The Beauty of Christ

He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. —Isaiah 53:2

We know that God is righteous. He is holy, just, powerful, and sovereign. But He is also beautiful, and we’re supposed to gaze upon His beauty.

However, the prophet Isaiah described the coming Messiah as having no beauty (53:2). How can we reconcile that passage with what David says in Psalm 27?

Isaiah is speaking of the incarnate Christ—God in the flesh—who laid aside His glory, His majesty, and His beauty, took on the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. As a man, Jesus took on the commonness and the limitations of our humanity. There was nothing, humanly speaking, extraordinary about Him. And, in fact, Scripture tells us that at His crucifixion sinful men marred His physical appearance so He wasn’t even recognizable. But in His resurrected, ascended humanity at the right hand of the Father where He sits today and makes intercession for us as our Advocate, He is glorious; He is radiant; He is beautiful!