April 21st, 2010 by Kristi Stephens

Need to catch up on missed posts, or want to bookmark a single page to return to for later reference?  All the Revelation posts are/will be indexed here.

Mentally scan through the Gospel accounts in your mind.  Can you think of any physical descriptions of Jesus that are given?

I can’t.

The only description that comes to mind of His physical appearance is Isaiah 53:2 – “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”

Knowing that God inspired all of His Word and it is without error – both what is included and what is not – I know the lack of description wasn’t an accident!  We’re not supposed to know what Jesus looked like as a man.  If we were, the Gospels would have described Him.

But oh, how we love to try to picture Him.  There are whole galleries of pictures showing how we have attempted to depict Him over the years.  It is fascinating to me how many “images” of Jesus we see… and yet they RARELY (if EVER) reflect the description of Jesus given in Revelation one.  The ONLY description we are given of Jesus within the pages of Scripture.

This description of Jesus is far different from the one that is usually in our minds – for this description is of Jesus in all His glory!  Now let me state: do I know that this is how Jesus will look when we see Him face to face?  No.  This was a vision given to John – each aspect symbolizes something significant.  Personally I’m not expecting to see a sword coming out of Jesus’ mouth when I see Him – that is a symbolic description.

On Monday we began looking at a bigger view of Christ – this description of our Lord in Revelation chapter one enlarges the vision in our minds of the meek and mild Jesus of our flannelgraph days into the ruling Christ in all his glory.  Yesterday we discussed the meaning of how Jesus’ voice is described – today let’s spend a few minutes considering the physical description given of Him in chapter one.

One like a son of man (1:13)

• “Son of man” is both a common description of humanity and of Jesus Himself.  You can see all the uses of this phrase here.
• He still is in his physical, resurrected, glorified body that the disciples saw first hand!

Clothed in a robe reaching to the feet and girded across His breast with a golden girdle (1:13)

• These are priestly garments!  This description parallels the specified garments for the Israelite high priests.  See Exodus 28:4, Leviticus 16:4
• As our high priest, Jesus completely paid the debt of sin we owed – He is a merciful and faithful high priest!  (Hebrews 2:17-18)

His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow (1:14)

• Yesterday I mentioned that the description of Jesus’ voice was the first of several clear parallels to Old Testament passages which describe God.  This is the second!
• Daniel 7:9 “…the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool.”

His eyes were like a flame of fire (1:14)

• Jesus’ gaze is revealing, penetrating.  NOTHING is hidden from His sight.  See Matthew 10:26, Hebrews 4:13

Jesus is fully God, fully man.  The one who suffered as we do, triumphed over sin, and has become our ultimate High Priest.  He is the omniscient God – and nothing is hidden from His sight.  All will be laid bare.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the rest of this description, and particularly what this tells us as the Church.

Tremble before Him, sisters in Christ.  While we are fully forgiven and deeply loved, He is worthy to reign.  And He will judge His Church.

Revelation just keeps getting better as we go on!  I hope you will consider subscribing in a reader or by email so you don’t miss a thing!

Art used (with permission) by Pat Marvenko Smith, copyright 1992. To order prints visit her “Revelation Illustrated” site,  http://revelationillustrated.com.