4.1 Dr. Paul Brand on Image

Synopsis of Reading

Dr. Paul Brand was a medical missionary in India for many years. In his later years he lived in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. Dr. Brand did much work with leprosy patients, revolutionizing treatment of those with the condition. He wrote a number of books, together with Philip Yancey, on the insights he gained concerning Christ and His church while working as a medical missionary. His research on pain led to a completely different understanding of pain and its purpose.

Likeness. Dr. Brand shares his experience of seeing the likeness of his own medical professor in London on the faces of the students who have watched him perform through their training. To his students, however, that epression was Dr. Brand’s. Thus image had passed from a medical professor in London to many practicing native doctors in southern Asia, transferred through Dr. Brand. 

Dr. Brand then discusses the many uses of the word “image,” how it so often refers to a false outward face put on for others. He states that theologians have never agreed on what it means that we are created in the likeness and image of God. Dr. Brand leaves the answer to that question fully open, offering only further insight into what being the image of God might mean. 

Then Dr. Brand discusses the Sistine Chapel ceiling as painted by Michaelangelo, specifically the center point where the finger of God reaches out to the finger of Adam. Somehow, our human form, made of bone, organs, muscles, fat, and skin, breathed upon by the breath of God, is such that God calls it His image and likeness.

Mirrors. In this chapter, Dr. Brand shares the story of the young British air force pilots who braved everything to go up into the skies to fight the German planes in the summer of 1940. Many were shot down, and, because of the design of the planes, many who were shot down suffered terrible burns, on their faces in particular. Dr. Brand worked with these young men in the hospitals as the doctors attempted to re-construct their faces using the limited skin grafting abilities they possessed at the time.

Dr. Brand then goes on to describe how these young men, now looking hideous in their outward appearance, reacted to the responses of their loved ones towards their new “look.” Those airmen who were received fully by family and wives went on to become successful leaders in British society. But those who were rejected by their loved ones because of their outward appearance withdrew into themselves and lived much more difficult lives.

Dr. Brand then discusses what he terms the “Quasimodo complex,” our propensity to withdraw from or to think evil of people who are deformed in body in some way. He pointed out how such people have been “collected as novelties” in the past and then compared that with our modern infatuation with the outward appearance of beauty and strength as found in those who are deemed “celebrities.” Dr. Brand mentions how he had devoted his life to working on the physical body, only to come to realize that the outer body was not the person. Yet, the real person inside is always somehow reflected through that body, however it might appear. 

Restoration. Dr. Brand begins this chapter by discussing how the “gods” have been represented in imagery by humans through the centuries. He points out that the image of a “god” is typically rendered in the likeness of the human. Dr. Brand then raises the question, “What does God look like?” He discusses how Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the express image of His person (Hebrews 1:3). Yet most people did not recognize God when they looked at Jesus. In fact Isaiah described Him as a man of sorrows, that His “appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man” (Isaiah 52:14).

Dr. Brand concluded the chapter by describing a number of people he had known in life, people who were outwardly simple or deformed or unattrative, but who had shown him in one way or another the very image of Jesus shining upon their faces. He concluded that it is only by losing our own self-image and becoming willing to be as we are, as God made us to be, that we find the simple joy of being the likeness and image of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

This book has shaped my own knowledge of God; I urge you to read it.