Jesus doesn’t lament the church he has rescued or look for another to capture his attention. Christ welcomes the church as his beautiful treasure and joy. The church isn’t just about organization, leadership, function, and vision. Jesus sees more. His gaze reveals the beauty of our Father, the sufficiency of his cross, and the fulfillment of his mission in the world. He sees sinners being rescued, redeemed, and renewed.

In an age when so many pastoral failures, missteps, and sins are posted for public exhibition, it’s easy to allow our warmth toward the church to grow cold. Through a scrutinizing lens, many scowl at the church with suspicion and sheer amazement that anyone would want to be part of such a seemingly dysfunctional family. Sometimes, the church can seem to be anything but beautiful.
Does Jesus look at the church with the same scowl?
“You Are Beautiful”
John Gill, an eighteenth-century English Baptist pastor, helps us answer this question by drawing our attention away from our introspection to the words of the bridegroom in Song of Solomon 1:15: “You are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful.” Interpreting Song of Solomon as an allegorical portrayal of an exchange between Christ and his bride, the church, Gill writes, “These are the words of Christ, commending the beauty of the church, expressing his great affection for her; of her fairness and beauty” (An Exposition of the Book of Solomon’s Song, 57). Jesus sees his bride through a lens of love, not disdain; beauty, not disgust.
How can beautiful be the adjective Jesus uses to describe the church? After all, she’s composed of sinners — forgiven sinners, yet still sinners. She’s plagued by division, is besieged with scandal, and sometimes appears to have lost her first love. Even the apostle Paul reminds us that only at the end of the age will she be found “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Ephesians 5:27). What does Jesus see in his bride that would cause him to exclaim, “You are beautiful, my love”?
1. The Beauty of His Father
God’s beauty is most radiantly displayed through the biblical concept of glory. Moses experienced this glory when God passed by him, revealing only the afterglow of his splendor (Exodus 33:12–23). When God’s glory engulfed the temple, the priests were unable to perform their service of worship (2 Chronicles 5:14). The prophet Isaiah was prostrate in the dirt when he witnessed God’s glory radiating from his eternal throne (Isaiah 6:1–5). Jonathan Edwards, eighteenth-century pastor-theologian, identified God’s beauty as the differentiating feature of God himself: “God is God, and is distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above ’em, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty” (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2:298). God’s beauty isn’t derived from external sources but emanates directly from the perfection and holiness of his being.
The supreme expression of God’s beauty is his Son, Jesus Christ, who himself is the image and radiance of his Father (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). The incarnate Christ is how God most vividly expresses his beautiful love to sinful creatures. The culmination of that love is selecting a bride for Christ that she too might reflect the same beauty. Edwards believed that this bride, the church,
is the great end of all the great things that have been done from the beginning of the world; it was that the Son of God might obtain his chosen spouse that the world was created . . . and that he came into the world . . and when this end shall be fully obtained, the world will come to an end. (Unpublished sermon on Revelation 22:16–17)
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John the Baptist had warned the people to repent before it was too late (Matthew 3:2). Jesus also came calling the rebels to repent, to lay down their lives, and follow Him to life instead of to destruction (Matthew 4:17). But when they refused Him, He pronounced dreaded woes upon their cities (Matthew 11:20-21; 12:41) and nation (23:13-36). He told them parables that vividly portrayed the downfall of their kingdom (Matthew 22:1-14). In Matthew 24:4-5, Jesus began answering His disciples’ questions about when these things would happen. He told them many false messiahs would arise in Judah and that they were to avoid such wicked men. The nation had rejected the true messiah. Now, it is only fitting that their demise came about at the hands of many false ones.

