Beauty
By John Hooper
What is beauty? There is a common expression that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The thinking is that what is beautiful to one person might still be unattractive or even ugly to another, and that is because beauty is regarded as relative, subjective, and personal.
But is it? The world certainly thinks so, not only regarding beauty in the arts but also now in the realms of morality and ethics. These too are viewed as relative, so that there are no moral absolutes anymore, and there is no objective truth. A beautiful life is “in the eye of the beholder” because each of us has our own individual idea of moral beauty, making our own rules for life and conducting ourselves by our own standards. That is how the individualistic world we live in operates, although it clearly fails as the rules and standards of one individual conflict with the rules and standards of another. Indeed, as the recent legal judgment on “ethical veganism” illustrates, it cannot work without plunging society ever deeper into confusion and disorder.
Ultimately, this kind of thinking finds its source in man’s rejection of God and His Word in the garden of Eden. Where there is rejection of God there is no anchor, no foundation, no benchmark outside of ourselves by which to judge what is right and what is wrong; what is beautiful and what is ugly. And it is fair to say that as one views the expanse of human history, the more open and brazen man’s rejection of God becomes, so does his rejection of truth, morality, and even artistic beauty.
1. Absolute beauty
How can we be sure there is such a thing as absolute beauty? Because God has told us so. On four occasions the Bible uses the phrase “the beauty of holiness” (1 Chronicles 16:29; 2 Chronicles 20:21; Psalm 29:2; Psalm 96:9). The beauty of a painting is only as deep as the paint on the canvas, and the beauty of a face is superficial, but the beauty of holiness is unfathomable. It is the beauty of absolute morality. It is not a morality determined at a personal, subjective level by fallen human beings but by the character of the all-holy and eternal Triune God, maker of heaven and earth. On this we can agree with F.W. Faber (although not approving him as a whole),
How wonderful, how beautiful, the sight of Thee must be,
Thine endless wisdom, boundless power, and aweful purity!
Hannah’s prayer in the house of the Lord at Shiloh included the confession, “There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee” (1 Samuel 2:2). This is the beauty of God and it is what David craved after in Psalm 27:4: “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold thebeauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple.” This is absolute beauty. It runs deep in the nature and person of God and David craved for it. Do we?
2. Created beauty
It is hardly necessary for me to say that creation, too, is full of great beauty. Even the ungodly will acknowledge this. There is the beauty of the night sky, the landscape all around us, the flowers in the hedgerows, the birds and the butterflies, the fish in the sea. But what the fallen heart of man will not acknowledge is that all this is testimony to the existence, power, wisdom, and beauty of the Divine Creator. Man, in his efforts to recreate beauty in art and architecture cannot begin to approach what God has done. Even though the curse and the dire effects of human wickedness have so marred creation, we are still able to recognise God’s signature upon it. David knew that for as long as the universe remains it will hold true that “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handy-work” (Psalm 19:1). Human activity, and inactivity, cannot erase creation’s testimony to its Creator.
But of course, if there were no Creator and everything evolved from primordial slime, there would be little purpose in beauty except as something functional and utilitarian. Beauty becomes a just a tool to attract a mate or ward off predators. It is certainly not to point us to the absolute wisdom, glory, and moral beauty of the Triune Creator.
As we read the account of the creation week and arrive at day six, we find this: “And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” Immediately following we are told, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:26,27). It is in man especially that the beauty of God is revealed. Man is distinct. He has been created in God’s image, and while various meanings have been attached to the word “image” they certainly include this, that man was created to bear the moral beauty of God – His holiness, righteousness and truth.
God is the consummate artist. When He paints the wings of a butterfly He reflects the beauty that exists in His own nature, and when He creates man, it is with the moral beauty that He has in Himself, His own absolute purity. At the end of the sixth creation day God surveys everything that He has made and declares it to be “very good.” All creation is beautiful and each one of us can say with Augustine that God is “my good Father, in whom all beauty has its source.” The further we move from God, the further we move from true beauty.
3. Rejected beauty
In Genesis 3:6 the serpent has said his piece and Eve looks at the forbidden fruit. She sees now that it is “good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise.” Yes, the fruit is pleasant to the eyes. It has a beauty, a beauty given it by the Creator no less. But the beauty that Eve sees is just a superficial beauty. It is pleasant to the eyes. What has happened to moral beauty? Where is the beauty of holiness? In Eve’s thinking it has been trumped by the sensual beauty of what she sees, and so it is on that basis rather than the beauty of an absolute morality, expressed in God’s command not to eat the fruit, that she eats it and gives it to Adam.
