What did Jesus look like according to the Bible?
The Bible tells us a great deal about who Jesus is, and almost nothing about what He looked like. What little it does say comes mostly through prophecy — a face without outward attraction, and a face marked by sorrow — which raises the question of why God chose to leave the portrait blank.
No physical description is given
Scripture describes very few people's looks, and the pattern holds even with its central figure. One writer, after working through Paul, John the Baptist, Samson and David, saves the strongest case for last:
A J PollockWe have kept the greatest example to the last, that of our Lord Himself. No words can exaggerate the greatness of His undiminished Deity, nor the graciousness of His stoop to man's condition, nor the affectionate care of the Father over His every word and action. And yet there is no account of His physical appearance given to us in the Scriptures. We do read that "His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men" (Isa. 52:14), a prophecy made centuries before our Lord was born at Bethlehem.
(The wording quoted here follows an older English translation; the ESV reads, "his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.")
Nothing in Him drew the eye
Isaiah had already said there was no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him. One commentator draws out what people were hoping to see instead:
H J VineWhen they saw Him, however, He carried no royal appearance in their eyes; there was "no beauty that we should desire Him"; there was "no form nor lordliness." Had someone come with the towering height of Saul, or the attractiveness of Absalom, Israel would have followed Him. Fallen man is utterly unable to learn. He values physical and outward show; moral and inward perfection he despises.
A face aged by sorrow
The one clue the Gospels give is indirect. His opponents told Him He was not yet fifty years old, though He was in His early thirties. Writing about how grief wears down even a strong man, a commentator applies the contrast to Jesus:
H. L. RossierAt thirty-three years of age, the Lord Himself appeared to be fifty years old (John 8:57), but His strength was unbroken. He was not, like David, worn by grief; but as the Man of Sorrows, His face was marred more than any man. Love stamped this character on His features, for in sympathy He carried all the sorrows that sin had brought on our miserable race.
God's estimate of Him
Scripture does record God's own verdict, and it runs the other way from man's. A writer sets the two side by side, after noting that David, Moses and Daniel are all called beautiful in appearance:
Ernst-August BremickerThe real meaning of these descriptions is that the men were "fair" or "beautiful" in God's eyes. But they only point forward to the One of whom it is said: "You are fairer than the sons of men; grace is poured into your lips: therefore God has blessed you for ever" (Ps. 45:2). For us Jesus had "no form nor comeliness" (Isa. 53:2). We failed to see His beauty. But the eye of God always looks deeper. What He saw was only glory and beauty.
The one time His glory was seen
On the mountain, three disciples saw His face shine like the sun and His clothes become white as light. A commentator explains what changed — and what it shows about the rest of His life:
Edward DennettWhen He went up the mountain with His disciples, He was, to all outward appearance, only a man among men. To the natural eye there was nothing to mark Him out from Peter, James, or John… May we not say that it was His essential purity or holiness breaking out and flooding the vessel in which it was housed, so that He stood before His disciples as a being of light?
He does not appear that way now
Even if we had a description of the Man in Galilee, it would not be a description of Him today:
C CrainIn 2 Cor. 5:16, the apostle Paul says: "Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now from here on we know Him so no more." This was the lesson our risen Lord taught Mary Magdalene in John 20, when He said to her: "Touch Me not." She thought she had got Him back as He was before He died. Never again will He be in that form, but always in the form of humanity He took up when He rose.
Why picturing Him is risky
Since Scripture is silent, anything filling the gap comes from somewhere else. One writer states the danger bluntly:
C. H. MackintoshTherefore for anyone to attempt, by any efforts of his mind or workings of his imagination, to conceive an image of God, or of Christ, is simply idolatry. To try to arrive at any knowledge of God or of Christ, except by Scripture, is mysticism and confusion.
Summary
- Silence. Scripture gives no account of Jesus' physical appearance — the same silence it keeps over Paul, John the Baptist and Samson.
- Plainness. What prophecy does say is negative: no form or majesty, no beauty that men would desire Him.
- Sorrow. The one visible mark was suffering — a face marred beyond any man's, so that at thirty-three He looked fifty.
- Reversal. Where men saw nothing to want, God saw the fairest of the sons of men; the eye of God looks deeper.
- Glory. That hidden glory broke out once on the mountain, and He now wears the risen form He took up — never again the one He had before He died.