An Eye for Beauty – Part 3 – Refractions of Beauty
The eye of the heart
As we have seen, an aspect of the essence of God is beauty. David wrote about wanting to “behold the beauty of the LORD” in His temple (Ps. 27.4), and this assumes both that God is beautiful and that, in some ways at least, we can “behold” or look upon that beauty. Since God’s beauty is an invisible attribute—to the eyes of the flesh, at least—there must be some other means whereby we may gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and thus know, and hopefully delight in and emulate, true beauty.
God is supreme beauty, the standard of beauty to which all must look who hope to gain an eye for beauty and, thus, fulfill an important component of what it means to be a human being. For, as we have seen, human beings were made for beauty. Beauty is an important aspect of our lives, especially since it helps us to focus on and know the beauty of the Lord. If we know God, we know beauty, not just as a concept to see or hear, but as a living Person to know and experience.
Thus, in seeking to gain an eye for beauty—the ability to appreciate and benefit from beautiful things, and to refract true beauty into our daily lives—we must be devoted to knowing God, Who is beauty. This is a spiritual quest, involving us in the disciplines of reading and studying Scripture, meditating and waiting on the Lord, worshiping and sharing with other seekers of God, engaging in seasons of solitude, and nurturing our ability to see with the eye of our hearts into the realm of unseen things (Eph. 1.15-23).
We can see the beauty of the Lord with the eyes of faith. Led by His Word and bolstered by the beauty He manifests all around us, we can know the beauty of the Lord and, thus, the standard for all beauty.
Beauty in created things
One of the ways God’s beauty is described in His Word is in terms of the works of His hand. The creation itself, and much of the culture created by men, refract the beauty of God to us in many ways. I use the word, “refract,” rather than “reflect”, because I think this captures better the essence of how the glory and beauty of God are invested in and radiate from created things to impact the senses of men. It’s not simply that God bounces His beauty off some facet of the creation, as though it were nothing more than a mirror. Rather, all the composition of created things, and much culture, are infused with glory and beauty, in all their details and parts, sustained by the very Word of God as He bends His eternal glory through created things to meet our eyes in a way that we may both perceive and understand.
The beauty of God explains the beauty of created things; at the same time, the beauty of God far surpasses any beauty we may experience, either in the creation or some work of culture.
Augustine explained this relationship in his Confessions, where he wrote, “‘Tis thou, therefore, O Lord, that madest them: thou who art full of beauty, for they are beautiful…yet they are neither so beautiful, so good, nor are so, as thou their Creator art; compared with whom, they are neither beautiful, nor good, nor are at all.” Beautiful things are not as beautiful as the One Who refracts Himself through them. Yet, to some degree or extent, created things can bear true witness to the beauty of the Lord.
We see beauty in the creation—shapes, forms, sizes, colors, textures, motion, power, simplicity, complexity, order, mystery, and all these combined in various ways—but we do not see God; creation refracts the beauty and glory of God, but creation is not God. We must learn to look through the creation, following the refracted light of glory and beauty back to its Source in God, Whose beauty and glory we may experience by faith. We must see in the variety, color, texture, order, complexity, delightfulness, and wonder of created things a witness to the beauty of God. And this witness can be transforming in our lives.
The true light of beauty
We may indeed experience beauty in creation and culture, but if we would know it according to the true light of beauty, we must submit our observations and experiences to God’s revelation in His Word, and in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Scriptures encourage us to see and consider and set our minds on Jesus, both in His incarnate ministry and His exalted state. Jesus is the quintessence of beauty in a human form. Seeing Jesus, we understand the true nature of beauty and can discern it in the world around us, thus allowing a larger place for beauty in our daily lives.
In the light of Scripture and the face of our exalted Lord and King (2 Cor. 4.6), we may glimpse the beauty of God and thus experience His beauty in ways that can affect and transform us profoundly (2 Cor. 3.12-18).
Studying creation and culture, in the light of Scripture and the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, we may gain an eye for beauty and so realize more of the full and abundant life for which we have been redeemed in Jesus Christ.
Today, take the time to look upon something beautiful—a tree, a flower, the sky, a hillside, a meticulously sculpted work of art. What do you delight in? What would you like to see more of? How do these aspects of beauty lead you to consider Jesus? Our quest for beauty must always resolve in Him from, through, and to Whom are all things, and all praise and honor and glory (Rom. 11.36).