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“Behold the Man!”

One of my daughters arranged a writing project for me that I have been working on for months now. It consists of a series of questions that I'm intended to give an answer to. The latest is what follows and I felt compelled to also share it here...


If this was the last thing you wrote, what words of wisdom would you share?

My response begins with “Behold the Man!”

"Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, “Behold the Man!” John 19:5 (NKJ)

Pontius Pilate had no idea how profound those words were at the time that he spoke them or how they would impact to change the lives, hearts and minds of the men and women, boys and girls who would regard to follow them in earnest as they continue to echo throughout the history of mankind since.

“Behold the Man!” As Pilate spoke those words to the crowd, it was in the hope that they would look on the man Jesus, with his flesh torn by the barb tipped whips that they used to beat Him, bloodied, bruised, and completely humiliated and be moved to have compassion on Him. Instead, these mere humans determined to stand in judgment over Him and screamed out for His death by the most inhumane method possible, death on the cross.

Pilate had called out “Behold the Man!”,… but who was the man? And could it be that unknown to Pilate, that his words had a life of their own intended to reach beyond that moment in time and beyond the purpose that he personally intended?

“Behold the Man!” Jesus, as John, “the disciple that Jesus loved”, described Him…

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” John 1:1-4 (NKJ) This is Jesus.

From the very throne and household of God came this Son Of God to appear as a man, and now before Pilate, to face mankind’s judgment for the crime of speaking His Father’s truth and heart. God’s truth and God’s heart. The question one should be led to ask is “why”?

“Behold the Man!” Jesus, having lived thirty three years on the earth, left an example that honored God and reflected His perfect and deeply loving character. He spoke the truth always, healed many by means that seem miraculous to us, and taught mankind about God’s heart and ways. So why would He be treated so vilely and be delivered to die? One answer is because the real truth from Father God that Jesus shared, offended so many of the religious leaders of the day, who in their insolent arrogance and self importance did not recognize Him as God, though He definitely was, and sought to have Him killed.

But there’s another answer - in fact, a divine design. Because God’s wisdom and ways are so far above our own, those who know Him, as He allows, both by study and familiarity in relationship with Him, respectfully allow that any time God is doing something, there may well be more going on than meets our limited eye and knowledge. As with the words that I suspect that God Himself may have put in Pilate’s mouth to herald a call beyond the given moment to behold His Christ and Son in succeeding generations, there was certainly more going on in the moments of Christ’s life and death by God’s own design. It was a design that as usual was far beyond mankind’s myopic tendency of many to only see life in this moment. Indeed, the idiom “can’t see the forest for the trees” is a real thing when it comes to mankind’s viewpoint at times, so caution and respectful allowance for God’s wise intervention in this life at times is highly recommended.

In fact, the life of Jesus on earth and indeed everything from the beginning of His short time to His arrest and following death on the cross were the masterful plan of God since from the beginning of time and it certainly wasn’t the end of His plan. There was definitely more to come, much more.

From the beginning of God’s creation of the species that He would refer to as mankind, Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be persuaded by Lucifer to make the same error that Lucifer himself did - they disbelieved what God told them and proceeded to disobey Him. This infected the perfection of relationship between God and man and caused God’s anger to be kindled against man. It resulted in God’s curse being inflicted on what God had previously declared to be good in His creation.

In short, the species that God called mankind was now under its Creators’ anger because of its disobedience and betrayal to God through Adam and Eve. So the species of man has been under God’s wrath, and the creation that God made for him to exist in under God’s curse, ever since. This is the current state of every man, woman and child that has remained disobedient to God and unrepentant. Knowing man’s frailties though, and being a compassionate God to the repentant, God established a method of sacrifice that man could make in order to receive forgiveness for the errors and sins - offenses to God, that would allow that person to cancel out their offense. It required a cost to the person making the sacrifice - the blood of an animal. Mankind being so sinful though and the method of atonement being so burdensome, God had already planned from the beginning to provide a one time perfect sacrifice to take away the sin of those who would believe God, repent and call on the name of His only begotten Son, Christ Jesus - the man, who is also God, seeking then to believe and honor God in all that they do from that time on.

“Behold the man!” who is also God, Christ Jesus, who The Holy Spirit raised from the dead on the third day after His death on the cross - a death at the hands of the very mankind that He came to save. God had lowered Himself to be born in the lowest of stature among men to become the eternal lamb slain for the sin of mankind so that man could be forever reconciled with God. This “man” is Jesus, who is now seated in the place of honor at the right hand of Father God. Forever He is our advocate as we receive His sacrifice in the place of our own eternal death to be forever reunited in relationship with our God and Creator.

“Behold the man!” Know Him.

“He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Isaiah 53:3-6 (NKJ)

To behold me is to find a man having been stricken with imperfection and weakness, a man of former iniquity. But to behold Christ Jesus is to behold a man who is also God - who having committed no such iniquity, nor being found subject to any imperfection or weakness, gave His own life to suffer in our place so that you and I might live.


"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8 (NKJ)

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it."  Deuteronomy 10:12-14 (NKJ) 

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