“Jesus is represented in the Bible; there is His portrait; we look on the Bible, and we see it. We see Him ‘through a glass darkly.’ (1 Corinthians 13:12)
Just as sometimes, when you are looking in your looking glass, you see somebody going along in the street. You do not see the person; you only see Him reflected.
Now, we see Christ reflected; but then we shall not see Him in the looking-glass; we shall positively see His person.
Not the reflected Christ, not Christ in the sanctuary, not the mere Christ shining out of the Bible, not Christ reflected from the sacred pulpit; but ‘we shall see Him as He is.’ (1 John 3:2)
Again: how partially we see Christ here. The best believer only gets half a glimpse of Christ.
While here one Christian sees Christ’s glorious head, and he delights much in the hope of His coming.
Another beholds His wounds, and he always preaches the atonement.
Another looks into His heart, and he glories most in immutability and the doctrine of election.
Another only looks at Christ’s manhood, and he speaks much concerning the sympathy of Christ with believers.
Another thinks more of his Godhead, and you will always hear him asserting the divinity of Christ.
I do not think there is a believer who has seen the whole of Christ.
No. We preach as much as we can do of the Master; but we cannot paint him wholly.
Some of the best paintings, you know, only just give the head and shoulders; they do not give the full-length portrait.
There is no believer, there is no choice divine, that could paint a full-length portrait of Christ.
There are some of you who could not paint much more than his little finger; and mark, if we can paint the little finger of Jesus well, it will be worth a life-time to be able to do that.
Those who paint best cannot paint even His face fully. Ah! He is so glorious and wondrous, that we cannot fully portray Him.
We have not seen Him more than partially. Come, beloved; how much dost thou know of Christ?
Thou wilt say:
“Ah! I know some little of him; I could join with the spouse, when she declares that he is altogether lovely; but I have not surveyed him from head to foot, and on his wondrous glories I cannot fully dwell.”
Here we see Christ partially; there we shall see Christ entirely, when “we shall see him as He is.”
Here, too, how dimly we see Christ! It is through many shadows that we now behold our Master.
Dim enough is the vision here; but there “we shall see him as He is.”
Have you never stood upon the hill-tops, when the mist has played on the valley?
You have looked down to see the city and the streamlet below; you could just ken yonder steeple, and mark that pinnacle.
You could see that dome in the distance; but they were all so swathed in the mist that you could scarcely discern them.
Suddenly the wind has blown away the mist from under you, and you have seen the fair, fair valley.
Ah! it is so when the believer enters heaven.
Here he stands and looks upon Christ veiled in a mist—upon a Jesus who is shrouded; but when he gets up there, on Pisgah’s brow, higher still, with his Jesus, then he shall not see Him dimly, but he shall see Him brightly.
We shall see Jesus then “without a veil between”— not dimly, but face to face.
Here, too, how distantly we see Christ! Almost as far off as the farthest star!
We see Him, but not nigh; we behold Him, but not near to us; we catch some glimpse of Him; but oh! what lengths and distances lie between!
What hills of guilt—a heavy load!
But then we shall see Him closely; we shall see Him face to face; as a man talketh with his friend, even so shall we then talk with Jesus.
Now we are distant from Him; then we shall be near to Him.
Away in the highlands, where Jesus dwells, there shall our hearts be too, when heart and body shall be ‘present with the Lord.’”
–Charles H. Spurgeon, “The Beatific Vision,” in The New Park Street Pulpit Sermons, vol. 2 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1856), 2: 64–65.
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