In fact, it would seem strange if God revealed himself in his Son Jesus Christ and inspired the record of that revelation in the Bible, but did not provide a way for ordinary people to know it.
Stated most simply, the common path to sure knowledge of the REAL Jesus is this: Jesus, as he is revealed in the Bible, has a glory--an excellence, a spiritual beauty--that can be see as self-evidently true. It is like seeing the sun and knowing that it is light and not dark, or like tasting honey and knowing that it is sweet and not sour. There is no long chain of reasoning from premises to conclusions. There is a direct apprehension that this person is true and his glory is the glory of God.
The apostle Paul described this path to the knowledge of Jesus in 2 Corinthians 4:4-6:
- The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God
. For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness," is the one who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Notice that Paul speaks of God's enlightening our hearts (as in the work of creation) to apprehend "the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." He is talking about people who have never seen the historical Jesus. How can they know Him and be sure of Him? What they "see" is the verbal portrayal of Jesus in the Gospel, that is, in the apostolic preaching of Christ. This portrayal, Paul says, accompanied by God's shining "in our hearts," appears to us as what is really is--"the glory of God in
Christ," or as "the glory of Christ
the image of God."
You can see that two things make this path possible. One is the reality of the glory of Jesus Christ shining through his portrayal in the Bible. The other is the work of God to open the eyes of our blinded hearts to see this glory. This is very different from God "telling us" that the Bible is true. It is rather, God's enabling us to see what is really there. This is an important difference. If God whispered in our ear, as it were, that the Jesus of the Bible is true, then the whispering would have the final authority and everything would hang on that. But that is not the path I see in the Bible nor the path I follow. Rather Jesus himself, and His divinely inspired portrayal in the Bible, have the final authority.
The practical effect of this path is that I do not ask you to pray for a special whisper from God to decide if Jesus is real. Rather I ask you to look at the Jesus of the Bible. Look at Him. Don't close your eyes and hope for a word of confirmation. Keep your eyes open and fill them with the full portrait of Jesus provided in the Bible. If you come to trust Jesus Christ as Lord and God, it will be because you see in Him a divine glory and excellence that simply is what it is--TRUE.
Sometimes this path is called the "testimony of the Holy Spirit." The old catechisms say it this way: "The Spirit of God, bearing witness by and with the Scriptures in the heart of man, is alone able to fully persuade it that they are the very Word of God." Be sure to notice that the Spirit persuades "by and with the Scriptures." He does not skirt the Scriptures and substitute private revelations about the Scriptures. He removes the blindness of hostility and rebellion, and thus opens the eyes of our hearts to see the self-evident brightness of the divine beauty of Christ.
The full image of the glory of God that is Christ is breathtaking in its elegance and majesty. All those who truly see it are radically transformed. They see their own sin and they see the perfection of Christ. And they are compelled to have Him for their own. He is glorified in us and we are freed to fully satisfy ourselves in all that He is for us.
We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
Beholding is becoming. Seeing Christ staves and sanctifies.