Monday Meditation
August 01, 2016
From the desk of A.J. Higgins
How Great His Goodness and Beauty!
“For how great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty”
Zechariah 9:17
The words from Zechariah 9 are very likely the confession of the nation of Israel, in a coming day, when they will find in Him, according to Zechariah 9, their Sovereign King, their Stronghold of defense, and their Savior Messiah. Then they will appreciate Him for all He is and all He has done.
These two expressions – His goodness and His beauty – suggest two aspects that are worthy of worship. In considering His beauty, we are occupied with what He is in Himself. In His goodness, we are thinking of what He has done and how He has done it.
When He came the first time, the confession of the nation is that they found no beauty in Him that made Him appealing to them (Isa 53:2). All that men admire was lacking in Him. There was no assertiveness, arrogance, pride, boastfulness.
Frequently the individuals that men admire are the high living, immoral, self-centered heroes of earth. The Lord Jesus was so different. He never sought to court the favor of men. He was kind and gentle to all. In Him was every moral beauty that “God as man could show.” He lacked all that men admired; He possessed all that God desired. They found no beauty in His character; He became the stone set aside by the builders.
Did they appreciate His goodness? Listen to their words as they arraign Him before Pilate: “We found this fellow perverting the nation” (Luke 23:2), and again, “If He were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered Him up unto thee” (John 18:30). He was numbered with the transgressors. If there was such a thing, in that day, as a newspaper, His name would have been listed among the criminals whom the state had executed. “He was despised and rejected of men” (Isa 53:3). They saw no beauty in Him and appreciated no goodness in Him.
God would leave in Scripture, however, a final testimony to His goodness. It came, not from a disciple, but from a Roman centurion. Luke alone tells us that the confession of the hardened centurion, was, “Certainly, this was a righteous Man” (Luke 23:47).
We, as well, like the bride of the Songs can say, He is altogether lovely. Divine grace has given us opened eyes to value the inherent beauty of His person; to appreciate the wealth of grace and moral perfection, the display of essential glories against the dark background of man’s hostility. We worship Him for Who He is.
But we also worship for what He has done – His goodness in all His actions and deeds. We worship not only for the work accomplished, but for the way it was done: with purest motive, deepest love, meekness unparalleled, and infinite grace.
The nation will own His beauty and goodness when He has come to deliver them from all their foes; we look back at the battle He fought at Calvary and we appreciate His beauty and goodness now.
Consider:
1. There are four passages which speak of the Lord Jesus being despised: Isaiah 49:7; Ps 22:6; Ps 119:141; and here. Look at some of the reasons why men despised Him.
2. Creation is ascribed to the fingers and hand of God – Psalm 8:3. What is the implication then of the fact that it is the “arm of the Lord” which is involved in salvation?
3. Look at all the pictures of Christ in Zechariah’s prophecy.
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