When God created everything, he created a beautiful and good world, and we know from our own experience today that despite creation’s fall into sin and the brokenness and ugliness that resulted, the world still retains much of the same beauty it had from the beginning. Whether you like to spend your time looking up at a starry night sky, exploring forests and waterfalls, watching sunsets, or experiencing the beauty inherent in healthy, loving human relationships, it is clear that our world today reflects the glory of its creator in remarkable ways.
Most of us can recognize beauty when we see it. The way our hearts and minds respond to seeing something beautiful is unmistakable, and yet, I think fewer of us would feel like we could provide a sufficient answer if someone were to ask us the question “what is beauty, and where does it come from?” Beauty is very easy to recognize and yet remarkably difficult to define, and it has been a topic of conversation among many of the world’s greatest philosophers for centuries. Is beauty subjective (i.e., in the eye of the beholder)? Or is beauty something objective that remains true for everyone regardless of personal preferences? While many have argued for a whole host of perspectives throughout the centuries, the Bible helps us to understand that anything beautiful we experience in this world carries a reflected beauty. Like the moon only shines brightly in the sky at night because it reflects the great light of the sun, the beauty we see around us in creation doesn’t spring up from nowhere. Rather, it is a reflection of the beauty, splendour, glory, and majesty of the one who created it.
Psalm 19 famously begins with a well known verse—“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” And while this verse speaks particularly of the heavens—we know that God created both the heavens and the Earth, and the Earth itself also declares the glory of God in so many ways. When scripture uses words like these—splendour, glory, majesty—it speaks to the beauty of the God who is the source of all beauty. Anything that is beautiful in this world reflects the glorious God who is absolutely perfect in all of his ways and who has created us to delight in him in perfect relationship for all eternity.
We find beautiful things to be beautiful because we were made to delight in the one who created them. Rather than being beautiful for their own sake, these things are ultimately designed to draw our hearts toward the God whose infinite beauty has been written into our souls from the beginning of creation. And so let us not merely be content to enjoy the good and beautiful things in this world for their own sake, but let us also seek to be those who allow those things to draw our eyes toward the God they so wonderfully and powerfully proclaim!
All the best,
Luke