(Heb. 2:9)
It is very instructive to observe that in reading the gospels we find presented to us not a system of doctrines but a living Person, even the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." John 1:14. In the simple, but vivid and exquisitely beautiful narratives of the evangelists, He lives and moves before us. We hear His words of grace, and see His acts of love. The disciples were drawn to Himself, and were occupied with Him. They were ignorant of much truth, but they knew Him who is Truth incarnate, and who was then manifested as the living Truth and Grace come down among men. Thus Peter says, for himself and the rest ( John 6:68, 69), "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou halt the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Even so it is now. True, the Lord Jesus has "died for our sins," but He is "risen again." "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Rom. 5:10. The eye of faith fixes itself not on a dead Christ but on a risen, living, glorified Savior.
The constant effort of Satan is to draw away our thoughts and our hearts from Christ. How easy it is to have the mind engaged about ordinances, doctrines, or even our service for Christ, instead of cultivating direct fellowship with Christ Himself. Yet the true blessing of the soul is ever found in steadily contemplating, with the eye of faith, the glorious Person of the Lord Jesus Christ. "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Cor. 3:18.