It Wasn’t Addressed to You
Suppose I told you that my great grandfather was a proud and noble German, who survived the first world war and began raising children before the second. I want you to imagine that sometime around the year 1920, my grandfather received a message from God, that he was commanded to write down and share with his children, which would detail events soon to take place in their lifetime and country.
In those letters, my great grandfather describes a rising German tyrant; a man who will reinvigorate the German economy, win an improbable election, convert many of their people into party loyalists, would build the greatest spy network in history to surveil his own people, and would kick off the bloodiest war ever waged by invading neighboring Poland. As the letter ends, imagine my great grandfather warns his oldest teenage son, “When you see these things happening, do not speak about them with anyone! Your own countrymen will certainly betray you. Instead, son, I want you to run for your life! Take your sisters and brothers and escape from the Fatherland. Do not speak to anyone and tell them what you are doing… Just go!”
If I were wise, I would see that my great grandfather perfectly predicted the rise of Nazi Germany and gave my grandfather a perfect road map to follow so that he and my family members would live. If I were a great fool I would begin reading that letter as if everything in it applied to me or some distant future generation.
Sadly, this is exactly what has happened in the study of eschatology. Many sit down and read the conversation notes between Jesus and His disciples in Matthew 24, where He was warning them with specific signs and evidence for the Roman invasion of Judah (that would happen in their lifetime) and ignorantly conclude: “yeah, this must be about me”.
To correct this egregious error, we have been studying the Biblical context of Matthew 24 and seeing how Malachi, Jesus, John the Baptist, and the immediate context of Matthew 21-23 all paint the same exact picture. Matthew 24 is not describing events that will happen in the far-off distant future. Jesus is not describing John Hagee’s blood moons, Left Behind’s Antichrist’s, Late Great Planet Earth’s tribulations, or locusts doubling as Apache helicopters. Matthew 24 is describing the downfall of Jerusalem by the invading Roman armies and today we will look at the first lines of evidence Jesus will give to His disciples.
The Appearance of False Messiah’s
After Jesus’ shocking prophecy of a destroyed Jewish temple (Matthew 23:37-24:2), His disciples come to Him asking questions such as: “when will these things happen?” In Matthew 24:4-5, Jesus begins answering His disciples’ questions. He says:

“See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. – Matthew 24:4-5

Before we look into the history books to see if an emergence of false messiahs occurred between the giving of this prophecy and the downfall of the Jewish temple, there are a couple of phrases we need to look at to confirm our suspicions.
“See to it”
When Jesus looks at His disciples and says “See to it”, He is communicating an expectation that applies to them. He is not telling them to be on the lookout for events that will happen in OUR future, long after they are dead. He is using a word that means “to watch out for”, “to be prepared for”, or “to direct your attention carefully to what is in front of you”. Why? Because these events will happen in THEIR lifetime and they will need to be fully awake and on guard if they are going to see them!
“That No One Misleads You”
Second, Jesus instructs His disciples on why they need to be on constant high alert. The reason is that liars and deceivers did arise in the days ahead, attempting to lead many of them away from Him. Jesus is saying, as the temple and Jerusalem are near imminent destruction, false messiahs will grow up in the land, among the people, and will attempt to lead many of them astray. Jesus warns them because He wants them to avoid such people at all costs so that they will be spared from their destruction. He does not mention this because He wants them to be worried about the future false messiahs that will be misleading all of us.
A Bit About “Messiahs”
Now, before I prove such a period of false messiahs occurred, I would like to give just a bit of history on why it happened. To do that, I want to talk about what the word “messiah” means, what expectations the word brings, and the historical events that created a messianic vacuum. Then, in conclusion, I want us to look and see how Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24 came true with shocking accuracy.
The Meaning of the Word Messiah
The word for messiah originally comes from “χριστός” (khris-tos’) in the Greek and “הַמָּשִׁיחַ” (maw-shee’-akh) in the Hebrew. Instead of those words meaning a single person who is called “the Messiah”, both words originally just meant “a person who was anointed for service”. For instance, in the Old Testament, there were three kinds of people who would be anointed in Israel. There was the anointed high priest, who oversaw the worship of God at the temple. There was the anointed king, who made sure the enemies of God did not triumph over God’s people in the land. And then there were the anointed prophets, who called the people to repentance whenever they broke their covenant.
Here we see that the word messiah was a much older and more widely used word that was given partly to the high priests, partly the monarchs, and partly to the prophets of Old Testament Israel. Since the fullest expression of messianic identity included these three anointed roles, and since no Old Testament man held even one of these roles perfectly, the Old Testament anticipates a coming Messianic figure who would be anointed for all three, as true Prophet, Priest, and King.
The Socio-Political Expectation for Messiah
By the time Jesus burst upon the scene, many were trying to guess the identity and the role of the coming messiah. They were asking things like “Would he be the final anointed king who would throw off the tyranny of Rome? Or would he be the final prophet that leads the nation into covenant renewal and fellowship with God? Or would he be the final end-time priest that cleanses the people and ushers in an era of resurrection?” If you are interested, the first-century Jews have much to say within the Qumran writings about their expectations for the messiah.
And while no one at that time was thinking the Messiah would be the perfect embodiment of all three offices, they were anticipating an end-time priest, king, or prophet who would free them from their slavery to Rome and exalt them high above the other nations. Therefore, it should come as no surprise when the Pharisees ask John the Baptist if He is the messianic prophet they were looking for (John 1:19-23), or challenge Jesus if He had the authority of a messianic high priest to cleanse their temple (John 2:18).
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Whoever you are, and whatever the depths and agony of your trials, God is hovering over you: he loves you, he is near to you, and he can rescue you. We see a living picture of his rescue unfold in the subsequent six days of creation.  

