The Transformative Power of Looking at Christ
This article is for those who know what it’s like to feel trapped in sin. If you’ve despaired of breaking free from destructive thoughts and behavior, read on. And if you know that your visible sins are only the tip of the iceberg—that they’re fed by deep-down, heart-level idolatry, fear, and pride?—you’re in the right place.
The good news is that there is tangible hope for you and me, and it’s rooted in the transformative power of looking at Christ.
Looking Matters
We can’t separate what we look at from the formation of our character. Little by little, view by view, our souls develop a familiarity and appetite for loveliness or ugliness—we become lovelier or uglier. What are we gazing upon? What are we feeding ourselves, thinking “just one more look” is no big deal? Sexual videos and images, fantasizing about a friend’s spouse, explicit romance novels—looking at these things is not harmless. They have transformative power, too.
Little by little, view by view, our souls develop a familiarity and appetite for loveliness or ugliness.
Because we’re material and spiritual beings, what we fix our physical eyes upon influences the direction of our thoughts, dreams, desires, and loves. This is why a significant practical step in fighting sin involves turning our actual eyes away from dangerous images. My family owns a children’s book that teaches kids about porn and what to do when they’re exposed to it: the first immediate step is to turn away. Just like you’d flee from a coiled snake, run like the wind from images that will poison your mind.
But what if you’ve already been bitten? You may think, I know what I shouldn’t look at. I know porn is wrong, envy is sinful, and greed warps my soul. But how do I escape the poison that’s already coursing through my veins?
Looking at Christ Saves Us
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (John 3:14–15, my emphasis)
And the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. (Numbers 21:7–9, my emphasis)
The Israelites only had to look. They didn’t have to crawl over and touch the serpent, or whisper an incantation, or feel zealous enough for the poison to leave their veins. No! To be healed, they looked.
Oh friend—do you know that your healing in Christ is that simple? You can’t make yourself better in any way. If you’re trusting him, Christ has “to the uttermost” accomplished everything needful for your salvation and your growth in godliness (Heb. 7:25).
So, we look. With faith and hope in Christ—itself God’s gift—we look. We look at the One who, in the outpouring of Trinitarian love, lived perfectly on our behalf, died to atone for our sin, and victoriously ascended. And we pray for grace and help to keep looking to Christ, day by day, knowing that the transformative power of the Holy Spirit strengthens us to do so.
Looking at Christ Exposes Us
In his excellent book Rejoicing in Christ, Michael Reeves explains a phenomenon in the post-Reformation Roman Catholic church observed by French philosopher Michel Foucault. The church emphasized confession to a priest to increase people’s righteousness, but “what actually happened . . . was that people only came to identify themselves more strongly as sinners. . . . the whole practice put the focus on the sin being confessed. Through that prolonged look, they bound themselves tighter to the very things they sought to escape.”1
When we focus more on our sin than our Savior, the chains of slavery grow heavier. Are your thoughts consumed by Jesus’s victory or the ways you’ve failed? We will never find freedom from sin by prolonged looking at sin.
Yes, ongoing confession and repentance are central to Christianity. But we can only see ourselves properly by looking at Christ. He’s the gold standard, the perfect human, the light of the world who illuminates our darkness (John 1:1–14). As I listened to a sermon the other day, the Lord struck me with a new awareness of my pride and spiritual dullness. Yet this sermon was not directly addressing sin; it was expounding the beauty of Christ! Through gazing at Jesus, the Spirit gave me a more accurate view of my heart and drove me to confession and repentance.
“The light of [Christ’s] perfection,” writes Reeves, “exposes our imperfection more than any wielding of the law ever could. It makes us see ourselves aright.”2
Looking at Christ Changes Us
Looking at Jesus transforms us. He is changing us even now as we behold him by faith, and the change will be complete when we see him with our own eyes: “. . . we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).
John Newton—writer of the famous refrain, “I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now, I see”—penned this warm encouragement to a believing friend, urging her to fight sin by gazing at Christ: “So when a sense of sin prevails, and the tempter is permitted to assault us with dark and dreadful suggestions, it is easy for us to say, ‘Be not afraid;’ but those who have tried well know, that looking to Jesus is the only and sure remedy in this case.”3
Christ finished the work! He clothes us in his righteousness and he is changing us. He communicates the Father’s heart-melting, everlasting, rejoicing-over-you-with-singing love (Zeph. 3:17). Look long at Jesus, your tangible Hope.
