Morning & Evening Devotional Reading–

April 23– Evening

by C. H. Spurgeon, revised and edited by W. C. Neff

“Look! In the middle of the throne… stood a Lamb who had been.” 

—Revelation 5:6

Why do we see our exalted Lord appear in glory still with his wounds? That fact is that the wounds of Jesus are his glories, his jewels, his sacred ornaments. To the eye of the believer, Jesus is beautiful because he is “white and red”— white with innocence and red with his own blood. We see him as the lily of matchless purity and as the rose crimsoned with his own blood.

Christ was never more lovely than when he hung upon the cross. There we beheld all his beauties in perfection, all his attributes developed, all his love drawn out, all his character expressed. The wounds of Jesus are more beautiful in our eyes than all the splendor and magnificence of kings. The thorny crown is more exalted than any imperial diadem. It is true that his scepter on the cross was a mere broken twig, and yet, even in its most humble and hidden form, there is glory in it that never flashed from a scepter of gold.

Jesus wears the appearance of a slain Lamb as his courting outfit in which he clothed himself, wooing our souls, paying the debt of those for whom he died, buying them back to himself by his complete atonement. Those whom he redeems are his ornaments— trophies of his love and of his victory. He has divided the spoil with the strong. He has redeemed for himself a great multitude that no man is able to count. The scars he carries in his own body are memorials of his great fight. And, if Christ wears his scars to retain the thought of his loving suffering for his people, how precious should his wounds be to us!

“Behold, how every wound of his, a precious balm distils,
Which heals the scars that sin had made and cures all mortal ills.
Those wounds are mouths that preach his grace; the emblems of his love;
The seals of our expected bliss in paradise above.” [M&E]