Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh; yea though we have known Chr4ist after the flesh, yet now, henceforth know we Him no more (2 Cor. 5:16).

Who in the days of his flesh … though He were a Son yet learned He obedience by the things Hen which he suffered … and being made perfect He became the author of salvation unto all them that obey Him (Heb. 5:7-9).

Now here’s a question for you. If you were to see Christ Jesus the Lord as He is now, would you recognise Him? Don’t be too quick to answer; there’s a lot riding on this.

Today the Lord does not appear as the “suffering servant” (Isaiah 53), still less is He still learning obedience by the things He suffered as a man (Heb. 5:8). And unless we lift our gaze upward from what Jesus did in the gospels and even from what He by his Spirit did in the Acts period, we will not recognise Him as He is now. Nor know what He is saying and doing right now in grace.

Fact is even the most holy of men have had a problem recognising the Lord as He is “and is to come”. In Revelation 1:17 the Apostle John records that “… when I saw Him I fell at his feet as dead”. And no wonder, for the Lord’s face shone like the sun, his head and hairs were white as snow, his feet like burning brass and his voice as that of many waters.

The man John now saw was nothing like the Jesus he had known when the Lord was in the “days of his flesh” on earth. Remember, John was loved by Jesus and John loved the Lord in return. He was the only disciple to stay by the Lord to witness his gruesome crucifixion. The others fled and cowered in hiding. Yet years later when John sees Jesus again He does not recognise Him. The Lord has to tell him: “Fear not. I AM He that liveth and was dead and, behold, I AM alive for evermore and have the keys of hell and of death”.

The Prophet Isaiah also had a problem with seeing the Lord. “In the year that King Uzziah died he saw the Lord “sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up and his train filled the temple”. Then said Isaiah: “Woe is me, for I am undone because I am man of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts” (Isaiah 6:1-5).

Saul, the once avid persecutor of the Lord’s people fared no better. As he told King Agrippa, he saw a light from heaven, he and his companions were knocked to the ground, he hears a voice, and has to ask: “Who art Thou Lord?” (Acts 22:8).

Today it can be said that most believers picture Jesus as still walking in Galilee and Judea.  Thus the message they take from Him is that which He spoke to the Jewish people some 2,000 years ago.

Yet that message was one the Lord tailored to a Jewish people who lacked spiritual knowledge or insight. Very few had “ears to hear and eyes to see” (Matt. 13:15). Nor later did Gentiles. Even after believing Jesus died for their sins and rose to give them life Paul deemed the Gentile Corinthians still fleshly, carnal and as yet “babes in Christ” (1 Cor. 3:3).

Sadly, many Christians only see Jesus through the lens of his ministry when He lived on earth. They wilfully ignore the fact that He “that liveth evermore” (Rev. 1:18-20) has had much to do and to say since his ascension to glory.

Today He is seated at the right hand of God in glory and has been given “a name above every other name… that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow “of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth” (Phil. 2:9-11).

In fact the Bible teaches that God raised Christ from the dead “and set Him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named not only in this world but also in that which is to come… and hath put all things under his feet” (Eph. 1:19-22).

If we are to know Jesus today then we must know Him as He is the king of glory, the ruler of the universe, the One with all power in heaven and earth.

You see our God is a God of the now, the present, not the past. Indeed, eternity is rightly described as “an ever present now”. Sadly, the challenge to be so changed we can meet the Lord in glory is often set aside as of little consequence. Yet Paul said he gladly suffered the loss of all things, “that I may win Christ and be found in Him” (Phil. 3: 8-9).

Paul wanted to be found in the Lord as He is now. But to achieve there he had to undergo huge personal change. Thus, in Phil. 3:7-15 he willingly “suffers the loss of all things” to win “Christ Jesus my Lord”.  He had to say goodbye to his own righteousness (of the law), experience the sufferings of Christ, be “made conformable” to his death “if by any means I may attain unto the (out) resurrection from the dead.

Too hard an ask for you and I? Not if we are called by God to “the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14). Like Paul we need to “apprehend”, that is, get hold of, the truth that Christ Jesus the Lord has already got hold of us and will lead and take us through to be with Him in heaven’s glory.

No wonder then that Paul says in Phil. 3:20 that “…our conversation (assured citizenship) is in heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious bod, according to the working where he is able even to subdue all things unto Himself”.

As for me, I’ll be so glad to say goodbye to my present earthly and sinful husk and find myself a member of his personal body, “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:23).

John Dudley Aldworth

You’re welcome to contact me at the email address below.

Email: john.aldworth@hotmail.com

Website: https://www.dayofchristmnistries.com/rss/all.xml