Since this was possible for a human being created perfect, though liable to fall, how much more possible is it for us in our fallen, totally depraved state. David’s sin with Bathsheba followed the same pattern and it is a pattern that marks the sinful behaviour of all human society. “If you enjoy it, do it; if you want it, have it; if you like it, that’s fine.” We see this outworked in art, music, literature, and of course, ethics. It does not matter if other people dislike it or find it morally repugnant. Who are they to dictate how we live our lives? And more to the point, it does not matter if it is repugnant to God either, since He does not exist. The boundaries are not just pushed out, they are removed altogether so that “I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
Once God is rejected there can be no appreciation of true beauty. I am sure we can understand that. Without a standard or benchmark, man is cast adrift on the waves of his own subjective likes and feelings, just liking and doing what is right in his own eyes at the time, regardless of how far it takes him from what is true, right, good, and beautiful.
4. Incarnate beauty
In His Word God has shown us that He has a greater purpose than was revealed in the first Adam, and that is to reveal His beauty in the last Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ. Whenever we think of beauty our minds must turn to Christ.
While one does not need to be a Christian to appreciate something of the natural beauty of the universe, or beauty in art, music, language, and architecture – only a believer, someone whose eyes have been opened to the beauty of holiness, will see beauty in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we have the true test of a person’s appreciation of beauty: do they see beauty in Him? In a sermon on Psalm 45 Augustine said of Christ:
He then is beautiful in heaven, beautiful on earth; beautiful in the womb, beautiful in His parent’s arms; beautiful in His miracles; beautiful under the scourge; beautiful when inviting to life … beautiful in laying down His life; beautiful in taking it up again; beautiful on the cross; beautiful in the sepulchre; beautiful in heaven.
Augustine was one whose eyes had been well and truly opened by the Spirit of God and he recognised beauty in the One who by faith he now saw. How much have we really seen of the beauty of our Saviour? But what are we to make of Isaiah 53:2: “he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.”
What does this mean? There are two ways of approaching the verse. The first is to see it as a description of Christ’s appearance at His crucifixion, His visage “so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men” (Isaiah 52:14). The difficulty with this interpretation is that it reduces the Lord’s beauty to a superficial beauty of appearance, albeit one deeply scarred by the physical punishments meted out on Him.
But according to the second approach, Isaiah is directing us to the Lord’s absolute moral integrity and purity, His holiness in character and works. To the enlightened soul these things stand out from the pages of Scripture, but of course to the Jews they held no attraction. The Jews were not looking for holiness but for a powerful political and military leader to deliver them from the Romans. Hence, they saw no beauty in Jesus Christ and their hearts were only filled with hatred toward Him.
Here, then, is the test of our appreciation of true beauty – do we see beauty in the Lord Jesus Christ? Our delight then will ever be in Him (Psalm 37:4; Isaiah 58:14) and our hearts will be filled with His love.
5. Conferred beauty
Moses writes in Psalm 90, “And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us” (verse 17). These are remarkable words and I wonder how many times we have read them without really thinking about what they mean. Let the beauty of the LORD our God “be upon us”! Is that really possible?
I think we can understand this on at least two levels. First, we can focus down to consider it at the individual level. The apostle Paul appeals to Ephesian believers to “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and trueholiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Here we see the believer being exhorted to clothe himself in beauty. This is more than reclaiming the image lost in Eden, this is the righteousness and holiness of Christ Himself, and of course His beauty will only be manifested by us when it is worked in us by the grace of God through the Spirit.
By nature, we are morally ugly and repugnant, and only by God’s grace are we made beautiful in His eyes with the beauty of the Saviour Himself. “He will beautify the meek with salvation” (Psalm 149:4). The unbelieving world around us will see this and, as when Christ Himself was on earth, they will reject it. This raises a challenging question for us, doesn’t it? When the world looks on us, what does it see, and how does it respond? Oh, that it would see only and always the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ.
May His beauty rest upon me
As I seek the lost to win,
And may they forget the channel,
Seeing only Him.
Alongside this, Scripture gives us a word of admonition. It warns us of a false superficial and pretended beauty like that of the scribes and Pharisees, “ye are like untowhited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27). This is likely to be a reference to the Jewish practice of whitewashing tombstones, which supplied a fitting metaphor for the true condition of the religious leaders of the day. Mere outward displays of formal religion might impress some, but they cannot deceive the Lord “who looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). These days even the whitewash of formal Christianity is flaking off, exposing the corruption and hypocrisy underneath to human scorn and ridicule.
But what about us? True beauty goes deep. We can too easily deceive ourselves into thinking that all is well with our souls when really we need to invite the Lord to search us “and see if there be any wicked way in me” (Psalm 139:23-24). Our hearts will persuade us of anything. We need to pray with David, “Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try myreins and my heart” (Psalm 26:2) and then be ready to confess and repent because where the Lord searches, He finds.
