Epiphany: Such Glorious Radiance and Representation

“What an epiphany!” I exclaim when something strikes me as a profound realization. I see it! I’m enlightened. This is how we tend to use the word, epiphany. Yet, note its beautiful and ancient usage as the name for the twelfth day of Christmas. Epiphany: every January 6, the celebration the coming of the Magi to see the Christ child. Epiphany: the incarnation and manifestation of Christ to the world. Christ, the Light of the world. A-ha!

Therefore, today is an appropriate day to bring to light an essay I wrote last year that has been hidden in my Word documents, unused.

This essay presents some themes, quotations, and insights developed in my unpublished Bible study, which I am re-writing as a book to be published later this year. (If you’ve been with me for years, you’ll recognize certain themes.) I’ll be writing more in coming posts about my new adventure, working with a publisher.

For now, I’ll bring to light some thoughts I’ve pondered about our glorious Savior and the radiance of His Epiphany.

Such Glorious Radiance and Representation

When we look at Jesus, we see no strong points. None. What?

“Strong points necessarily presuppose weak ones, but no weaknesses can be alleged of Him…. He was without flaw or contradiction,” writes J. Oswald Sanders in his excellent book, The Incomparable Christ.[1] “The character of our Lord was wonderfully balanced, with neither excess nor deficiency” explains Sanders. His character “stands out faultlessly perfect, so symmetrical in all its proportions that its strength and greatness are not immediately obvious to the casual observer.” Deep breath. Ponder such a Savior.

Then consider that we are not called to be casual observers of Jesus. We are called to be His followers, “looking unto Jesus, the author [archegos: architect] and finisher [teleiotes: end, goal] of faith; who for the joy set before Him, endured the cross…” (Hebrews 12:2). Moreover, we are called to become like Him (II Cor. 3:18; Rom. 8:28-29; I Pet. 2:21). I need some more deep breaths! Such overwhelming realities! Clearly, I see purpose and meaning in life in this fallen world. I see beauty and truth. I hold on to hope.  A sure victory invigorates my frail heart.

Frail. That is right. And it’s not just my heart that is frail. It is my whole person. And not “just” frail. I am broken in every domain of my being. What do I mean by that?

Before there was brokenness, there was wholeness. Adam and Eve, in God’s garden during that seemingly brief era of exceeding goodness (Genesis 1-3), were created to bear the image and likeness of God, their exquisite and tender Creator, who walked with them in the cool of the day. We are their sons and daughters.

Charles Hodge, the great 19^th century Princeton scholar, states that “man was originally created in a state of maturity [non-infancy] and perfection,” describing the moral image of God in humankind this way: “His reason was subject to God; his will was subject to his reason; his affections and appetites to his will; the body was the obedient organ of the soul.”[2] Hodge explains that every part of the human was balanced so that no outside influence or control was needed. On display was the satisfying beauty of God’s harmonious order.

Now disharmonious and frail, our minds, emotions, and choices misdirect our broken bodies, leading us, like foolish sheep, astray (Is. 53:6; Rom.7:14-24). Where is this invigorating victory?

The good news always answers the bad news. C.S. Lewis explains: “…God saw the crucifixion in the act of creating the first nebula. The world is a dance in which good, descending from God, is disturbed by evil arising from the creatures, and the resulting conflict is resolved by God’s own assumption of the suffering nature which evil produces. The doctrine of the free Fall asserts that the evil which thus makes the fuel or raw material for the second and more complex kind of good is not God’s contribution but man’s.” [3]

Grasping the idea of “this second and more complex kind of good” helps me to make sense of suffering in this present world. Before the Fall, the algorithm of God’s goodness was a simple equation: 2 + 2 = 4 or good + good = more good. All factors and outcomes were purely good. A different formula governs a corrupted creation: a factor of “x” equaling some quantity or quality of evil is inserted into every equation for every person and the whole of creation. God expands and deepens His display of His sovereign greatness, wisdom, and goodness. How? Through His Gospel-Kingdom plan revealed through the whole of Scripture and executed by His own Son.

This more complex good works all things together to conform us (and ultimately, all of creation again) to the beauty and goodness of Christ Himself (Rom. 8:28-29 — always include verse 29). In searching the Scriptures to explore the worth of suffering, I have learned that joy envelopes suffering – because it preceded it and exceeds it. Joy came first and is indestructible. God is good. God is eternal. Good is eternal. Joy, as God’s response to His own goodness, is thus also eternal. “And it was good; and it was very good” was God’s pleased response to His freshly minted creation (Gen. 1). Joy also follows suffering, as Jesus, “for the joy set before Him endured the cross despising the shame…” (Heb. 12:2). Suffering never exists alone. Never is it gratuitous (meaningless).

We can observe three fundamental kinds/genres of suffering. 1) We suffer rightly. This is recompensive suffering: we are sinners (Rom. 3:23; 6:23). 2) We suffer wrongly (I Pet. 3:16-17). This is collateral suffering: we sin against others, others sin against us, and the groaning creation acts against us all. Consummately, Christ suffered wrongly (I Pet. 3:18), which profoundly and cosmically changes everything. 3) Suffering rightly and wrongly necessarily changes us.  We suffer formatively, being deformed, reformed, or transformed. For the Christ-follower, this is Christ-formative , that is, transformative suffering (Ps. 119:67,71,75; Rom. 5:3-5).

Three genres of joy answer the above three: repentive, redemptive, and transformative joy. 1). Repentance initiates the fresh joy of cleansing. Since every domain of our fallen being – mind, emotion, and will – is oriented to go astray, now enabled by our new nature in Christ, we need daily repentences in the Spirit. 2). Redemptive joy kneads meaning into even the absurd and grotesque of unjust suffering – consider Christ’s cross. 3. Both recompensive and collateral suffering merge to lead the Christ-follower to transformative joy. To be Christ-formed (imagine such beauty) is God’s unalterable goal for His followers. Are your heartaches worthy of such a goal? Take a deep breath. Back to the beginning.

Oswald Sanders reminds us that Christ’s person is utter perfection: perfectly balanced and symmetrical; no strengths stand out because strengths necessitate weaknesses. Christ has no weaknesses, but our weaknesses provide cavities for His strengths to fill (II Cor. 12:9-11).

Jesus is “the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature…” (Hebrews 1:3). It takes your breath away to realize that God’s plan, working through our trials, is to make us like the second Adam – Christ. Grasping this meaning gives us endurance, hope, and joy. “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory…” (II Cor. 3:18).

Disharmonious and frail as we presently are, we are being changed. God in the radiance of Christ is recovering His image-bearers and shaping us into His Son’s bride. Deep breath. Ponder such glorious radiance and representation — shared with us.

Epiphany!

[1] J. Oswald Sanders, The Incomparable Christ, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1952), 2.

[2] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. II, (Peabody, Maine: Hendrickson Pub., 2003), 92 and 99.

[3] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (San Francisco: Harper Collins Pub., 1940), 80. Italics added.