Behold Our God, the Scarred God-man
“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.”
― Leonard Cohen, The Favourite Game
Jesus, as Os Guinness puts it, is the only God who “bears the scars of evil”. Unlike the gods in other religions, He took the form of humanity and died in the hands of men. Not only so, He walked — even though already resurrected — on earth with these scars. Instead of covering them, He honoured Thomas’ request to touch the scars on His hands. He even let him go as deep as into His sides, leading him to marvel at both the humanity and divinity of Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:24–29 ESV).
Did God not have the power to erase these scars? Certainly not. His decision to leave them on, then, is not a random act. When we survey the wondrous cross, we are also surveying the scars of the wounded Christ. These scars mark the story of our union with Christ.
Historical Past: A Sign of Identifying With Us
To some, Jesus’ scars are perhaps yet another stumbling block that contradicts our picture of a perfect and spotless Son of God. But Jesus continued to carry these scars because they designated the shared suffering between Christ and men. They retell the story of “by His wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5): not His grief, but He bore them; not His sorrows, but He carried them. He took on what was not His to be His because He wanted to identify with us. He wanted to identify with us so much that despite without sin, He chose to be born in the likeness of sinful human flesh (Rom. 8:3).
In The Gift of Pain, Paul Brand and Phillip Yancey write, “Pain has no ‘outside’ existence…None of us — doctor, parent, or friend — can truly enter into another person’s pain. It is the loneliest, most private sensation.” Yet in spite of the “none of us”, “but God” follows. No one but God can enter into our loneliest and most private pain, for having been rejected by His people and forsaken by His Father, He understands every bit of the damage that sin has brought upon the world. The last Adam who went through the deepest humiliation is also the High Priest who sympathises with our weaknesses.
When God meets us in our most personal wounds, we no longer retreat inward into a bubble of self-pity. We look upward and see the God whose scars encompass all the wounds we share in the old humanity. We hear Him asking us as He did to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?”
This identification has a huge implication for us. With these scars, Jesus identifies with us. With these scars, we identify with those who are still wounded in Adam. We know what it is like to live in a world that is overrun by conflicts and injustice, sickness and death. As part of the creation, we groan in hope exactly because we know what it is like to be subjected to frustration (Rom. 8:20–25).
In Adam, the wounded wounds; in Christ, the wounded, having become the beloved, loves. In Christ, we learn to become more godly not by becoming less but more human. If to be fully human is to image forth God, we then become fully human by being image-bearers who carry our scars — the Lord’s scars — that not only identify with but invite the weak and the hurt to participate in the new life of Christ.
Present Victory: A Sign of Defeating Sin and Death
When we ponder over the scars of Jesus, we also realise — as the song “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” writes — that “it was our sin that held Him there”. He who knew no sin was made sin in order that the Son could take the curse which should have been imposed on us. Underneath Jesus’s scars, then, are not only the torment of human suffering but also our guilt and shame.
But does this mean these scars are a disgrace? Not at all. These wounds of Christ, as Charles Spurgeon writes, are not only the ornaments of Christ but the trophies of His love. These trophies testify what Joni Tada says, that God uses one form of evil (suffering) to defeat another form of evil (our sin) all to His glory.
These scars are not only a sign of the defeat of sin but the death of Death. “For do you not know it was from the side of Jesus that Death sucked its death?” Spurgeon continues, “Jesus did hang upon the cross, and Death thought to get the victory. Aye, but in its victory it destroyed itself…Death had never met before with any man who had life in himself…it was from these very wounds that Death sucked in its own death, and that hell was destroyed.”
Jesus reappears with these scars that announce the biggest victory in human history. We are included in this victory — like the song “Before the Throne of God Above” sings: our names are “graven on His hands”. Our names are bought with the blood coming from the wounds of the very outstretched hands of His that were nailed to the cross…by us.
Future Glory: A Sign of Sharing in His Resurrection
The scars of Jesus not only reiterate His humanity and reassure us of our current victory in Him, they also reveal the future glory that we will share with Him. When we are adopted into God’s family, we are able to call Jesus — the firstborn of the dead, the head of the Church body — our brother. The scars on Jesus’ sides are a sign of our position as His brothers and sisters, for as Paul says, we are His co-heirs, “if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (Rom. 8:17 NIV).
Yes, out from the side of Jesus Death sucked its death because Death met Life. But this Life did not only kill Death, it also gave life to the Church. These final wounds, where “immediately blood and water flowed out” after the solider pierced His side (John 19:34 NLT), are the wounds that embody the profound love Christ has for the Church. Augustine once suggested the bride of Christ was drawn from the side of Jesus in His death just as Eve was drawn from the side of Adam during his “deep sleep” (Gen. 2:21), for blood and water pouring out from these wounds symbolize the Eucharist and the baptism respectively.
Whether one agrees with Augustine or not, we cannot deny that His blood justifies while His living water, the Holy Spirit, sanctifies. Ephesians 5:30 in several translations writes beautifully that as members of Christ’s body, we are “of His flesh, and of His bones”. These two phrases echo with Adam’s loving calling of Eve as “bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh”, thereby reinforcing God’s deep oneness with His Church.
As we gaze upon Jesus’s scarred body, we are not only reminded of the pain He endured to give us new life but also how we are destined to be conformed to the image of the Son. When He walked on earth with these scars, then, He was giving us a glimpse of our future glory. As the Scripture says, what is sown perishable will be raised imperishable; what is sown in dishonour will be raised in glory; what is sown in weakness will be raised in power (1 Cor. 15:42–43).
Today: Walking Alongside the Scarred God-man
Somehow, Cohen’s words remind us of the most precious scars that mark the eternal union between the human and divine. As God’s children, we can show our scars like medals that declare His triumph. As the beloved bride of Christ, we cherish His scars as the sign of His distinct love for us.
But the Word was not only made flesh and became wounded — He made His dwelling among us. Indwelt by the same Spirit that raised Him up from the dead, we are once again alive in flesh and bones. It has been almost 2000 years — and we are still joyfully walking alongside the scarred God-man, continuing His storytelling in this world.
