“God, the LORD, created the heavens and stretched them out. He created the earth and everything in it.” (Isaiah 42:5 NLT)
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1 NIV)
“..The whole earth is filled with his glory!" (Psalm 72:19 NIV)
When I was born, I was given up for adoption. I consider myself truly blessed. Knowing that I was desired by another, and clearly loved, brought much security and comfort as a child. My adoptive mom was incredibly loving and nurturing to me and provided much emotional security.
However, just a few days after my 12th birthday, when I was beginning to enter the tumultuous teen years, my mom died suddenly and the pain, anguish, and anger I felt made me question everything I had been taught about God, my experience with Him, and even if He existed.
A little over a year later, during the summer after her death, I was on vacation at a YMCA camp on Catalina Island, just off the California coast, near Los Angeles. One night, sitting around a crackling campfire, gazing into heavens that were not obscured by the haze of pollution, the stars appeared so bright and seemed so close, that it was as if I just reached out my hand I could grab one. I remember thinking to myself, “There is no way that this could have just happened on its own. It’s just too magnificent to be the result of random chance.”
In that experience, God had shown me just a tiny glimmer of His glory and caused the beginning of an aching hunger in me to pursue knowing the God of all creation intimately. That hunger has never ceased to this day. Even in the midst of constant turmoil and trouble, I continually yearn to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord (see Psalm 27:4).
Describing the Indescribable
The glory of God is best described as His beauty. God is omnificent. He is the magnificent, all creative Beautiful God. Yet, how can one really define what beauty is? Every human being will see the beauty of something differently than another. There is no established precedent or pattern of beauty that one can say God is like - and if there were - it would be God Himself.
Beauty is the possession and characteristic of God and is one of the qualities which are distinctive of Him. It is what emphasizes the form in which He reveals Himself in the external manifestation of His presence, and the quality of His greatness, authority, dignity, preeminence, power, perfection, and majesty.
“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name” (1 Chronicles 29:11-13 NIV).
The word “glory” is used in the Bible to describe God’s beauty and comes from the Hebrew word “kabhod” and the Greek word 'doxa' which are most often translated throughout the Bible to convey God’s wealth, perfection of character, splendor, majesty, abundance, and honor as well as to convey the ecstasy found in Heaven.
The root meaning of the word "glory" denotes weight, or heaviness, size, rarity, beauty, brilliance, brightness, desire, and adornment. This divine quality is beyond human understanding because “The LORD is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the LORD our God, the one who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?” (Psalm 113:4-6 NIV). Yet, this beautiful God longs for every person on this planet to come to know Him in deep intimacy.
The Foundation of Beauty
Deeply rooted in every human heart is an unquenchable longing for beauty, a God-given sense that beauty must have a meaning that is larger and more permanent than one’s self. It can both lure and arouse for pleasure, delight, joy, and even bring relaxation.
Every person longs to observe and be a part of beauty as they seek for a rare glimpse of greatness and yearn for a vision of glory. People are moved by music - the words of a poet - the work of an artist - a newborn child - the uniqueness of all living creatures - the multicolored hues of a sunset - the brilliance of a sunrise - the majesty of mountain peaks - the melodic sound of a waterfall - the wind rustling through the leaves - the simplicity of a flower - the lightness of a snowflake.
These things cultivate one’s sensory awareness and expands the consciousness in a way that creates an ever-deepening appreciation of creation. They are all but token twinkles and shimmering shadows of the beauty of God that has been inextricably woven through the fabric of all creation.
Beauty is the universal foundation of all things. It is transcendent by nature. The beauty and glory of God are far greater and far surpassing any earthly beauty one could ever know. Everything about Him is beautiful. His power is beautiful. His love is beautiful. His mercy is beautiful. Beauty is rooted in Him. He is the foundation of all beauty in the universe.
His beauty is what makes Him worthy of worship. Beauty begins and ends in God. He is the revelation of all that is good, loving, and kind. He even signs His name using the brilliant colors and hues of a rainbow (see Genesis 9:13), and uses beauty as His messenger, declaring across the universe that He is “altogether lovely” (Song 5:16 KJV).
Beauty in creation is to draw humankind to the Beautiful God, to create within a deep hunger to know true beauty Himself. People often settle for an imitation, the created counterfeit, not the Creator Himself. They are drawn instead to beautiful things and people. Each year tens of millions of dollars are spent on cosmetic surgery, clothes, jewelry, and make-up just to look more attractive. Adam and Eve didn’t need clothes, or make-up, or jewelry, as they walked naked in the Garden because they were clothed in the beauty of God. His beauty - the beauty of His presence - covered them.
