Beauty in the Eyes of God

“The beautiful people at the Oscars,” giggled the commentator. I was struck by her comment. She was so excited about all the physical beauty that was displayed on the red carpet last night. Now put this in contrast to another comment I heard the day before. An elementary age boy called a girl of the same age “a fatso.” This unkind statement took place at a Christian basketball program where many children confess a faith relationship with Jesus. Why am I bringing this up? I feel that they are connected.

In many ways, we have allowed others to influence our understanding of beauty and they have redefined it for us. What do I mean? If you ask the typical person in the church to define beauty, what do you think they will say? I bet 8 out of 10 (I didn’t do a survey so please don’t take this as authoritative) would define beauty first as physical (tender blue eyes, glowing complexion, perfect skin, thick lips, six-pack abs, chiseled chin, tight thighs, etc.). Do we every wonder why so many of our young people struggle with their identity, with cutting, and with eating disorders? Do we every consider why so many people, men and women, have plastic surgery or taking diet pills to “remain” youthful? How about the whole epidemic in professional sports where steroid use and other types of enhancements are common to get the edge on others?

This kind of pursuit for physical beauty will leave us empty and enslaved. I know that it will because physical beauty is an idol for me. I want to look good to others and not just in my performance but how I physically look. Ask my wife. I regularly comment to her that I am getting fat. Or, on the opposite extreme, I often remind her, “I am the best looking guy around.” (Yes, I confess that I am very arrogant and self-consumed, but you have to love me because God tells you so). My whole life I was told that physical beauty and strength was important. In High School, I almost campaigned for the superlative, best dressed. When I didn’t even get nominated for it, I was crushed. I often get my life, my contentment, and my satisfaction in how I physically look. I bet some of you do as well.

I bring this all up because we need to be reminded of another beauty—a beauty that only God created and provides. The below verses are just a few of the many verses that talk of the beauty of God.

“One thing have I asked 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 gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

“Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” (Ps. 96:6)

“…but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.” (1 Peter 3:4)


Albert Mohler writes: Augustine understood that beauty was a key Christian category. Indeed, Christians cannot properly think as Christians without understanding the power of beauty. In his Confessions he said this: "I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new! I have learnt to love you late! You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself. I searched for you outside myself and, disfigured as I was, I fell upon the lovely things of your creation. The beautiful things of this world kept me from you and yet, if they had not been in you, they would have had no being at all." In that confessional statement, Augustine is saying that it was beauty that was calling him. It was his Creator that was calling him, and yet the things of apparent beauty in the world distracted him. And yet he does not despise those things; he remembers that their beauty is merely a reflected beauty, derived from the fact that God is their Creator.

Augustine continues: "It was you then, O Lord, who made them. You who are beautiful, for they too are beautiful. You who are good, for they too are good. You who are, for they too are. But they are not beautiful and good as you are beautiful and good. Nor do they have their being as you the Creator have your being. In comparison with you, they have neither beauty nor goodness nor being at all." Augustine realizes that in order to see true beauty, he has to go to his Creator, and then, knowing the Creator, he may observe the creation and see that it does indeed bear the mark of its Maker. There is undeniable beauty in creation, but in comparison with the infinite beauty of the Creator, such finite beauty no longer has the seductive allure it once had. All earthly beauty is simultaneously validated and relativized by the contemplation of the beauty of God.

Jonathan Edwards, who said this, picked up the same theme: "True holiness must mainly consist in love to God, for holiness consists in loving what is most excellent and beautiful. Because God is infinitely the most beautiful and excellent being, He must necessarily be loved supremely by those who are truly holy. It follows from this that God's own holiness must consist primarily in love to Himself. Being most holy, He most loves what is good and beautiful, that is Himself. To love completely what is most completely good is to be most completely perfect. From this, it follows that a truly holy mind, above all other things, seeks the glory of God and makes the glory of God His supreme governing and ultimate end."

Another word in the Bible for beauty is glory. God manifests His wise, holy, compassionate, loving, and just character to all humanity. We see his ultimate glory in Jesus Christ. It is not the physical beauty of Jesus that we see God’s glory. Isaiah, a OT prophet, describes the coming Messiah, “For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Is. 53:2).

