"And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." [Rev 5:6]
Before Jesus came to be a man, before He “emptied Himself,” as The Spirit says, [Phil 2:7] I am sure He had a most glorious body. It can only be supposed how good and how majestic of a form our Lord dwelt with before He was made “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” [Rom 8:3] In Ezekiel we see a dim reflection of His image when the prophet attempts to capture into language a vision of God’s throne, which may hint to us of what He possessed before coming to earth.
“…And upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD.” [Ezek 1:26b-28a]
We see a vision of many varied and beautiful lights, of fire, and of great brightness. This was the form of our Lord before He took upon Himself a lowly, human body, subject to the same weaknesses that we face from day-to-day.
The body that Jesus partook of, though similar in every aspect to ours, (“for we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses… [Heb 4:15]), was without beauty. Isaiah tells us of the Messiah that “he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.” [Isa 53:2] It is an exceedingly humble thing for Jesus to step down into humanity, without pomp or parade, to take upon Himself a body without show or dazzle or beauty of any kind. He was a normal-looking fellow; so much so, that Judas had to point out to the mob who exactly Jesus was amidst His disciples on the night He was betrayed.
This is still not the only body that Jesus received. For after His resurrection, as we shall too, Jesus received a resurrected and glorified body. However, unlike most men would be inclined to think, Jesus’ new body had something remarkable: it still retained the scars of His crucifixion. This is an incredible thought to ponder, and truly shows us the majesty of our Lord. We can see that Jesus retained His scars through a number of passages; mainly, in John and above, in Revelation. Notice when Jesus appears to Thomas after His resurrection, and says, “Thomas, reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.” [Jn 20:27] The scars were still there, even in Jesus’ resurrected body, for Thomas to feel and to see. Again, in Revelation, when John sees the resurrected Christ ready to redeem earth from the grasp of Satan and from the curse of sin, He writes having seen “a Lamb as it had been slain.” [Rev 5:6]
This fact concerning Jesus’ body was revealed far before these verses were written. In Zechariah, God says,
“Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou, and thy fellows that sit before thee: for they are men wondered at: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH. For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.” [Zech 3:8-9]
The BRANCH and the stone are Christ. Notice in particular God’s use a stone, how that The LORD says “I will engrave the graving thereof, saith The LORD of Hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.” Through the engraving of The LORD into this stone, all sin will be completely removed in one day. Certainly this speaks to us of Christ, who was crushed by The Father for our sins. When a stone is engraved, the effect is nearly permanent. There is no eraser for stones as there is for paper, but the engraving is permanent. In the same way, the scars which were given to Jesus by The Father for the removal of our sins are permanent. They are retained even by Jesus’ resurrected body. As it always is with God, this is not without purpose.
In Isaiah, The LORD says, “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” [Isa 49:16] Here we see that The LORD, YHWH, has engraved Israel upon His hands; He has put them ever before Himself and will not forget them nor forsake them. This pictures very plainly for us, Christ, who is “The Everlasting Father” [Isa 9:6], and who was engraved for our sakes. As we saw from John, those scars upon Jesus’ hands were permanent; even today, as Jesus sits upon The Father’s right hand, His scars remain. They are engraved upon His hands. And every time Jesus sees those scars He is reminded again of His passion, which was done for each of us individually – for He died for us and rose again that we each might live unto Him.
What a glorious and precious truth. It is no wonder that the writer in Hebrews admonishes us to “look away from all else unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of faith…for consider Him that endured such hostility of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your souls.” [Heb 12:2-3] What strength this might bring to us who dwell upon it daily. That Christ Jesus would retain His scars for us; that He would ever remember His work for us; that we should ever be upon His heart and mind; and that He would humble Himself to such degrees, as to accomplish our salvation and love us. May He ever receive our praise for such things.
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