Known by his traits
12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. (Revelation 19:12-13–ESV)
The gaze of Jesus will be like no gaze one has ever experienced. You know how some people’s eyes are said to stare right through you? I can say “yes” to this question, but still examples help me more.
A word about eyes…
“It was the eyes that dominated the otherwise common face. They were hypnotic. Piercing. Penetrating. As far as I could tell, they were light blue, but the color was not the thing you noticed. What his you at once was their power. They stared at you. They seemed to immobilize the person on whom they were directed, frightening some and fascinating others, especially women, but dominating them in any case. They reminded me of paintings I had seen of the Medusa, whose stare was said to turn men into stone or reduce them to impotence…Martha Dodd…had told me [William Shirer] a day or two before I left for Nuremberg, to watch out for Hitler’s eyes. ‘They are unforgettable,” she said. ‘They overwhelm you.'” 1
Jesus’ eyes will stared down into you. They will not stop until they see all things, all nooks and crannies, all the aspects that are not righteous. “Judge not, lest ye be judged” is a phrase in more of a King James style. Those on earth, those who are in front of the eyes of Jesus will be judged by the purest of righteous standards. There will be no standing that gaze. As David said in Psalm 1 the wicked will not stand in the judgment nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.
It is not all about scariness. Look at this quote.
“And his eyes,” Colton had said, “Oh, Dad, his eyes are so pretty!”
Todd Burpo went on to write in that section that he came across a Russian child who had apparently been to heaven like Colton had. She had become a painter of some caliber.
“I rewound it [a CNN report] to that second portrait of Jesus, a startlingly realistic picture that Akiane had painted when she was eight. The eyes were indeed striking–a clear, greenish blue under bold, dark brows… Still, of the literally dozens of portraits of Jesus we’d seen since 2003, Colton had still never seen one he thought was right…Well, I thought, may as well see what he [Colton] thinks of Akiane’s attempt…’Take a look at this”…My seven-year-old turned to look at me and said, ‘Dad, that one’s right.'” 2
Each of these accounts are meaningful to me in some way painting out eyes and how they impact people. I don’t draw doctrine from them, but they are ways my mind takes my Christian linkages into my day-to-day experience and comes away with things useful in my understanding and approach to God and concepts about him.
It is interesting I think to have an example of how those who reject Christ will be penetrated by his eyes and those who embrace will be put at ease by them.
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