A View from the Outside

Have you ever wondered why unbelievers are blind to the beauty of Jesus, His teachings and works?  We know they are; they don’t see Him the same way we, His followers, do.  I recently read something that helped me understand why this is true.¹

Think for a moment of the Tabernacle in the Old Testament.

What we see promised in the Tabernacle, we see fulfilled in Jesus!  But for those outside our faith, their view is different…just as a stranger standing outside the Tabernacle would have seen something much different than those allowed to enter.  And these two viewpoints would have been in sharp contrast to each other.

Various coverings concealed the inner two rooms of the Tabernacle: the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.  So from the outside, the Tabernacle was not particularly attractive; but on the inside there was breathtaking splendor and beauty.  The priests got to see the inside and experience the beauty and full meaning of the Tabernacle.

The stranger, on the other hand, standing outside would see only two things: the white linen fence surrounding the court, and the top part and roof of the building inside the court.  As he glanced at the roof, the stranger would see only the drab leather curtain made of badger skins; perhaps bleached by the hot desert sun.  As for the white linen wall, the stranger outside certainly sees it but fails to realize its significance: representing the righteousness of Christ.

Two views of the same Tabernacle…two radically different experiences.

Just as the priest inside and the stranger outside see the Tabernacle differently, so also do believers and unbelievers see Jesus differently.  Both can read about the life and work of Jesus; and the unbeliever may admit that Christ was not an ordinary man and might even admire Christ’s ideals and moral character.  But he does not understand the deity of Christ.

The unbeliever might be impressed with the wisdom and teachings of Jesus, but doctrines such as the virgin birth are foolishness to him.  The unbeliever fails to see the value of the atonement, the validity of the resurrection or the reality of His coming again.  For the unbeliever Jesus, at most, is a great man; one whose caring, good deeds should be examples for us all.  What the unbeliever cannot see from the outside is the beauty of Jesus, who He really is and what He accomplished!

The Bible tells us why the true beauty of Jesus is not appreciated by unbelievers: “He had no form or splendor that we should look at Him, no appearance that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2).  For those who look only upon the external, there is nothing about Jesus that causes them to want to be in right relationship with Him.  Elsewhere the Bible states: “But the natural man does not welcome what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to know it since it is [discerned] spiritually” (1 Corinthians 2:14).  The stranger cannot see and comprehend who Christ is, for it is all foolishness to him.

From the outside you cannot see Jesus for who He is, what He offers, and the benefits of aligning one’s life with Him.  You must experience these things from the inside; you must be a follower of His.  Take an act of faith…step inside the Christian experience.  See and know Jesus!

¹ Some thoughts from this section are taken from: Theodore H. Epp, Portraits of Christ in the Tabernacle, pgs. 17-19.