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.—Genesis 1:1-2

If we are going to get anything out of Genesis, then we must prepare ourselves.
Basil of Caesarea (330-79) said at the beginning of his Hexaemeron, a series of sermons on Genesis 1,

How earnestly the soul should prepare itself to receive such high lessons! How pure it should be from carnal affections, how unclouded by worldly disquietudes, how active and ardent in its researches, how eager to find in its surroundings an idea of God which may be worthy of Him!

And John Calvin (1509-64) said in his commentary on Genesis, “The world is a mirror in which we ought to behold God.” “If my readers sincerely wish to profit with me in meditating on the works of God, they must bring with them a sober, docile mild, and humble spirit.”
So remember that the author of these words, Moses, saw an appearance of God at the burning bush, and God spoke with him “face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (Exod. 33:11; cf. Num. 12:6-8). And don’t forget the power of these words, “which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3:15).
The Hebrew word for “beginning” is ראשׁית (rēshīt), which may also mean “starting point” or “first,” and is closely related to ראשׁ (rōsh), which means “head.” The word God translates אלהים, Elōhīm, which may be the plural for אל (el), the generic word for god. The plural does not in itself teach the doctrine of the Trinity, that there is one God and three persons in the godhead, but is more likely a “plural of majesty.” God is not just god, he is GOD. Elōhīm. GOD! The very sound of this word, naming as it does the Creator of the universe, should fill us with awe, dread, and love.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Before there was an earth and atoms, life and light, time and tide, there was God. He is eternal, which does not mean that he is very old, but that he had no beginning. He always was, is, and will be. Many have mockingly asked, “What was God doing before he created the world?” In his Commentaries on Genesis, Calvin relates a humorous answer he had read to this question:

When a certain impure dog was in this manner pouring ridicule upon God, a pious man retorted that God had been at that time by no means inactive, because he had been preparing hell for the captious.

We cannot speak reasonably of what God was doing “before creation,” because before creation there was no time as we know it—there was no “before.” Certainly there was nothing that brought God himself into existence.
The Hebrew verb for create is ברא (bārā); it is only ever used with God as the subject. What did God create? The “heavens and the earth.” Heaven, שׁמים (shamayīm), also means sky. Earth, ארץ (erets), also means land and ground. These words do not have a special meaning in Genesis 1:1; but when put together like this, “heaven and earth,” that is, “sky and ground,” “everything that’s up and everything that’s down,” they emphasize that God made everything. Only God himself is not made.
There are no time indications in these first two verses. The earth (erets) was formless and empty. There is some lovely alliteration here in the original, the earth was תהו ובהו, tōhu va bōhu. These words are neither “good” nor “bad” but are exceedingly and perhaps unpleasantly bland. Tōhu can refer to a barren wasteland, “a barren and howling waste” (Deut. 32:10; also Job 6:18). It can refer to futility (1 Sam. 12:21) and meaninglessness (Isa. 29:21). Bōhu appears only three times in the Old Testament. Isaiah 34:11 describes how “God will stretch out over Edom the measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of desolation,” and Jeremiah uses just the same phrase as Genesis 1:2: “I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty (tōhu va bōhu); and at the heavens, and their light was gone” (Jer. 4:23). We will return to Jeremiah’s hugely significant phrase in a moment.
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