Revealing Christ

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jul 27, 1905

When the Son of God was here in the flesh, he so perfectly revealed God to the world that he was able to say, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” But “Jesus revealed no qualities, and exercised no powers, that men may not have through faith in him. His perfect humanity is that which all his followers may possess, if they will be in subjection to God as he was.” Thus it becomes possible for every believer on Christ to reveal him to the world, just as did those “unlearned and ignorant men” who bore such a testimony before the “rulers and elders and scribes” that “they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” Such a revelation of Christ is a necessary part of the experience of preaching Christ by word of mouth. Thus the apostle Paul writes that “it was the good pleasure of God . . . to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles.” And those who thus reveal Christ are preaching him in a most effective manner, even though they never deliver a public sermon. Such preachers of Christ are greatly needed in every community, that through them he who is the Light of the world may shine upon those who are enveloped in darkness. But before Christ can be thus revealed, he must be formed within. We are “by nature children of wrath,” and until we are created anew in Christ Jesus, we are “foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” All this is unlike Christ, but that grace which transformed the persecuting Saul into Paul the chiefest of the apostles will do a similar work for every man, for “God is no respecter of persons.” It is God’s purpose that we should show forth the excellencies of him who has called us out of darkness into his marvelous light. “Ye are the light of the world.”