Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
The Almighty, the omniscient God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, could well have anticipated our modern film technology, and had an angel camera crew on the scene when Jesus was crucified 2000 years ago. Then we could have it on our screens absolutely accurate--that face of Jesus clear and undistorted by any unavoidably sinful human imitation of Him.
The Father chose not to do it for us. Instead, He chose to "reveal" Him in a Book that itself throbs with life because the same Holy Spirit who inspired it inspires our reading of it. There in the Book "we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death [the second!], crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone" (Heb. 2:9).
Every human heart has a built-in monitor screen whereon the Holy Spirit as a projector flashes a true image of Jesus; each individual "sees" Him as the Galatians "saw" Him, "crucified among you" (3:1). This "image" flashed on the conscience by the Holy Spirit is in vivid 3D, in full color, and each believing individual is summoned from the grandstands where he thinks he is only watching and becomes a participant himself in the drama--"crucified with Christ" (2:20) or crucifying Him afresh (Heb. 6:6). And you never in all eternity forget what you "saw" and knew first-hand.
We could complain to the Father that He has deprived us of this actual "movie" that was never recorded on film. But He would have to respond to us that His own Son, Jesus, had no such "movie" setting forth the happenings from creation on to His time. Jesus had to depend instead only on the Word--the Bible. "It is written" had to be His experience. No angel gave Him any advantage greater than you and I have in what is "written" in the Bible.
The Holy Spirit always asks us, "Do you understand what you are reading?" (Acts 8:30). The Ethiopian invited Philip into his chariot and they read Isaiah 53. Invite the Holy Spirit with you to read the life of Jesus, especially its closing scenes--in Psalm 22, 69, Isaiah 53, Zechariah 12, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, etc. Wait on your knees; Give Him time to flash on your conscience the clear, undistorted vision of "Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:1, 2). You'll abhor watching any imitation of it.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 24, 2004.
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