We Would See Jesus - Chapter Five

Chapter Five - Seeing Jesus as the Door

Last week we looked at our need to see Jesus as the Truth and how, in His light, we see our true condition even after we have come into the Kingdom. Seeing this about ourselves can leave us with a sense of despair unless we understand that Jesus is not only the Truth but He is the Door by which we can enter into God's life and fullness and out of our lostness.

Jesus as the Door is a reality that we believers need just as much as those who enter in initially to His kingdom through Him. We keep entering in to all that God has in store for us through Christ alone, no other way; so we need to see Him as the Door throughout our entire journey in this life.

The fact that Jesus calls Himself the Door implies that there is a barrier, a wall, that hinders us from access to all that God is and has. Anyone who has seriously gone after God has encountered this wall.

I was struck by the authors' language about how often believers encounter this wall between the soul and God, because lately I've been pondering the fact that being a "prodigal son" doesn't just apply to those who have wandered away from God through blatant sin but also to those of us who wander away from Him in more respectable or disguised ways: "Though we have been restored from the 'far country' of original sin, sin may yet come in, perhaps in more subtle forms, and we find ourselves as a result in other 'far countries', smaller but none the less real - the 'far country' of jealousy, or of resentment, or of self-pity, or of compromise with the world. And there always arises 'a mighty famine in that land' (as it did for the Prodigal Son), and we begin to be in want.

It is not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord (Amos 8:11). Who of us does not know the coldness of heart towards the Lord, the apparent deadness of the Sacred Page and the accumulating defeats in other areas of life..."

The authors point out that the way back is not through trying to stop the sinning but through humbling ourselves and turning to Him as the Door into fellowship with God: "Jesus does not merely show us the Door; He Himself is the Door. This is God's great gift of love to a prodigal world - a never-failing Door back to peace and satisfaction, if we will but turn and see Him standing so near and accessible to us. And such a Door is He, that neither preparatory steps nor subsequent steps are necessary to enter into what we need. In simply coming to Him we have passed from one spiritual condition to another, for He is Himself both the blessing needed and the Door to it."

Although this sounds academic to those of us who have been around the Gospel a long time, it is a profound and offensive truth to the flesh! It takes the revelatory work of the Spirit for this to renew our mind related to the Gospel and God's ways. The words "neither preparatory steps nor subsequent steps are necessary to enter into what we need. In simply coming to Him we have passed from one spiritual condition to another" are profound. As fallen and sinful humans we want to present ourselves as deserving to God and then come to Him for salvation; or once we have entered through the Door initially, we keep wanting to fix ourselves before approaching Him. The irony of this is that only He can "fix" us, so we must come to Him just the way we are without being fixed if we are to receive His life and blessing and fullness.

The last part of the chapter presents four essential things that we need to understand about Jesus as the Door in order to experience Him as such:

1. We must see Him as the open Door. Through His death, He ripped open the veil that separated the sinner from God. "What appear to be the obstacles - man's coldness, unbelief, and such sins, are the very things that qualify him for this Door, provided he will acknowlege them, for it is a Door for people who are characterized by just such sins..."
2. We must see Him as the Door which opens on street level. In other words, "...open for the failure as a failure, and not merely for us when we have become a little more successful. The Jews in the New Testament could easily believe that there was salvation for the Gentile, if he was circumcised and became a Jew. What they could not and would not believe was that there was salvation for the Gentiles as a Gentile, without becoming a Jew at all."
3. We must see Jesus as a low Door; in other words, we must bow low in repentance in order to enter through this Door. "So often the way in which we repent to God and sometimes apologise to another shows that we have not truly judged ourselves. We betray the fact that we feel...that we have acted out of character with our true selves...The truth is we have not acted out of character but in accordance with our true form, as declared to us by that Figure hanging on the Cross for us!"
4. We must understand that this Door is a narrow Door. "As we get nearer to that place of repentance the path gets narrower...We can no longer be lost in the crowd...At last when we come to the One who is the Door Himself, there is not room even for two...If you are going to enter, you will have to stand there utterly alone.

Lord, grant us revelation of our need of you always and the grace to simply come to you as we are. I ask you for an increase of grace in my own life to enter into the fullness of God through the Door, Jesus Christ, and not through my own self-righteousness. Thank You that this is what You do so well! Thank You, Lord Jesus, for being the Door and for being so accessible because of Your blood and sacrifice. We love you!

Next week - Chapter Six: Sinai or Calvary?