To Encourage You

John 19:5 “So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.  Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!”

Do you think much about the fact that Jesus is a man?  It’s common for a believer to think about Jesus in His deity, for He is, indeed, God.  But He is also a man.  In the account above, we are at a point in Jesus’ trial after which Pilate had had Him flogged.  He had then been mocked with “Hail, king of the Jews.”  The soldiers made a crown of thorns for this “king” and dressed Him in a purple robe – the color of kings – but the only purpose was to mock Him.  In this moment, Pilate, in so many words, said to the murderous crowd “Look at Him!  Look at this one you are so concerned about, who you say claims to be a king and thus a threat to the rule of Caesar!  Look at Him!  He’s nothing but a man, a beaten, mocked, weak, totally discredited man. He’s only a man!  Look at Him!” 

And in this statement, there’s a message to each and every one of us.  Look at Him!  Look at this man!  Look at how humiliated He is!  Look at Him in His suffering!  Look at Him on His way to the cross! Then think about the fact that this is also the very Son of God. This is the very Creator of the universe. This is the one that the angels of Heaven worship. Day after day they never stop saying “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3).  Behold this One, this King of kings, but behold Him as a man.  Behold the one “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). 

Do you see Him?  Do you realize that this suffering servant humbled Himself in this way only because of you and me?  Do you realize that He did this because it was the only way that He could fulfill the justice of God for your sin and mine by suffering and dying as our substitute? Can you imagine this?  Has it ever really sunk in?  Look at this man – this despised, rejected, humiliated, suffering man – and realize that it is this very man who is also the God of Heaven and earth. He is the God who created everything. He is the God that alone deserves to be worshipped. 

Look at Him and think about what He has done for us!  Then think about what John saw as He gazed on this One who is both Son of God and Son of Man in his vision of heaven: “I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.In a loud voice they were saying: ‘Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise (Revelation 5:11-12)!’” 

Yes, this is the same One who stood before Pilate and the mocking crowd and heard Pilate’s words “Behold the Man!”  It is this Man who suffered for us so that one day we might be able to behold Him in His glory in heaven.  Let us always be “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1).  “Behold the man,” the King of kings, who became a man, for the sole purpose of giving His life for you and me!