THE REVEALED CHRIST REVEALED GOD

MONDAY 28 FEBRUARY 2022

It is a great joy to know that God revealed Himself in the revealed Christ. The Word says, "Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means "God is with us"" (Matthew 1:23 NLT). God was made known to us through the coming of Christ in human flesh and by His self-humiliating love and sacrifice, He restored and established our relationship with the Father.

Reference: John 1:18 New Living Translation (NLT) "No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father's heart. He has revealed God to us."

No one has seen God face to face but Christ who is God came to reveal His Father to us through His manifestations. Galatians 4:4 reads, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law" (NLT). This indicates that God revealed Christ so that Christ would reveal God.

In what ways did Christ reveal God to us? Firstly, the Bible says that Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation (Colossians 1:15 NLT). So Christ is the exact living image and the accurate manifestation of the unseen God. He is the visible representation of the invisible, preeminent God - the sovereign, and the originator of all creation.

Secondly, in John 14:8-10, Philip says to Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus says to him, "Am I with you all for so long a time, and you have not known Me, Philip? — the one having seen Me has seen the Father. How is it you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? I am not speaking the words which I am saying to you from Myself, but the Father abiding in Me is doing His works" (DLNT).

By saying and doing what He sees the Father do, it simply means that God is in Christ manifesting Himself through Christ. The Father expressed Himself through Jesus, and so, as Jesus, the Father was saying and doing the great and mighty works. Yes it was really the Father in Jesus form! Remember that in John 10:30, Jesus said, " The Father and I are one" (NLT). Beloved, Jesus in the flesh was the vessel that expressed His Father on earth. He was the God in Jesus of Nazareth form. All that He said and did then manifested the Father.

Was God giving Jesus a set of rules to follow by whispering to His ears, so as to reproduce Himself in Christ while He was on earth? No Jesus didn't have to receive any external command as God in the flesh. He was God incarnate, fully divine and fully human. So He didn't have to study God's ways of doing things or read an ancient scroll to perform or function as God. At a point, when the Jews tried to kill Jesus, one of the reasons was because Jesus said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God (John 5:18 NKJV). Jesus continued in the next verse and answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner" (Verse 19).

Thirdly, grace and truth are the two methods by which Christ revealed the glory of God to us and upon our lives, as we behold it. The combination of the manifestations of grace and truth reveals the full description of the Lord (John 1:14 NLT). Since Jesus had been the image of the invisible God from past eternity, He had to reveal God's grace and truth through His coming in the flesh, by being born of a woman. Although He had ascended to heaven, the Word of God is the Word of grace and truth. When we behold the Scriptures, we are contemplating the Lord's glory with unveiled faces, and in the process, we are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18 NLT). Shalom!

Scripture Reading - Matthew 11:27; John 1:1; Hebrews 1:1-2; Colossians 2:9; 1 Timothy 3:16.

Guided Prayer: Heavenly Father, I adore you for your invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature, which I clearly perceive and experience in Christ Jesus. I acknowledge that Christ is the radiance of your glory and the exact imprint of your nature, and He upholds the entire universe by the word of His power. The life of Christ is the exhibition, full of your unfailing love and faithfulness and I testify that I'm a daily partaker of your manifest presence, perfect gifts and blessings in Christ in Jesus' Name, Amen!