“We look not at
the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2
Cor. 4:18).
“Therefore from
now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known
Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer” (2
Cor. 5:16).
What does it
mean to “know Christ according to the flesh”? What does it mean to no longer
know Him that way?
Perhaps Christ’s
appearances after the Resurrection can help us with this.
Mary heard His
voice and saw Him, yet she didn’t hear His Voice or see Him, thinking Him to be
the gardener. Only when Jesus spoke her name was He revealed to her (John 20:14
– 14).
The two disciples
on the road to Emmaus enjoyed an extended walk and conversation with Jesus, one
in which their “hearts were burning” while Jesus “was explaining the Scriptures,”
yet they did not know who He was until they recognized Him “in the breaking of
bread” (Luke 24:13 – 36).
The seven
disciples fishing on the Sea of Tiberias did not recognize Jesus at first, and
even when they did there was a strangeness about His appearance and their
recognition of Him that the Biblical text does not explain. “None of the
disciples ventured to question Him, ‘Who are You?’ knowing that it was the Lord”
(John 21:1 – 14).
What can we
learn from these passages about seeing Jesus?
Jesus did not
appear to His disciples as they expected to see Him; or at least not all of the
time. Even after they had seen Jesus, when He appeared again they were not sure
what or who they were seeing (Luke 24:37; John 21:4).
Yet, throughout
His life on earth, Jesus had been appearing in ways that people did not expect,
in ways that most could not see, certainly in ways that the religious leaders
rejected and which were an element of their motivation to kill Jesus.
Jesus healed on
the Sabbath, He touched unclean lepers, He forgave sins, He associated with
prostitutes, and tax collectors in the service of Roman oppressors. Jesus the
Messiah did all of these things and some saw Him while most didn’t.
After Pentecost
Jesus continued to appear to His followers in ways that they could not see at
first. One of the most notable was in the vision He gave to Peter of unclean animals
with the command, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” (Acts 10:9 – 16).
When Paul wrote,
“We have known Christ according to the flesh,” he may have been thinking of his
persecution of the Church, for in those days he could not conceive of the
Messiah being associated with disciples of Jesus, after all, anyone who was
hanged on a tree was cursed by God. Paul may have also been thinking of the
confusion in Antioch over the Law and grace, a confusion that led to a public
confrontation with dear Peter (Galatians 2:11 – 21). The vision that Peter had
in Acts 10 was fading from him in Galatians 2. Sometimes we see Jesus and then
we don’t, sometimes our wonderful vision of Jesus fades, as does our
discipleship and love for Him.
This same dynamic
is very much alive in our reading and experiencing the Bible. We see this in
how Jesus and the New Testament writes engage the Old Testament.
Paul, prior to
his conversion, would have never seen Galatians 4:21 – 31 in the Genesis
account of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. Paul would have never seen
Jerusalem and the covenant it represents as being in bondage, nor would he have
seen that the true and eternal Jerusalem is above and is the mother of all of
us who live in the faith of Abraham. No doubt, were Paul with us today, he
would question our infatuation with geopolitical Jerusalem, our orientation
toward the things of earth – things that are seen – as opposed to a Biblical
orientation toward eternal things which cannot be seen.
Prior to his
conversion, Paul would not have seen that in Christ there is only One People,
and that this reality is God’s great mystery hidden from ages and generations.
He would have considered such teaching worthy of death and would have insisted
that the Messiah and Messiah’s Message would never appear this way (Ephesians
2:11 – 3:13). No doubt, were Paul with us today, he would be perplexed at our Jew
– Gentile dispensationalism, our preoccupation with certain strains of “prophecy,”
our failure to “see” that all of faith are children of Abraham – that there is
a true “Israel of God” that transcends race, ethnicity, national origin, or anything
that can be “seen” in the natural (Galatians 6:16).
In a sense, the
New Testament is a picture of God in Christ appearing again and again in ways
that we can only “see” by His grace and the Holy Spirit.
The Jews had preconceived
notions as to how Messiah would look. The broader society of Jesus’ time had
preconceived notions. The disciples had preconceived notions (for example,
consider Matthew 16:21 – 23; John 6:59 – 69). The Church had preconceived
notions after Pentecost. We always have preconceived notions. We expect
Jesus to appear in certain ways, we expect Him to appear in the flesh in ways
that meet our expectations, that fit our religious forms, that align with our
national, political, economic, and social agendas.
To live seeing
the invisible is to see Jesus Christ above and beyond the natural world around
us, and this includes seeing Him beyond our philosophies, religious traditions,
our doctrinal distinctives, our national, political, social, economic, racial,
and ethnic identities.
“For all of you
who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither
male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to
Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:27 –
29).
If our identity is
found anywhere other than in Christ, if our identification with other
Christians is found anywhere other than in Christ and only in Christ, then we
are living by looking at things that can be seen, and those things are
temporal. Nationalism is temporal, denominations are temporal, political orientation
is temporal, economics are temporal, our social norms are temporal, our comfort
zones are temporal.
Not only does
Jesus come to us in ways we do not expect, He comes to us in ways that we
often instinctively reject. He comes to us as homeless, as a stranger and
alien seeking refuge, as naked, as thirsty, as hungry, as a prisoner…and we
reject Him at our peril, and it is very much to our peril when we teach
others to reject Him! (Matthew 25:31 – 46).
Do we see the
irony that many of us who make much of Matthew Chapter 24 ignore Matthew 25:31 –
46, which is the continuation of Chapter 24? Do we see the irony that many of
us who profess a high view of Scripture, gloss over Matthew 25:31 – 46?
Do we not tremble
that many congregations insist that their pastors only preach and teach in a
way that they expect, a way that mirrors their view of Jesus, their image of
Jesus – and that if pastors suggest an image of Jesus, a Biblical image, an
image of touching the untouchable and loving the unlovable, that the
congregations will, one way or another, do to the pastors what the religious
leaders did to Jesus – they will cast them out, torture them, and crucify them.
Faithful pastors
in the United States have much less to fear from the world, than they do from
the professing church (including other pastors).
Learning to know
Christ “not according to the flesh,” not according to appearance, is a lifelong
journey…we must always be looking for Him, for He often comes in ways we do not
expect, even in ways that we may reject. He may come (and indeed He will come!)
through people who do not look like us, talk like us, dress like us, eat like
us, or see many things the way we do. He may come to us in images and people
with whom we have nothing in common, nothing at all.
As we experience
what it is to know Jesus in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:21 – 24), as we
experience what it is to know Jesus beyond the visible, as we experience His
coming to us beyond what is seen by the natural eye, then we will learn how to
receive others into our lives, we will learn how to touch others in the Name
of Christ – we will learn, we will finally learn, to live as the daughters and
sons of God.
