I am writing this about a week after Japan’s massive earthquake and tsunami, when things are getting very desperate for many of the survivors. There is no food, medicine, electricity, etc., in the freezing cold. In Ethiopia, 10,000 Christians have been displaced (and two killed) by Muslims burning churches and homes. North Africa and Bahrain have been in turmoil with much violence. These events do not take away from God’s character or His “beauty,” a term which does not refer to physical appearance but inner desired or admired quality. The recent world events are either due to natural processes or man’s dealings in the world. The natural order and how it affects humans, and the free will of man and how it affects both evil and justice, will be looked at in different essays.
Many modern bible translations do not use the word “beauty” where it had been; perhaps the translators thought too many readers would take a shallow meaning of the word in today’s culture. A look into where these translation issues occur, and their contexts of meanings, could fill a large article or small book. But let’s look at some verses that contain the word “beauty” (or its relatives) and that relate to God.
Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” How can God make everything beautiful unless He himself is beautiful? If we could see all through time as God does, we would see that things turn out “beautifully.” Eventually, those who trust in God will see this.
Ezekiel 16:13b-14, “You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD.” Read Ezekiel 16. In powerful allegorical language, God tells of the rise of Jerusalem because of His beautifying work, and of the city’s subsequent pride and unfaithfulness. God is the source of all goodness, of all creation. When we think it is from ourselves, or start worshipping it (the created) instead of God, we fall into evil. The Jews became greedy and had sacrificed their children to other gods by burning them to death.
Psalm 27:4, “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.” To see the goodness and creative force of God in purity, without the corruption in and around us, is something highly desired. We get glimpses of it here and now, which only makes us aware of God’s glory and awakens our desire for God.
Psalm 29:2, “Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name; Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” Psalm 90:17, “And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands.” Again, the beauty of God is sought as a good outcome. God is good and this will show when His blessing upon our efforts shines through. Psalm 96:6, 9, “Honor and majesty are before Him; Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary,” “Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth.”
Isaiah 53:2, “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” Beauty is not in ordinary outward appearance, or in the attractiveness of worldly wealth or power. Without the corruption of the world or with our physical senses alone, “Your eyes will see the King in His beauty; they will see the land that is very far off” (Isaiah 33:17).
Sources and recommended reading: Question: "What does the Bible say about beauty?"; Question: "What is the glory of God?"; the Bible; Joy, beauty, desire, sehnsucht: Whatever the term, a fingerprint of God.
Comments