Behold Your God

The cry of Isaiah 40 — "Behold your God" — has echoed across every page of Scripture. From the garden forward, God has been working to bring us back to Himself. The whole sweep of redemptive history is the story of that pursuit.

We Lost the Ability to Behold Him

When man first sinned, something was broken that we could not fix ourselves. In the garden, there was no need to say "Behold the Father" — they beheld Him. That fellowship was shattered, and every generation since has lived on the far side of it. Romans 3 makes the depth of that fall plain: "None is righteous, no, not one... all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Rom 3:10, 23) The distance between a holy God and a sinful people is not something human effort can close.

God Sent the Answer — His Son

But God did not leave us there. Isaiah 53 painted the portrait centuries before it happened — a suffering servant, pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, the chastisement that brought us peace laid upon Him. When John the Baptist saw Jesus walking toward him, he said it plainly: "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." When the disciples asked Jesus to show them the Father, He answered, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father." To behold Jesus is to behold God. The whole mission of the incarnation was to put a face on the Father for a people who had lost Him.

And that mission cost everything. The cross, the burial, the resurrection on the third day — these are not footnotes. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, Christ is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Death, the last enemy, has been defeated. Because He rose, there is a path back to the Father.

The Journey — Becoming More Like Him

One day, John tells us, we shall see Him as He is — for we shall be like Him. That is the destination. But the journey begins here and now. When we come to Christ in faith, repentance, confession, and baptism, we are raised to walk in newness of life. And in that new life, we are being transformed — glory to glory — into His image. Paul speaks of that transformation in 2 Corinthians 3. The goal of discipleship is not mere moral improvement; it is becoming the kind of person who, when others look at you, catches a glimpse of Jesus. And through Jesus, a glimpse of the Father.

Philippians 2 shows us the shape of that transformation. Christ "emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant... He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Phil 2:7-8) That humility, that servant-heartedness, that willingness to lay down self — that is the image we are being conformed to.

In Closing

None of us does this perfectly. There are moments in every Christian life when we have to stop, turn around, and come back to looking like Jesus. Repentance is not a one-time act at baptism — it is the rhythm of the renewed life. But what a destination lies ahead. We shall behold Him as He is, for we shall be like Him. That's where I want to be. Don't you? Keep your eyes on Jesus. He is the way to the Father.