paintings of the king

If you have been to one of the major art museums, holding paintings by the great artists from centuries past, you probably have seen portraits of many of the monarchs..kings and queens of Europe and Asia, especially.  Of course these were the days when there were no photographs and so paintings and sculpture were about the only ways to record the appearance of royalty for posterity.  The artists would pose their royal subjects with globes to show their kingdoms, swords to show their military leadership and on horses to show their hunting skill.  A friend and I are doing a study of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament.  This week we studied chapter 3.  We both were struck with the description of Jesus that opened the chapter: ¹ Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus

It occurred to me that there are two wonderful "portraits" of Jesus given here: Apostle...and High Priest.  Jesus was the one sent by God to rescue us from our sin (Apostle) and He is the one who has actually paid the price to redeem us...and He stands before God on our behalf today as High Priest!  I thought how these two pictures of Jesus should be hung in the gallery of my heart to remind me of my wonderful heavenly King.  I suppose we could build an entire museum just of portraits of Jesus.  After all, He is the bread of life, the good shepherd, the Word become flesh, the one who actually fashioned Creation.  His very name means Savior.  He is the Christ..the one anointed as prophet, priest and king.  He is Son of Man and Son of God.  He is teacher and He is conqueror of death and He is God!  I was challenged to build a gallery of pictures in my mind of Jesus.  This is one museum that I'll buy a perpetual membership to visit.

 

blessings,

Rob Smith