In this series we are going to be looking at the four faces of God as discussed in the gospels. The four faces of God are found in Ezekiel 1:10 and Revelation 4:7.
In Ezekiel 1:10 it says:
“Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a human being, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle.”
And in Revelations 4:7:
“The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.”
So in both these verses we see the lion, the ox, the man and the eagle. Each of these faces represent a different characteristic of Jesus Christ as we will see in the next few posts.
The Lion is known as the king of the beasts, he is a grand creature and considered noble. He depicts Jesus as the King of Kings.
The ox is traditionally a beast of burden, he quietly does the hard work without complaining and is strong for his task. This represents Jesus as the suffering servant who laid down His life for His friends.
The third face is the face of man and represents Jesus as the Son of Man. It is about his humanity, being born on earth and having to grow up to be a man in an earthly body just like ours.
The last face is that of the eagle. The eagle soars high in the sky and belongs to the heavens. We consider the heavens the place where God lives and so the eagle represents to us Jesus the Son of God, it is all about His divinity.
In the next few posts we are going to look at each face specifically and go into more depth about how each gospel represents that face and that aspect of Christ’s character. There was a reason for including four gospels in the Bible and not just one. Some people may wonder why, is it just duplication? Actually there are a lot of important differences between the gospels which help to shape these pictures of the four faces or four characteristics of Christ.
We hope you enjoy this series and also check out our YouTube series on the topic at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEbglT_rrGI&list=PLoW__SW0VZ7BV-WO7MR5RdsXvhk5sDLBs
