Knowing The Real

Jesus
Adapted from Leonard Griffith and J. Sidlow 
Baxter 
by Bill Consiglio

e go to the gospels to find the real Jesus. 
We do not go to the scholars, the academicians, 
the intellectuals; especially those who come to 
the gospels without the Spirit of Christ having been born in their hearts. For to 
come to the gospels without the Holy Spirit is like making bread without yeast; 
it is like marrying without love; it is entering a darkened room without any 
source of light. Look at the real Jesus of the gospels. Look with your heart of 
faith and your experience of Jesus as he has touched your own life. Let us 
look with the eyes of his Spirit. By all means, let us bring scholarship and 
learning to our search for the real Jesus, but not the learning and scholarship 
unaided by the light of the Spirit of God. 

ho do we see when we come to the gospels in faith? We see Jesus 
engaged in four basic ministries which reveal an extra­ordinary, supernatural 
and divine Person. 
  Teaching/Preaching..."Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, 
"Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" ~ "Teacher, 
which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" ~ He taught as one 
who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law. 
  Healing/Deliverance...News about him spread all over Syria, and 
people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those 
suffering severe pain, the demonpossessed, those having seizures, and 
the paralyzed, and he healed them. ~ Then Jesus said to the centurion, 
"Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was 
healed at that very hour. ~ When evening came, many who were demon­
possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word 
and healed all the sick. 
  Power/Authority....He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the 
waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely 
calm. ~ "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples. In fear and 
amazement they asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even 
the winds and the water, and they obey him." ~ After he put them all out, 
 he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with 
him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said 
to her, "Talitha koum!" (which means, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" ). 
42Immediately the girl stood up and walked around (she was twelve 
years old). At this they were completely astonished. 
  Salvation/Sanctification....As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up 
to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what 
must I do to inherit eternal life?" ~ "I am the true vine, and my Father is 
the gardener". ~ "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my 
sheep know me–" "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will 
never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." "My Father who 
gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who 
comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." "But so that you 
may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...." 
Then he said to the paralytic, "Get up, take your mat and go home." 
First, we see a man who taught and revealed the truth about God. Never 
had anyone spoken of God with such authority and such intimacy. He called 
God his Father, and himself God's Son, and claimed that the relationship 
between himself and God was closer and more divine than that between any 
earthly parent and his child. On the lips of any other man such claims would 
have seemed sheer blasphemy, but coming from Jesus they corroborated all 
that the disciples themselves believed about him.

e can almost imagine the evolution which the disciples experienced as 
they grew in their relationship to Jesus. For there is the secret of knowing the 
real Jesus. It is the same for us as it was for them. Our growth in closeness 
and intimacy to him comes from spending much time with him; listening, 
looking and watching him, receiving and giving to him. When we speak to him 
and he to us, this alone brings his love and the truth of who he really is into 
the light. And there's the difference between the secular scholar's approach to 
Jesus and the man of faith. Ask the secular scholar to just once, get upon his 
knees and speak to Jesus, just once, and his scholarly work will become a 
window to truth and light! Ask him to suspend his studies of Jesus and spend 
15 minutes in prayer to Him, and all becomes new. His disciples went through 
many changes in their view of Jesus. 

t first they may have said that God sent Jesus , but that explanation did 
 
not cover the facts. Then they said, God is with him    . That went deeper, yet 
as their experience of him progressed, even that seemed inadequate. Finally 
 
we catch the reverent accents of a new conviction God came in him    . He not 
only teaches the truth about God ; he is the truth about God, God made 
visible and brought within human experience. These days it has become 
fashionable to revise our image of God. According to some religious scholars, 
modern astronomy and space travel compel us to reject the image of God as a 
supreme, supernatural Being who exists in outer space, separate and distinct 
from the world which he has made. Yet even this little coterie of avant­garde 
theologians insist that, wherever God may be found, he has still revealed 
himself in Jesus. If love be the ultimate meaning of the universe, then Christ, 
who gave himself perfectly in love, is still the authentic and perfect image of 
God.

he Russian novelist Turgenev described how once there came to him in a 
kind of vision a swift and wonderful insight into the nature of Jesus. He saw 
himself a youth, almost a boy, in a low­pitched wooden church. The slim wax 
candles gleamed, spots of red, before the old pictures of the saints. There 
stood before him many people, all fair­haired peasant heads. From time to 
time they began swaying, falling, rising again, like the ripe ears of wheat when 
the wind in summer passes over them. All at once a man came up from behind 
and stood beside the Russian boy. He did not turn around, but he felt certain 
that the man was Christ. Emotion, curiosity, and awe over­mastered him. 
Finally he made an effort and looked at his neighbour. A face like everyone's, a 
face like all men's faces. What sort of Christ is this?'' he thought, "such an 
ordinary, ordinary man. It cannot be.'' 