The reason people are attracted to beauty - and long to be attractive and wanted by another - is because God is the ultimate Beautiful One. He is the absolute original pattern of all other beauty. He made people to long for Himself because He sees each person as beautiful and longs for intimacy with them. Anything less than knowing God will leave a person unsatisfied.
The ancient Greeks used the word “beautiful” interchangeably with the words “excellent,” “perfection,” and “satisfying.” Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder and yet it is not dependent upon - or affected by - anyone’s perception of it. The beauty of a work of art is not based on the individual colors used, or its shape and texture. The beauty is found in the harmony of how each element exists in relationship with the others. Beauty is the manifestation of the Spirit of God that animates all of reality.
The attributes of God’s character and nature obtain their infinite beauty from their relationship with each other. His love, wisdom, justice, power, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are beautiful (1 Thessalonians 1:9; Galatians 5:22-23). God is beautiful in all His ways. He relentlessly and lovingly pursues people, reaching out in romantic passion with nail-pierced hands.
It was the beauty of Jesus that caused the disciples to drop everything and follow Him. (See Matthew 4:19) It wasn’t His looks or charisma that drew them to Him. It was His mystical beauty, the wondrous fragrance of love that emanates from Him and ever consumes those who draw closer and closer as they take on His fragrance and His beauty (see 2 Corinthians 2:14).
The Bible says that God has clearly revealed Himself to every human being since time began in the beauty of the heavens, “for since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:18-20 NIV).
God chose at times in the past to reveal His glory and perfection to mankind in a visible way, such as the pillar of cloud and fire (See Exodus 13:21), the deliverance of the Israelites at the parting of the Red Sea (see Exodus 14), and His glory in the Tabernacle (see Leviticus 9:23-24) and Temple (see 1 Kings 8:11) because the Father desires to have an intimate relationship with every person on this planet. His original desire was for His Glory to always dwell with humanity.
The first dwelling place was a place of beauty where “God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground--trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.” (Genesis 2:9 NIV). And the last dwelling place is a city of beauty whose gates are “made of a single pearl,” and the “great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass” (Revelation 21:21 NIV).
It is the veil of sin - the works of the flesh - that keeps people from seeing God’s true beauty. Even the whole Earth sits under a curse (See Genesis 8:20) and all of “creation groans together and travails in pain together” because of sin (Romans 8:22 - Darby). Just imagine how beautiful the new heaven and earth will be when the curse is finally removed! (See Revelation 21:1-5)
The Bible states that all people "have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 NIV). Moses was clearly aware of this because of His sinfulness when God asked him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and to the Promised Land. Moses was very concerned about leading the people. In answer to his concerns, God told him; "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."
Still fearful and unsure, Moses responded, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?" And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you, and I know you by name." Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory" (Exodus 33:14-18 NIV).
To His surprise, God told Moses He would show him His glory, "I will make all my GOODNESS pass before you and will proclaim before you my name 'The Lord" [Heb: Yehovah] name of God: ' And I will be GRACIOUS to whom I will be gracious, and will show MERCY on whom I will show mercy" (Exodus 33:19-20 ESV). God revealed that His magnificent and beautiful glory is His goodness and mercy! God is good and merciful ALL the time! (Lamentations 3:22)
The sin of Adam and Eve obscured God’s personal and intimate beauty, and it was lost from constant view. But in Jesus, it is found. Since the close of the Old Testament, the beauty of God has been shown in Jesus because He is the "brightness of the Father's glory" (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus “became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 NIV).
Jesus is the “Lord of glory” and reveals His beauty through miraculous signs and wonders so that His followers will continually put their “faith in him” (1 Corinthians 2:8; John 2:11 NIV). All His followers share in that beauty. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” Because Jesus willingly offered Himself as the perfect sacrifice, God's secret wisdom, “a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began” has been “revealed”… “to us by his Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:6-10 NIV).
The House of His Beauty
Jesus prayed to the Father, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:22 NIV). All Christians reflect “the Lord's glory” and “are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18 NIV).
Every Christian is the house of His glorious beauty, the “temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:19 KJV). They are a reflection of His glory! God said, “I will glorify the house of My glory” (Isaiah 60:7 NKJV). God imparts to His house the beauty and majesty which belong to Him. They take on the brilliance of His nature and character! They share in the heavenly glory and partake of His divine nature! They are the Glory of God! They are His manifest presence! They are also His beautiful bride! The beautiful God has given them His glory!
