When the Father brought the Son into the world, it was written of Him, “He had no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him; nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him” (Isa. 53:2).
He was not “head and shoulders above other men” in stature, as was the first king of Israel, nor is it recorded that He had “beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance,” as we read about David. Instead, we are flatly told that He had no appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
How wrong this seems when we think of it from the human perspective. Ought not the One who was the prototype of all mankind and the Head of the human race to possess all the best refinements of the human form? More than this, the One who is called the “express Image” of God, should He not convey in His appearance superhuman majesty? But no, God specifically records that He had no such outward form or majesty that would make him desirable, nothing outward to draw men to Him.
When the Son of God walked the earth there was nothing in His looks to commend Him above other carpenters from Galilee. No regal bearing betrayed the fact that He was King. No pious visage signaled that He was High Priest. No ethereal glow hinted at His true origin. To all appearances, He was ordinary.
How much worse than that it became! That face, so unremarkable as it was, would be “marred more than any man’s.” Beaten by the stony fists of soldiers, ripped as they pulled out His beard, gouged by cruel thorns and anointed with the spittle of mockers, that face would suffer more indignity than any ever has, or ever will. Where is the stately form that we should be drawn to Him?
Artists and illustrators have made great efforts to reverse this. They represent Him as attractive, portraying Him with a mild and smooth visage, soft eyes, well-proportioned features, and a tall frame. In depictions of the carpenter shop or the cleansing of the Temple we often see Him as ruddy and muscular, an imposing physical specimen. When we see Him tending sheep or standing at the door to knock, we picture Him as handsome, with an inviting tenderness.
Even in depictions of the crucifixion we imagine him as preserved from the indignities of profound physical trauma. There is no such warrant in Scripture. When God sent His Son into the world, it was without physical attractiveness. When He died, it was with horrible disfigurement, more that man will ever know.
Why this? It is characteristic of mankind to look on the outward appearance, but of God to look on the heart. In coming to earth, the Son of God veiled His glory, setting aside the advantages which were His by right, and assumed the most unimpressive form. He did not rely on physical attractiveness to win men to His cause.
As J. G. Bellett observes, “His personal glory He veiled, save where faith discovered it, or an occasion demanded it. His official glory He veiled likewise. He did not walk through the land as either the Divine Son from the bosom of the Father, or as the authoritative Son of David.” (To this we might add that He also veiled every physical glory which might commend him to men’s eyes.) Bellett continues, “Such glories were commonly hid, as He passed on in the circumstances of life day by day. But His moral glory could not be hid.”
Here is the secret. The moral glory of the Lord Jesus Christ was the means by which all men would be drawn to Him. It would not be a physical attraction; in fact, nothing would distinguish Him to the undiscerning eye from any other Galilean tradesmen. But the beauty of His Person would be unmistakable.
What a rebuke this is to our appearance-loving society. We are intoxicated with dreams of youth and outward beauty. We swarm to entertainment that is superficially gaudy, but spiritually desolate. We adore celebrities whose glowing faces belie the spiritual morass of their private lives. Even in our religious pursuits, we love appearance, and we disdain substance. But God does not think as we do.
May we take the ancient prayer as our own: “And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it” (Ps. 90:17).