ut it can be, and it is. The Christ who makes himself known through 
Sacrament and Scripture, who encounters us in the fellowship of the Church 
and in the secret place of prayer, the Christ who still represents to us the 
image of the eternal God, is not some remote, supernatural Deity shrouded in 
the mystery of heaven. He is the same Jesus, the same ordinary, ordinary man 
who ate the bread and drank the cup of our human experience here upon 
earth. He is God in our idiom, a God whom we can understand, because he 
understands us and comes close beside us in all the common ways of life, so 
that we can reach out and touch him and 
know him as our Friend. 

econdly, we see the Jesus of the  
Gospels as the man of infinite love and  
compassion . There is no coherent picture 
of Jesus in the New Testament. Each of the 
Gospel writers, like an artist, interprets 
Christ in his own way, painting, as it were, a 
portrait. Each brings into bold relief the 
features of this Divine personality that seem 
to him most important. Matthew puts a 
great deal of his own intentions and motives into his portrait of Jesus as the 
Messiah long­awaited by Israel. Mark's Jesus is the most factual and actual 
telling. It is the first, seemingly quickly written factual account of the Savior. 
Luke is the devotional telling of Christ. It is full of prayers and personal 
applications to our lives. John's Jesus is the most mystical, allegorical, 
symbolic, and spiritual portrait. Yet from all the New Testament portraits of 
Jesus one feature shines most prominently; it is his compassion. Never did 
any man care so deeply for people, identify himself with them so closely and 
involve himself so completely in their lives. We read that when he saw the 
multitude "he had compassion on them''. A crowd invariably produced that 
effect upon Jesus. When he looked at people's faces, sometimes emotionless, 
hard and even hostile, his X­ray vision probed deeply into the secret agonies 
and anxieties of their souls; his great, loving heart went out to them in 
sympathy and compassion. His love for others is God's love for all men and 
women. 

is miracles expressed this compassion. At the very outset of his ministry 
he rejected the temptation to be a mere miracle­monger. He who possessed the 
power of God deliberately avoided making displays of supernatural power ; he 
did so because he knew that through they might dazzle people, miracles would 
not convince people, not convert them, not bring them into the Kingdom of 
God. Yet, because he possessed the power of God, he made that power the 
instrument of his compassion. It was only right that, having come to make 
men whole, he should heal their sick bodies as well as their sick souls ; that, 
having offered the Bread of life for their spiritual hunger, he should satisfy 
their physical hunger as well ; and that, having come to save men from evil, he 
should save them from disease and death and all the manifestations of evil's 
power. 

hatever Jesus did for people­whether to restore their sight or cleanse 
them from leprosy or bring their dead back to life­he did because he loved 
them and had compassion on them. One of the most impressive statues of 
Christ ever sculptured is that by Thorvaldsen, which stands today behind the 
altar of the Protestant Cathedral in Copenhagen, Denmark. He worked on it 
for many months, and at last surveyed the finished product with satisfaction­a 
Christ with strong arms outstretched, raised high in gesturing command, and 
the fine shaped head thrown back in triumph. "This is he,'' the artist said, the 
powerful, majestic Christ.'' Thorvaldsen closed the door of his studio for 
several days so that the clay might set. When he returned and opened the 
door, he stared in horror and disbelief. There had been a storm. Dampness 
had invaded the studio and altered the statue. No longer were the arms 
outstretched ; now they fell low. The moisture had caused the once­proud 
head to bend. The great physique had drooped. Gone was the triumph of 
Thorvaldsen's Christ ; he looked defeated now. For a long time the artist had 
no heart for work, but finally he went with a friend to his studio again to see if 
somehow he might repair the damage and recapture the likeness of the strong 
Man of Galilee. They stopped and gazed in awe at the statue. Bathed in light, 
the lowered arms no longer depicted defeat; instead they reached out with the 
compassion of God, sympathetic arms encircling the sorrowing and needy. The 
head no longer seemed to droop ; rather it bowed low with contrite 
countenance as if to say, "I understand your travail.'' 

horvaldsen knew that what had happened was surely an act of God. Some 
greater Power had breathed meaning into the artist's ruined statue, so that it 
was no longer a majestic Christ or a defeated Christ, but the Christ of the 
Gospels. This was the compassionate Savior, the same Jesus who stretched 
out hands of pity to sorrowing, suffering humanity, the same Jesus who, 
because his living presence fills the world, comes now to the sick as Healer, to 
the bereaved as Comforter, to the hard­pressed as Helper, to the lonely as 
Companion and Friend . 

