What Does Jesus Look Like?

By Troy Craig

No doubt you may have seen images of what Jesus Christ looks like. You’ve seen pictures hanging in churches, in artwork, magazines, you’ve even seen images of Him in the countless movies and TV programmes that attempt to depict His life. Maybe you have a portrait of Jesus in your home or office? The images of Jesus we so often see are the typical sad looking tall slim effeminate white man with long blond hair. Is this the true image of our Saviour?

Can we be certain that Jesus even looked like this? By studying your bible you’ll be surprised to know that the Jesus of the bible is not the same Jesus of art and film. First of all, we do not even know what Jesus Christ looked liked during His earthly ministry. Secondly, the images that we see do not depict what the true Jesus looked like then and now, and thirdly, should we even be concerned about what He looked like as a man?

When Jesus was on this earth two thousand years ago, He lived as a Jewish man in Nazareth, a town in the land of Israel. Jesus would have looked like the typical Jew of His day. He would have dressed in the typical Jewish fashion, had the hairstyle of that time, and He would have worked doing hard manual labour.

So what did Jesus look like? Let’s first remember that Jesus is not only the Son of God, but also, He is God, and as God He is to be worshipped in spirit and truth, and by worshipping Him in this manner we really ought not to be so concerned of what He looked like as a man. First of all, scripture says, “You shall not make for yourself any carved images…” (Exodus 20:4). God forbids the making of any image to serve as an object of worship, that include so called pictures or even statues of Jesus (Verse 5). How often in some churches do we see people bowing down or honouring the “image” of Christ or of a saint? God, in the Ten Commandments, forbids this practice of vain worship. We, as Christians, should not have any kind of “pictures” of Jesus in our homes because this is vain worship and that is not the image of the true Jesus.

Being a Jew, Jesus would have followed the customs of the day in regards to His appearance. Jesus would not have had long hair, “Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him”? (1 Cor. 11:14). God inspired Paul to write in scripture that it is shameful for a man to have long hair. So Jesus, being God in the flesh would not have had long hair. How short was His hair? We really don’t know, but the artwork of the Romans and Greeks of that time could help give us a clue to the possible length Jesus’ hair might have been. Most Roman and Greek art, statues and busts often depict men of that time with very short hair, some even depict men with shoulder length but no longer. Jesus could have had very short to medium length hair going no longer than past the back of His neck. Women of that time usually had very long hair down to their backs, and Jesus being a man certainly would never have had hair that long.

The bible says, “…He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2). What this verse is saying is that Jesus was an average looking man, it’s not saying that He was ugly, but rather, He looks just like every other man of His time. In other words, you could not pick Him out of a crowd and know that He was the Messiah.

Jesus is often viewed as a tall skinny white man that could be knocked over by a gust of wind. Not so with the true Jesus. His skin colour is not really known, but in most paintings He looks like a white European. Remember, Jesus lived in the Middle East, and He would have had the appearance of a mid-east male. Perhaps with short dark hair an olive skin colour complexion, remember, He worked outdoors as a carpenter in the hot sun, He would have been well tanned blending in with the rest of the people in that region of the world. As for His physical stature, He would have been a very strong man of average height. The Jewish men of that time were typically 5 feet 5 inches to about 6 feet tall, so Jesus’ height could have been anywhere in that range. As for His strength, again, He would have been a very strong man due to His occupation as a carpenter. The carpenters of Jesus’ days were more than wood workers, carpenters often worked with stones and bricks as well. Being a tradesman, Jesus would have had to do a lot of heavy lifting, cutting, hammering, digging and building, thus building up his strength. His hands, arms, chest, back and legs would have been strong and well developed. Remember that during His torture He was beaten beyond recognition and only a strong man could have survived such a beating! A weak man would have died through such torture.

Jesus also would have had to be a strong man because in the gospel accounts Jesus had overturned the tables of the moneychangers chasing them out of the temple (Matthew 21:12; John 2:15). No one challenged Him or tried to subdue Him, the most that would have occurred is that as he overturned the tables the merchants might have yelled, cursed and swore at Him, but they certainly did not try to challenge Him physically. A skinny weak man surly would have been jumped upon and beaten, but not Jesus - He was strong and able to take care of himself.

After Jesus would get into heated debates with the religious leaders, they would sometimes try to take hold of Him to kill Him. Jesus would then lose Himself in a crowd of people to avoid arrest. Now if Jesus were very tall, white and skinny with long blond hair He surely could not have hidden Himself in a crowd of average height, shorthaired dark skinned people, He would have stood out like a sore thumb.

In a nutshell, it’s clear that the Jesus of the bible is not the same Jesus of art and film. Although the above gives a brief description of how Jesus would have appeared as a man, it does no justice to His current appearance a risen glorified Christ - the Son of God in His full glory.

We, as Christians, should not be too concerned over Jesus’ human looks because that was only His temporary physical appearance. As stated earlier, we are not to have any images of God or Jesus; Jesus is to be worshipped in spirit without the aid of a statue or a picture, because these images come from the imaginations of men.

What does the risen Jesus look like? We need to remember that we are created in God’s image, so we look like God! God the Father and Jesus have bodies shaped like ours, only in spirit form. Jesus and the Father are not some kind of “energy or force,” they like us, have a head, hair, face, eyes, arms, legs, feet chest, and back. This can be proved from God’s inspired word, the bible.

Moses asked God to show Himself. But there was one problem - no man can look upon the face of God and live! (Exodus 33:20). This is due to His glory. God, however did allow Moses to see the back of Him, “And he (Moses) said “ ‘Please show me Your Glory.’ And He (God) said, ‘I will make My glory pass before you… you cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.’ And the Lord said, ‘here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. ‘So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. ‘Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen’ ” (Exodus 33: 18-23).

What Moses saw was a form of a man walk past him. Here God describes that He has a hand, face and back. The One that Moses saw is the very person who became Jesus Christ. The book of Revelation gives another description of Jesus, “And in the midst of the lamp stands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace…His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength” (Revelation 1:13-16). Other descriptions can be found in Daniel 10:5-6; Ezekiel 1:26-27. The prophet Daniel, after seeing God in His glory lost all his strength (Daniel 10:8). In Daniel 7:9, the prophet gives a description of the Ancient of Days, or the Father which is the same description as Jesus, because the two are one and Jesus said, “…He who seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

In this short paper, we have taken a brief look at what Jesus looks like, there is no need to try to figure out what He looked like as a man because He has put off the physical body for a spiritual body and Jesus as God has to be worshiped in the spirit (John 4:24). Although we should not use images of the Father and Jesus, we as people are creatures of habit, and we like to use our imaginations, and in doing so, if we try to picture Jesus in our minds, we should picture Him as He is now in His full glory shining like the sun.

Copyright @ March 13th 2005
Church of God International of Toronto, Ontario Canada.
All scriptures quoted from the New King James Bible
Thomas Nelson Publishers Inc.