of God.” You know how frustrating it can be when someone tries to describe what a person looks like. They describe the color of their hair, maybe the cut. They might describe any pronounced features. Perhaps they’ll try to compare the person to a celebrity or an athlete who may have a similar look. At any rate, no matter how detailed their description may be, there’s a better way.
That’s why we ask if they have a picture. A picture shows us what the person looks like. Whereas a description gives us a fuzzy likeness, a picture sharpens the detail and fills in the blank. When we see a picture, an image of the person, we know what they look like.
To see Christ is to see God. Christ is the image of God. Christ is what God looks like.
And the image of glory is maximized when we see the Christ on the cross. There the glory of God’s holiness is plain to see as the wrath against lawbreakers and the unholy is poured out. There also the glory of God’s forgiveness is plain to see in how God’s grace put his Son in my place to endure it. It’s not me on the cross, but the Holy One! It’s not his sin being paid for but mine. It’s not his sin needing forgiveness but mine! That is the greatest glory of God, and we see it more clearly because of the glory Jesus first revealed on the mountain.
What is tragic is that not all see this glory. “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ” (v.4). It isn’t that God’s glory isn’t there, but some simply cannot see it. They have been blinded to it. The “god of this age,” Satan, is the one behind this work.
Why does Paul refer to him as the god of this age? He isn’t somehow putting him on a similar plane to the true God, but is rather underscoring two things: 1) unlike the true God, Satan’s power is limited. Whatever power he has will come to and end when Jesus comes again. Unlike the true God, his power is not eternal. 2) the title simply reflects that he dwells in the heart of all of those who don’t belong to the true God. No, they may not outwardly worship the devil, of course (most don’t!), but to reject the true God is to belong to the one who opposes him, the one who calls truth lies and lies truth. To not have the Triune God as one’s God is to have the devil rule in the heart in his place.
But One who revealed his glory on the mountain still reveals it today. Though not through a brightly beaming face, his glory is nonetheless revealed powerfully through the gospel. What is the gospel other than pointing to Jesus and his saving work? Paul wrote, “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (v.5). The god of this age delights in keeping the attention on self and selling the lie that we are in control and calling the shots in our lives. But Paul and his companions preach a different message – as do we today.
Jesus Christ is Lord. The One who paid the precious price of himself wants not only to be our Savior, but our Lord, the One who calls the shots in our lives because he alone knows the absolute best paths of blessing for our lives. The One who bought and paid for us to be his own longs to guide and direct his own in paths of righteousness and fulfillment.
And he isn’t asking to be the equivalent of a business partner, going 50/50 in overseeing our lives; he longs to be the Lord, the authority, the ruler in our hearts and lives. And this is no outrageous demand that causes us to bristle or stubbornly dig in our heals in defiance, but one that we crave, a relationship arrangement that we are obliged to submit to, for we know he has our best interests in mind more than we ever could. When the Lord of love is the Lord of your life, blessings in Jesus reach new heights.
That allows us to humble ourselves to new lows, to truly see ourselves as Paul did, as “your servants for Jesus’ sake” (v.5). When Jesus is my Lord, overseeing my life better than I ever could, I am free from the stress and strife of thinking I can somehow manage my life better than he can, and that freedom then allows me to be your servant for his sake, and you to be your neighbor’s servant for Jesus’ sake.
If the veil is ever going to be lifted, if those blinded by the god of this age are every going to see, it’s going to be through you and me. The glorious Jesus reveals himself to his disciples, as he did on the mountain, not only so that we can see his glory ourselves, but also to awaken in us a burning desire to serve others in ways that might allow us to point them to Jesus through his gospel.
In that way the veil can be lifted. The blind can see. And what shall they see? Not a fake. Not a pretender. No, they shall see the most glorious sight imaginable: their very real loving Lord and Savior, Jesus.