hirdly, we see the Jesus of the Gospels  
as the man who brought God's forgiveness  
to the sinful. Of course, he first made them 
conscious of their sin. He Judged them 
sometimes by his words, as when he called the 
Pharisees mausoleums, beautifully painted on 
the outside, but inside full of dead men's bones 
; sometimes by his deeds, as when Peter, awed 
by the miraculous draught of fishes, cried out, 
"Depart from me, for l am a sinful man, O 
Lord'' ; sometimcs by his very look, as when his 
eyes bored into the soul of that cowardly 
disciple who denied him in the courtyard of Caiaphas ; but more often by what 
he was, by the purity and perfection of his personality which shone like a 
searchlight on the moral blemishes of all who came near him. 

aving judged men, howerer, having brought them to their knees in 
repentance, Jesus then did for them what only God could do, he forgave their 
sins. He forgave them radically. He did not merely cleanse and recondition 
them but transformed them from sons of Adam into sons of God, buried their 
sins, and then resurrected them as sons of God. To a man paralysed by guilt 
he said, "My son, your sins are forgiven.'' To a woman accussed of adultery he 
said, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no mere.'' To a dishonest tax 
collector he said, "Today is salvation come to this bouse."' To a dying criminal 
he said even from the agony of his cross, "Today thou shalt be with me in 
paradise.'' 

n a prison in the Southern United States there is an inmate who has 
already served twenty years of a life­sentence. He is a commercial artist who 
has painted hundreds of portraits of Jesus, all with this strikingly unique 
feature ­ they all show Jesus with a beaming smile. His paintings have gone all 
over the 'world. He gives them away, and at present there is a waiting list of 
nine thousand people. This man's conversion to Christianity came after he had 
been in prison for seven years. One night he fell to his knees in prayer after 
months of depression and the striong desire to kill himself. He had heard the 
chaplain speak about the compassion of Jesus. He said, "That night I levelled 
with the Lord for four solid hours of prayer­talk. I prodded every niche and 
corner of my brain. I routed out long­forgotten mistakes and misdeeds. But 
suddenly I found myself challenging the Lord. I dared God to give me a chance 
to do something worthy. I didn't ask him for any particular assignment. I left 
that up to him . . .'' The convict goes on to say, "that night I had a dream. The 
details are long forgotten, except for one brief glimpse of a robed, bearded 
figure who smiled kindly at me, then turned. It was a simple dream, not a 
mystic vision.'' The dream filled this convicted artist with a strong desire to 
paint that smile, and since then he has gone on painting Christ smiling, and 
the Christian world has praised his work. Recently this man wrote, "I don't 
know what's going to happen to me, but I believe the Lord is merciful to 
convicts who level with him. He sure gave us a break on Calvary. '' 

his same Jesus­it is he who comes to us in the silent watches of the 
night ; not some austere judge upon his throne, but the tender, smiling, 
forgiving man of the Gospels. He still judges us, still makes us want to turn 
from our failure, our pretence and our hypocrisy ; but if we ''level with him'' as 
the convict said, if we fall to our knees in repentance, he will speak the 
gracious words, "My son, your sins are forgiven'' and we shall know that they 
are the words of God. 

ourth, and lastly, we see the Jesus of the Gospels as the man who 
claimed men's allegiance. Never had the disciples known such a magnetic 
leader. He met them mending their fishing nets by the Sea of Galilee and said, 
"Follow me !'' and they dropped their nets and folllowed him. Even when he set 
his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, though they lagged behind on the road, 
knowing that a certain death awaited him there, yet they could not desert him, 
because his irresistible leadership drew them on. This man commanded the 
utmost in human loyalty. 
 et anyone refuse to give it, let him hold something back, as the rich young 
ruller held back his wealth, as others made the excuse of obligations to 
business and family, and Jesus simply excluded them as potential followers. 
When Christ claimed a man he claimed him completely. 

