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Psalm 27:4
“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.”
Human beings the world over are drawn to beauty. Because we love what is beautiful, we adorn our homes and offices with art and photographs. Beautiful music helps us settle down after a hard day at work, provides a fitting accompaniment to a special dinner, and even assists us in praising the Lord with song during corporate worship. Few men and women have not been moved to awe by the grandeur of a mountainscape or observed with wonder the intricate loveliness of a flower.
There is no real mystery as to why human beings love beauty. After all, we were created by and for God and in His image, and He is supremely beautiful (Gen. 1:26–27). Scripture tells us of the “beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 27:4).
Divine beauty is one of the attributes of God that sum up many of His other attributes. Philosophers have long recognized that the good, the true, and the beautiful are closely related, which means that true beauty reflects goodness and truth. God is beautiful because He is perfectly good and unfailingly true (Isa. 65:16; James 1:16–17). Perfect beauty cannot become more or less beautiful, so the beauty of God also encompasses the immutability of God (Mal. 3:6). Beauty exists in creation as a consequence of God’s creating heaven and earth, so He is our Creator (Isa. 40:28–29).
The Lord is beautiful, and so He also loves beauty and desires worship that accords well with His beauty. We see this, for instance, in God’s design of Israel’s tabernacle and its use of vibrant colors, precious metals, and intricate design (Ex. 25–26). Solomon built the temple of Israel to be a beautiful sanctuary fit to be the dwelling of the Lord (1 Kings 6). The New Testament is largely silent regarding the use of sanctuaries in worship and how they are to be adorned, but God’s love of beauty as seen in old covenant worship makes it fitting for us to make use of beauty under the new covenant, whether we are talking about a Gothic cathedral or a simple chapel.
In keeping with the idea of the beauty of the Lord, Christian theologians have often spoken of the beatific vision, that point at which we will see God face-to-face (1 John 3:2). We do not know exactly what this will be like, but we know that it will fulfill our deepest longing to gaze upon what is beautiful. We will never tire of or grow bored with seeing the beauty of the Lord.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
We do well to meditate on the truth that God is beautiful and what that means because it can greatly comfort our souls and encourage in us a longing for heaven. If the Lord is truly beautiful, then eternity will involve an ever-deepening vision of His beauty that we will never tire of. His beauty will fully satisfy us.
For further study
- 2 Chronicles 3:1–5:1
- Isaiah 28:5
- Mark 14:3–9
- Revelation 1:12–16
The bible in a year
- 1 Chronicles 26–27
- John 11:17–44