We see the beauty of Christ in his perfect life, his sacrificial death and his supernatural resurrection and kingly ascension. If you want true beauty, fix your eyes on Jesus and put your trust in Him and his work. What’s so radically amazing is that as we put our faith in Jesus Christ as the only Savior and King, he makes us inwardly beautiful, and now the One and Only Glorious and Beautiful God sees us as beautiful and glorious. We have Jesus’ holiness, his love, his mercy, his compassion, his joy, his hope, and his power—his heart for God and others!

As we turn our focus more and more on Jesus and the beauty he has provided us completely and thoroughly, our souls will find our satisfaction, our contentment and our life in Him and not in the pursuit of physical beauty. The Spirit will enable us to confess and repent of our vain pursuit of physical beauty, to believe and rest that we are beautiful in his sight, and to accept others just as God has created them and not to call others names that hurt or destroy. God has given us new eyes to see as He sees.

What are your thoughts?

Warmly,
Jeff

He Satisfies the Longing Soul

In yesterday’s Tuesday morning Bible study I do at the local jail, I only had one inmate attend. This gave me an opportunity to hear more of his story and seek to bring God’s word to bear on what he shared. He had recently been through a very dark and depressing period of wondering how he was going to make it through his remaining years of incarceration. The Lord graciously began to bring him out of it when he received a letter from his estranged daughter. She reconnected with him after previously saying that she was done with him. This was food for his soul.

He also spoke at length about his experience in the jail after coming to faith in Christ. He said he was at a loss because he no longer felt bitterness toward the police officers who shot him 14 times, he no longer was seeking revenge against his ex-fiance who ran off with the money and the children. He had forgiven them all and it was a strange feeling. He didn’t really know what to feel because anger and bitterness had filled him so much of his life, and now he wanted to be filled with something else. 

We looked at Jesus’ words in Luke 6:21, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.” 

Psalm 107:9 also came to mind, “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.”

How amazing it was to talk with this brother about the experience of being emptied of malice, bitterness, and hatred, then longing to be filled with Christ and his righteousness. He is a different man.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. This season reminds us of Jesus’ 40 days and nights in the wilderness fasting and satisfying his whole person with nothing but the Father and the Spirit. In his book Ancient Future Time, Robert Webber reminds us that Lent, “calls us back to God, back to basics, back to the spiritual realities of life. It calls on us to put to death the sin and the indifference we have in our hearts toward God and our fellow persons. And it beckons us to enter once again into the joy of the Lord – the joy of a new life born out of a death to the old life.”

What are you hungry for friends? What are you longing for? 

Pastor Irwyn

A Rich History of Grace

I’m a fan of history. Most of my historical interest both before and after becoming a Christian has been focused on people of African decent. One of the pleasures of this focus since becoming a follower of Jesus is to examine this history in light of the history of redemption, the Bible. The Bible is the history of redemption because it tells the story of how God has redeemed and is redeeming his people. 

In my preparation for last Sunday’s sermon on Genesis 15 I came across a quote by theologian Herman Bavinck that gave me a new term. He said the following:

“From the very first moment of its revelation, grace assumes the form of a covenant, a covenant that arises, not by a natural process, but by a historical act and hence gives rise to a rich history of grace.”

The grace of the covenant the Lord made with Abraham in Genesis 15 is overwhelming. He takes the onus of its fulfillment completely upon himself. What God began in Genesis after humanity fell gave rise to a rich history of grace. This history shone brightly in the darkness of the cross, and it is still being written today. The new covenant in Jesus Christ is a continuation of this same covenant of grace. In Genesis 15 God humbles himself to obligate his life to his people. We see God do exactly the same thing in the person and work of Jesus Christ. 

You may ask, “why does this matter?” It matters because Abraham and Sarah fail after God makes a covenant with them. So did Noah. So did David. So did Israel. So  did Peter. And so do we. Consider what the writer to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 6:13-20:

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

The Hebrews’ pastor sure knew that they were included in the rich history of grace, and this reality was a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. For those who have fled for refuge in Christ it is a source of strong encouragement to cling to the hope set before them. And this hope is not in ourselves, but in our God who is faithful.

Where are you in the rich history of grace?

Pastor Irwyn