Secondly, as we read the Biblical references to beauty it is striking that so often that beauty is ascribed to the church. For example, “So shall the king greatly desire thybeauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him” (Psalm 45:11). “Out of Zion, the perfection ofbeauty, God hath shined” (Psalm 50:2). Or, see how the bride is described by her beloved in the Song of Solomon. In Ezekiel 16:13 she is said to be “exceedingbeautiful.” How can Zion, how can the churches of the New Testament, be described in such elevated terms as these? Surely, this is none other than the moral loveliness of our blessed Lord Himself given to Zion His bride as a wedding garment of exquisite beauty. When the beauty of the Lord is legally imputed and graciously imparted to her in justification and sanctification, she is given “beauty for ashes” (Isaiah 61:3). Only then can glorious things be spoken of her (Psalm 87:3). This beauty is both a witness before men: “And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory” (Isaiah 62:2), and also “a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God … thou shalt be called Hephzibah … for the LORD delighteth in thee” (Isaiah 62:4).
But once again there is a word of solemn warning. A time would come when it was said of Zion, “all herbeauty is departed.” And again, “All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men call The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?” (Lamentations 1:6; 2:15). Surely, generally speaking, this is where the church is today. She is derided, shamed, and mocked by all around, her beauty barely recognisable. She is not as she should be. “Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire; and all our pleasant things are laid waste” (Isaiah 64:11). How beautiful are our local churches? Perhaps they are the very churches where our fathers praised God in generations past, but how much do they display the beauty of Christ today in their life, their worship, their service? Do they need to hear again the voice of the prophet, “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thybeautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city” (Isaiah 52:1)? I leave readers to answer for themselves and their local churches.
6. Heavenly beauty
Of course, the beautifying work of grace is far from complete on this side of heaven. In the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, “even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience; yet so, that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God” (Answer 114). Yes, what we experience now is at best just a small beginning, but according to the promise of God, the day will come when we too will be adorned with perfect beauty like that of our Lord Jesus Christ. He “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashionedlike unto his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21).
God has not described for us many details of what heaven will be like, but He has told us that it will be beautiful. Beauty is a characteristic of “His sanctuary” (Psalm 96:6). There our eyes “shall see the king in his beauty” (Isaiah 33:17). There we shall see Christ in all His exalted and glorified wonder, and we will be like Him. That will be glory indeed!
In his book for children The Beauty of the King, the Victorian clergyman Richard Newton says this about Isaiah 33:17:
If you ask me to tell you what this promise means, I would answer the question by turning to these words of Jesus in His prayer – “Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory.” The king spoken of in one of these passages is Jesus, who is speaking Himself in the other passage. The “beauty” that Isaiah speaks of is the same thing as the “glory” that Jesus prays about. Isaiah calls it “the king’s beauty.” Jesus calls it “my glory.” Isaiah does not tell us where this beauty was to be seen; but Jesus tells us. He says it will be “where I am.” And we know very well where Jesus is. Jesus is in heaven. And everyone who loves Jesus can look up to Him, and say,
Tis where Thou art is heaven to me,
And heaven without Thee cannot be.
And so, these words of Isaiah lead our thoughts up to heaven – “Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty.”
Do you yearn and crave for that sight even now? If not, what will heaven be to you?
7. Applied beauty
There is something about the four Biblical references to “the beauty of holiness” that we must not overlook. In each case the context is worship and praise, and three of them are direct commands to “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” This is nothing less than the high standard God has set for His people to apply to their corporate worship. It is an absolute standard. When together we enter the place of public worship to praise Him, to lift up our prayers, to hear His Word, to receive His gracious benediction, we come into His “holy place.” Yes, this means that personally we must come with “clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3,4) but the application goes further. The very language, tenor, form, content, and style of our corporate worship should aim to follow the standard set by God Himself: the beauty of holiness. “O worship the LORD inthe beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth” (Psalm 96:9). This is a high standard indeed. It is the highest standard. Tragically much Christian worship in our day has lost sight of it and is aiming instead at the man-centred and man-pleasing standard of the fallen world.
But finally, regarding our public worship, there is something very precious in the Lord’s words quoted above (John 17:24). In those gatherings Christ is present and those whom the Father has given Him are with Him. Do they behold His glory there? Do they see the King in His beauty there? Not with the immediacy of heaven, but as they cast their gaze on Him by faith, in holiness and Godly fear, He casts His eye on them and sees “the perfection of beauty.” What a meeting! It is a foretaste of heaven!