People used to refer to mirrors as “looking glasses.” Moses made the laver that Aaron and his sons washed in from the women's looking glasses (Ex. 30:18; 38:8). My mom always told us we were being "vain" to look at ourselves in the mirror. She said her mother was always telling her, “Stop looking at yourself in the mirror; you’re vain!" We all probably remember the witch in the Disney movie, “Snow White and the seven Dwarfs.” She constantly looked at herself in the mirror, saying, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"
When we look into a mirror, we see ourselves. Why do we look into the mirror? We look into the mirror to see how we look. The mirror reflects our image. We have a mental image of what we look like. We've seen ourselves countless times before. But we forget, or we wonder how we might have changed, or maybe we simply want to comb our hair to keep from embarrassing our family by our appearance! But we look repeatedly to remind ourselves of what we saw only moments before (James 1:23-25).
Why? If our appearance pleases us, we maintain our sense of pride. If our appearance displeases us, we grow despondent. How many times have you heard of a beautiful woman who thought she was ugly, or saw a person withdraw from the public eye because they thought they had a blemish or defect in their own appearance? How many advertisements focus on improving our outward appearance? Merchants promise to rejuvenate hair loss, remove wrinkles, make our skin look younger, remove unwanted hair, hide blemishes, tighten sagging skin, and many other things. Such appeals bring wealth to merchants who promise beauty in creams, pills, surgery, masks, makeup and so much more.
My mom's mother was right. It is vain to look at ourselves. If we are pleased by our estimation of our appearance, if we vainly think more of ourselves than others, then we are vain. Scripture says, "Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised" (Proverbs 31:30). In this proverb, the woman who fears the LORD is every believer in Christ. She is beautiful in her Savior!
Spiritual navel gazing is a common trap. We look at ourselves to see how we are doing. If by our own measure, we are pleased, we go away in self-contentment. If we are displeased because the mirror reflects somewhat of our true self, we feel ashamed, knowing others will see that we are not pretty. The problem is that we will never find in ourselves what God requires, what pleases God, what God can accept. All interest in our appearance and concern for our self-reflection arises from our sinful hearts. Outward "beauty is vain.” We must look away from ourselves. We must look only to Christ.
The natural man can only see outward appearance. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). This truth is extremely significant. It teaches us that we must be concerned with what the LORD thinks! "The LORD looketh on the heart." And yet, apart from grace, because our heart is deceitful above all things, knowing that God looks on our heart can actually lead us into an even more sinful self-reflection. The admonition, "Examine yourselves" (2 Cor. 13:5) does not mean to examine our own worth or works. The exhortation is to examine whether we are "in the faith." In other words, examine yourself to determine if Christ is all in all of your salvation. Examine yourself to see if you derive your confidence and peace and joy from what God thinks of Christ, not yourself.
Faith is looking to Christ. Faith sees the only object in the Gospel looking glass (2 Cor. 3:18). Christ is that object. He is our confidence and comfort by the Gospel glass. Scripture in 2 Cor. 3:18 compares the Gospel to a mirror. Only spiritual eyes can see the image in that mirror. The Gospel reveals — not the image of ourselves — but Christ! The Gospel mirror reveals what God sees in Christ, and that He sees His people in Him! So seeing us in His Son, we are beautiful to God (Rev. 21, the Church, the heavenly Jerusalem).
Unlike all mirrors on earth, the Gospel mirror, by the light that the Spirit of God shines in our hearts, we are enabled to see and glory in Christ crucified (2 Cor. 4:6). We find our joy and confidence before God in Christ alone because He alone is beautiful to God in Himself, and because God sees His people in Him (1 Cor. 1:30).
The good news of the Gospel is that God looks upon His Son as our Surety and sees us in Him. By God’s grace, He enables us by God-given faith to see Christ crucified, and so seeing, to find all of our acceptance and beauty before God in Him. So finding our all in Christ by faith, we know peace that passes understanding (Isa. 26:1-3) and the joy of the LORD that is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). We have confidence before God by Him (Rom. 15:13; Php. 3:3).
When we look with physical eyes into a mirror on earth to see our outward appearance, our fleshly mind is either vainly puffed up, or our we are disappointed. This is because we put our trust in how we appear to ourselves and to others. This vanity occurs not only when we look at our physical appearance, but much more when we try to measure our own spiritual condition. But when with God-given sight, we look away from ourselves to Christ alone, and by Gospel truth, rely on what God says in His word — that He looks upon His Son and sees His people in Him — then we delight with joy and come to God only by the blood and righteousness of Christ (Heb. 10:19; Isaiah 45:24-25). We go in boldness through faith in Christ, praising God in our hearts because He finds us beautiful in Christ’s comeliness that He has put upon us, the garments of His salvation, the robe of His righteousness (Ezek. 16:14; Isaiah 61:10). In other words, God looks upon us and thinks of us only as He thinks and looks upon Christ, our Surety. This is all-important. This is how we are justified. This is all of our assurance.
Perhaps the greatest and most delightful truth revealed in the Gospel is that, though in Adam and in ourselves we have offended God in all of His holiness and are condemned and under the sentence of death (Rom. 5:12-14), yet before God laid this world’s foundations, He chose us in Christ and accepted Christ as our Surety (Heb. 7:22). From then on, He received from Christ all He required of us, and received us for all that He found in Christ and what He has done to God as our Substitute and Representative Head (Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 8:34). Thus we are commanded to look to Christ in the Gospel (Isaiah 45:22; John 3:14-15; Heb. 12:2). In looking to Him, we are "changed into the same image, from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18).
Believers live and walk by "the faith of the Son of God" (Gal. 2:20). They see Christ, the only object in God’s Gospel mirror. They see only Christ and Him crucified, risen, exalted and reigning in the glory of His person and salvation (Psalm 21:5; Heb. 1:3; Php. 2:5-11).
There will be no mirrors in heaven. The One we see in the Gospel glass with eyes of faith now, will be our only vision then. He will appear to us as He is. Then we shall be like Him (Psalm 17:15; 1 John 3:1-2). We are never to think of our condition before God by what we are in ourselves. We are to look away from ourselves as curse-bitten sinners, and look upon Christ as our curse-bearing Savior. In so looking we will find our all in Him: all of our righteousness, all of our acceptance, all of our holiness, all of our beauty, all that pleases God, all that we shall find when we see His face. One day, we shall see Him as He is (John 3:14-15; 1 Cor. 1:30; Rom. 10:4; Rev. 22:4).
Isn’t He altogether lovely (Song 5:16)? Isn't He lovely in His humility, in His cheerful giving of Himself to God in love and total sacrifice for our sins to bring us to God (1 Pet. 3:18)? Why would we ever be tempted to look to ourselves rather than finding our all in Him? Why would we ever seek honor to ourselves in light of His glory in our salvation, because God has told us what we are in Christ and because He receives us for His sake alone?
We are complete in Him in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Col. 2:9-10)! Isn’t that enough! God says this is true for every believer (Rom. 10:4; Isaiah 45:24-25).
Faith enables us to see what is true of Christ for sinners. In so seeing, faith brings near what God says is true. In so seeing what is true, we have what we see. Forget all that you are by your own estimation of yourself. Abandon your own righteousness (Isaiah 64:6). Forget the ugliness of your sin by looking to Christ lifted up on the cross and risen and ascended to glory at the right hand of God.
In the Gospel mirror, there is only One who is fairer than them all. It is Christ Jesus our Lord (Psalm 45:2).
Rick Warta
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