In the last BLOG we looked at the beauty of God and how His glory is His true beauty. It is only the humble soul that will see His true glory (John 11:40) and it is only the humbled soul that His glory dwells in and shines in and through. This is a fundamental but often overlooked truth, and perhaps it is because Christianity has been overcome with rationalism in some ways. We would like to think that because we can think of His glory that we can see His glory. While there is a rational aspect of His glory, if we just leave it there we will not behold the true glory of God because that part cannot be rationally apprehended. The beauty of God must be seen in the soul and only the humble will be ravished with His beauty rather than their own. Until the soul is humbled from its pride the soul will be more concerned with its own honor and beauty than God’s.
“If Jesus is indeed to be our example in His lowliness, we need to understand the principles in which it was rooted, and in which we find the common ground on which we stand with Him, and in which our likeness to Him is to be attained. If we are indeed to be humble, not only before God but towards men, if humility is to be our joy, we must see that it is not only the mark of shame, because of sin, but, apart from all sin, a being clothed upon with the very beauty and blessedness of heaven and of Jesus. We shall see that just as Jesus found His glory in taking the form of a servant, so when He said to us, ‘Whosoever would be first among you, shall be your servant,’ He simply taught us the blessed truth that there is nothing so divine and heavenly as being the servant and helper, of all…When we see that humility is something infinitely deeper than contrition, and accept it as our participation in the life of Jesus, we shall begin to learn that it is our true nobility.” (Andrew Murray)
If we approach this from the rational point of view, we will see some things in biblical texts that are admirable. We will see Jesus washing the feet of the disciples and have a rational admiration for that. But if our souls are being humbled, we are then enabled to behold the glory and beauty of Jesus in doing that. The world saw no beauty in Jesus though many of them saw miracles and received free food and wine. The world saw nothing all that attractive about Jesus. He was, after all, externally speaking nothing but an average Jewish male. But to God and to those with the humble eyes of faith, they are enabled to see the beauty of God in Him.
Isaiah 53:1 – “Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. 3 He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”
The world despised Him and His cross. The world still despises the cross and when Christ is truly presented they still despise Him. When the truth of Christ is watered down to where they think of Him as centered on them and in a non-threatening way to their self-rule, they will speak of Him as a good teacher. One way to think of this is seen in John 5:44, though admittedly it is a painful view: “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” Here is a devastating view of the self. The natural human soul desires to receive glory from men rather than the glory that is from God. One reason for this is that it puffs up the human soul to receive glory from others and yet the glory of God humbles it into the dust.
The cross is despised because it is so humbling to the pride of men. Many teachers in the modern day have taken the true meaning of the cross away and now say that is shows how much God values man and so how much we should value ourselves. But that misses the whole point entirely. The cross shows how wicked and sinful human beings really are and it displays the true glory and beauty of God. It tells us about the beauty of grace and love. The cross puts the beauty of the justice of God on display. While on the cross the glory of God shone brighter than ever before and proud souls hate it unless it is watered down or the focus is taken off of the glory of God. The cross is a hideous place in one sense and yet in another it is ravishingly beautiful because of the beauty of God on display there. Christ is not esteemed when the truth of who He is and what He has done is held forth unless it is watered down and changed into a man-centered system. Only a humble soul can see the glory and beauty of God and bow to the God displayed there and want nothing more than to be like the Jesus who shone with such beauty and glory.
God Loves... Himself 
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