Weekend Reads: Two books to highlight Christ's glory

Look and Live: Behold the Soul-Thrilling, Sin-Destroying Glory of Christ

By Matt Papa

Twenty-seven million human beings are enslaved today. More than 50 million American babies have been murdered.

“But these, even combined, are not the greatest injustice. The greatest injustice in the universe is that there are human beings who do not worship Jesus Christ.”

Seldom have I been as encouraged by a book as I was by Matt Papa’s Look and Live: Behold the Soul-Thrilling, Sin-Destroying Glory of Christ (Bethany House, 2014). He truly believes Christ is glorious, and he poetically, graphically, and forcefully urges you not only to believe that but to see it through truly reading and studying the word of God.

If you are human, you are a born worshipper. Your life is directed toward glory. You long to see glory and adore it. Papa says the human heart is like an automatic bow, constantly directing arrows of praise toward the target of glory. Glory is “the weight of intrinsic goodness,” and as sinners, we are off-target. We worship all the wrong things. Comfort, approval, and security become gods to us, even though they lack the weightiness our souls demand.

The solution is not to try harder (though effort is needed). The solution is to gaze upon the glory of Christ, being moved by it and changed by it.

“Because if I don’t fight every day to ‘fix’ my eyes on Jesus, my ADD soul will look to a million lesser things,” Papa writes.

Papa’s biggest weakness is his partial neglect of corporate worship as the place where we can best see Christ’s glory. This is even more astonishing in light of his key insight: “Shared happiness, after all, is the reason the universe exists.” But aside from this, his book is one of the best I have read this year. It will drive you to your knees.

Behold the King of Glory: A Narrative of the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ

By Russ Ramsey

Russ Ramsey has written a very fine paraphrase of the four Gospels in Behold the King of Glory: A Narrative of the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Crossway, 2015).The book is divided into 40 short chapters, each suitable as a meditation for one of the days of Lent. Each chapter begins with a list of the passages from which it is drawn, and includes footnote scripture references for more direct paraphrases and theological statements.

Ramsey generally tells the story just like the biblical author(s) did—but when he goes out of his way to highlight a biblical-theological theme, the results are powerful. Listen to the connections he draws to that moment when Mary anointed Jesus with expensive oil.

“She anointed her King’s head with oil in the presence of his enemies and made lovely the feet of this One who had brought her so much good news.” The footnote sends readers to Psalm 23:5, Isaiah 52:7, and Romans 10:15. Suddenly Jesus is revealed in even greater glory as the fulfillment of David’s psalm and Isaiah’s prophecy.

To this Old Testament background Ramsey adds other historical information. Where did the Pharisees come from? From the attempt “to build guard rails between” true Judaism and the dominant Hellenistic culture. He also says a bit more about the terrain than the Gospels do: “A purple robe of iris adorned the coastal hills of Galilee, heralding the end of winter.”

Behold the King of Glory is designed not as a replacement for Bible reading, but as a supplement to it. For those who have lost the grandeur and desensitized themselves to the sacred page, Ramsey will help. His narrative is third-person, but it’s still personal.

“This is the story of how God loved and rescued me,” he writes. “I pray the same would be true for you.”