o the disciples rejoiced as they returned to 
Jerusalem after their Lord's ascension to 
heaven. No longer would they see him but they 
would know his living presence, his same 
powerful, magnetic leadership directing them 
in the campaign for' righteousness and 
commanding their ultimate loyalty. we have 
only to read the New Testament to be certain 
that their hopes were fulfilled. In obedience to 
their Lord, the disciples marched through the 
fires of persecution and death in order to turn 
the world upside down. In obedience to the 
living Christ, Paul and his companions at the 
cost of their lives took the Gospel beyond the borders of Israel that the 
Gentiles might hear it. In all history has any leader claimed such allegiance as 
the invisible Christ claimed from Augustine in the garden, from Francis in thc 
ruinedchapel, from Loyola, the proud soldier who laid his sword upon an altar 
and prayed, "Teach me, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give and not 
to count the cost; to fight and not heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek 
rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward save that of knowing I do your 
holy will.'' 

he great Napoleon once asked a friend, "Can you tell me who Jesus was?'' 
When the friend could not answer, Napoleon said,well, then, I will tell you. 
Across a chasm of hundreds of years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is 
above all others difficult to satisfy. He asks for that which a philosopher may 
often seek at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of 
her spouse : He asks for the human heart. He will have it entirely for himself. 
He commands it unconditionally.'' 

hrist upon his throne, whose living presence fills the world, is the same 
Jesus who became flesh and dwelt in Galilee and Judea long ago. All that he 
was to the people then, so he can be tome and you now­Revealer of God, 
Compassionate Saviour, the Forgiveness of our sins, our Lord and Master, the 
one we would follow wholeheartedly. All of this he can be to us if we open our 
hearts to receive him in faith, if we surrender our lives to him in loving 
obedience. 

O Lord Jesus, without having seenYou, we love You, and though we do not 
now see You, we believe in You.We praise You that when You burst the bonds 
of death, when You appeared to Your disciples, the same Friend, the same 
Companion, the same Master Whomthey knew in the days of Your flesh. You 
make the whole world the temple of Your living presence and every human 
experience a sacred meeting place with You. Grant that we who confess You 
Jesus as our Lord and Saviour may know the blessedness of Your friendship. 
Come be close to us in life. Let us feel the touch of Your Living Spirit in us and 
hear tbe whisper of Your voice. Be so real to us that we know also the truth of 
your words when You said, "Behold, I am with you always, even unto the end 
of the world.'' For Your own name's sake we pray. Amen. 
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ADDENDUM 

hat ia the most important implication of knowing the real Jesus? For me Jesus
is the perfect Image of God our Father. Hebrews 1:3 says, "The Son is the radiance of
God's glory and the exact representation of his being." He is the perfect Son of God.
To know the real Jesus, we need to understand what it is to be a son of God our
Father. Sonship is the Bible's theme from Genesis to Revelation. We are called to be
sons and daughters of God. That phrase "son of God" is a cliché among Christians. It
is a neglected biblical focus. It is spoken of lightly and easily; it has no freshness or
vitality. A platitude! We pass over it without thought and reflection. "Yes!" we say,
"we are all children of God!" But do we really know how precious it is to be called a
child of God and to have God as our Father. Galatians 3:26 says, "You are all sons of
God through faith in Christ Jesus", and Galatians 4:7says, "So you are no longer a
slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir."

t would be well if we viewed the whole biblical record as the history of God the
Father creating and restoring humanity to "sonship" with Himself. From first to last,
from Genesis to Revelation, from Creation to Second Coming, our Father God has
been engaged in loving us into sons and daughters to Himself. The fine biblical author
J. Sidlow Baxter says, "The love of God to the whole world, and the fatherhood of God
to each human being, are the crowning revelation of God in the Bible. The biblical
revelation as a whole presents first the power of God - as seen in the Creation, the
Flood, the Babel dispersion, the Exodus; next the holiness of God - as seen especially
in the Mosaic law, dealings with Israel the ethics of the prophets; and then the love of
God - exhibited through the Gospel of Christ. Not until Jesus came as the culminating
self-revelation of God was the divine fatherhood given prominence. The wonderful
truth of that divine fatherhood is not safe for fallen man to possess without the earlier
expression of God's awesome power and
holiness."

he fatherhood of God is His basic

relationship to all of us. The fatherhood of
God is the relationship that underlies and
gives meaning to all others. "Our only true
philosophy of God must make His fatherhood
the ultimate relationship. God sustains four
main relationships to mankind: (1) Creator,
(2) King, (3) Judge, (4) Father. Take the
fourth: God is Father. Did He not create us to
love us and to be loved by us? Is it not true
to say that fatherhood (the fourth) gathers
up the other three into a larger and higher
explanation of the universe? Take away that
fatherhood and the universe becomes a vast prison. The fatherhood is the basic,
ultimate, inclusive relationship in which God stands to ourselves."(J.S. Baxter, Majesty:
The God You Should Know: HERE'S LIFE PUBLISHERS, San Bernadino, CA)

he main reason the Bible was written was to explain how God is creating His own
family, the sons of God. It is amazing how few people grasp this incredible truth, yet it
is so plain in the Bible. At the beginning of the Bible is the account of the creation of
Adam and Eve. All human beings are their descendants. We are, by natural descent,
their great, extended family. Adam was, according to his natural parentage, a son of
God (Luke 3:38). Therefore, in our natural descent, we are all the children of God. He
is our Father by physical creation.

