God is beautiful! That is an odd statement to make - especially for men. It presents a hurdle for many of us to consider God in that sense. It is however, a simple fact of reality. The Father is beautiful. The Son is beautiful. The Spirit is beautiful. First, God is the absolute of every concept of reality we have. In other words, the only reason we can even perceive of a thing like beauty, is because God himself is absolutely beautiful. If not, beauty would cease to have meaning. Second, God’s beauty is by far more deep and dangerous than the beauty of human kind. Our beauty is fair, his is furious.
In one of the most powerful passages of encounter between a person and God, Moses requests to see the glory of God. In Exodus 33:18-23 we read: Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” And the Lord said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”
It is a characteristic of up-close-and-personal encounters with God, that they are not safe for the human involved. God’s majesty and glory are not communicable to finite beings without serious risk of death. In our current state we just can’t handle it. Nonetheless the desire of Moses’ heart, indeed the desire of our hearts, is to encounter our Lord face to face. And God accommodates by creating ways to mediate these encounter moments in such a way, that we can at the same time marvel and stay alive. It is no small thing to come face to face with the living God. He is a consuming fire. A beautiful, glorious, violent fire!
Astonishingly, Moses is allowed this privilege of seeing God at his most revealing. In fact, the verse in which God says “I will make my goodness pass before you” can be translated “I will make my beauty pass before you”. Beauty is something easy to look at. It never gets old or boring fixing our sight on something or someone truly beautiful in our eyes. Looking at God has the same effect times infinity. It is the beauty of his splendour, the beauty of his glory; it is as endless and bottomless as his life. It’s no wonder all of eternity will be spent discovering and celebrating every facet of his nature as we behold his absolute beauty.
On the other side of the objective truth of the beauty of God, is the matter of subjective perception. Individuals sometimes find very different things beautiful. The relational dividing line of this perception is love. That which we love we also find beautiful. It is in the nature of human beings to attach attraction to affection. When we feel lovingly drawn into relationship with someone, we automatically view them with beauty in our eyes. We can’t see God, we cannot yet fully appreciate his beauty in any literal sense. But we know him. We have seen his hand active in our lives. The word of God illuminates and illustrates his nature. We can love him. If we spend even a little time investigating him, we will fall in love with him. And as we lovingly look upon him, we will see his beauty.
So rekindle that first love fire; your beloved stands at the door and knocks! And on that day, when we finally see him face to face, we will recognise: his beauty surpasses even our wildest dreams. I look forward to it.
Daniel Reinhold
Creative Director, Relayer Music