ut God's purpose is far greater than the creation of corruptible and perishable
human beings. God is in the process of creating His own spiritual children who will be
incorruptible-children with eternal life; children who have His divine nature or
character. Paul refers to this new creation in terms of "the old man," in contrast with
"the new man," who is "renewed in the spirit of [his] mind" and is "created according
to God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:20-24).

he apostle Paul defined the new creation as a spiritual transformation, at first a

change only in a person's nature and character, followed by a change into a literal
spiritual being with eternal life. The Bible refers to this process as salvation. The Bible
refers to those who are receiving salvation as the "sons of God" in a sense that goes
beyond our descendancy from our first two human parents. God is accomplishing a
marvelous spiritual transformation in the lives of His followers through His Son Jesus
Christ and His Holy Spirit.

aul explained that "the Spirit itself bears

witness with our spirit that we are the
children of God, and if children, then heirs-
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if
indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also
be glorified together" (Romans 8:16, 17). Do
you grasp the enormous significance of
Paul's statement? It explains why we are
here, the very reason for our existence, why
we were born. It gives meaning to life itself.
It explains why God wants all human beings
to come to the knowledge of the truth. God
is creating a family, His own family. We have
the priceless opportunity to be a part of that
family. That family relationship-our becoming children of God the Father-is the heart
and core of God's great plan for humanity. Notice how Paul expresses it: "In bringing
many sons to glory [salvation], it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom
everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Both the one who makes men holy [Christ] and those who are made holy [converted
human beings] are of the same family" (Hebrews 2:10, 11, New International Version).

rom the beginning of the Bible, this is the clearly stated purpose of God. "Then
God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over
all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created
man in His own image ..." (Genesis 1:26, 27). Both men and women are created to be
like God. The Bible often speaks of physical children as "sons" because that was the
custom at the time the Bible was written, and has been in many languages, including
English, over the centuries. In the Hebrew and Greek languages, in which the Bible
was written, "sons" was used to mean "descendants." When used in this sense, the
Hebrew and Greek words for "sons" refer to male and female descendants alike.
Today, we use the words mankind and brethren in a similar sense. Both men and
women are God's children.

ow to the point of Genesis 1:26, 27, which tells us we are made in God's image
and likeness. At the first mention of human beings in the Bible, God declares His
intent to make us like Him. But to what extent are we made like Him? God's purpose
is to make us fully like Jesus Christ! In Ephesians, Paul says in verse 13, "we all come
to . . . the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." Paul's statement in
Galatians 4:19, "My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed
in you," expresses the same concept in different words. Do you grasp the significance
of Paul's statement? We are to become fully and completely like Jesus Christ. His
character is to be formed in us. As Jesus is God's Son, we will also be God's sons. The
apostle John is explicit: "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us,
that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us,
because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet
been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be
like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." (1 John 3:1-3). (Roger Foster, God's Family:
The Reason You Were Born, in The GOOD NEWS, May 1996, UCC).

o understand the full impact and vital meaning of the Father-son relationship I'd
like you to grasp this three-point outline of biblical history. I'd like you to understand
that the whole biblical record can be viewed as having these three phases:
First, Jesus came to reveal God as "Father". God always was Father. All of the Old
Testament record is the story of a loving (yes; holy, powerful, severe, disciplining)
Father. Behind all the OT record is a Father building his family and seeking intimacy
with his children. Second, Jesus came to exemplify sonship (and subsequently ours) to
the Father. His Sonship is the ultimate model of humanity in correct relationship to
God. He invites us all to share in his life and relationship to the Father as a sons and
daughters. Third, Jesus came to restore each of us to sonship to the Father. If you will
allow God's Spirit to walk you through this understanding meditatively and spiritually,
you will be blessed and greatly rewarded. My own realization of my sonship to the
Father was, for me, a turning point in my walk with God, my discipleship with Jesus,
and a personal spiritual revival by the Holy Spirit. That sonship depends greatly upon
who Jesus is. This is why we ask to know the real Jesus.

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Leonard Griffith, God's Time and Ours, Abington Press, 1964.

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See this excellent study of the REAL JESUS