You may remember Audrey Hepburn, star of My Fair Lady and one of the great iconic natural beauties of the cinema. Researchers studying beauty have found that beautiful faces like Audrey Hepburn’s tend to fit the symmetry and proportion of multiple Golden Ratios quite perfectly. The spacing and size of eyes, nose, and mouth in relation to chin, forehead, etc., it seems, are all the more beautiful the more they conform and converge to Golden Ratios - also called the “Divine Proportion.” (You can read more about it and the implications for beauty and creation truth in my book, Truth is Beauty.) This is why plastic surgeons today use the ratio as guidelines to reconstruct disfigured faces into good looks.
This perfection of harmony and symmetry of proportion for natural physical beauty testifies to the interest the Creator has in beauty. And we might, therefore, go on to ask, what constitutes Spiritual Divine Beauty? Are there spiritual, non-physical qualities that also lend themselves to beauty as the Divine Proportion does?
In My Fair Lady, Audrey Hepburn’s character – Eliza Doolittle – was transformed from a “guttersnipe” into the most attractive beauty at the society ball attended by royalty. Remember that this was accomplished mainly by refining her speech, behavior, and mannerisms. Eliza went from being dirty, ill-mannered, and uncouth to clean, gracious, well spoken, and polite – a true beauty as recognized by everyone there. The point is that what made her truly stand out as a beauty in the end was something beyond her original physical form.
So it is with the Lord. The physical creation is a reflection of spiritual reality. And even in our fallen, sinful state, we can recognize “the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9, 2 Chronicles 20:21). There is something attractive about good behavior.
Indeed, the ideal life according to the Psalmist, as mentioned elsewhere in these chapters, is “to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold (gaze upon) the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple” (Psalm 27:4). This is a beauty which transcends physical beauty – centering on spiritually triumphant reality and truth. The Lord is the “consummation of all perfection” – to borrow a line from Christian musician Jaye Thomas. Thus, the Bible speaks not so much of beauty, though that’s a great part of it. It speaks of the spiritual counterpart - glory - as in “the glory of the Lord” (Isaiah 40:5), the magnificence, value, loveliness, brilliance, and grandeur of His many perfections. And it teaches us, through various ways, to recognize what is truly important for genuine beauty.
What we find in the Bible is that Divine Beauty includes so much more than harmonious physical symmetry. It transcends to a level of wondrous love, and holiness, and grace, and truth, and kindness, and goodness that ends in the harmonious spiritual symmetry and perfection surrounding God, for a spiritual illumination and bliss that we can only appreciate as we gaze intently upon the Lord.
We are made beautiful in God’s eyes by His great love. And we are encouraged to set our minds on Him, our great Creator and Redeemer-of-our-relationship, who has more than physical beauty in mind for His creation. He has in mind for us to keep seeking the things above, the truly lovely, including and especially Jesus Christ (Colossians 3:1-4, Philippians 4:8), “with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord… from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
The Golden Ratio is only a small part of what is truly golden! Gazing at the spiritual purity and perfection of the Lord taps us into an infinite source of beauty.
Let me close by mentioning the well-known aphorism “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” God doesn’t look upon our outward appearance, or outward talents and abilities, to determine our beauty in His sight. He looks upon our inner beauty – determined by what we have done with Christ. If we have trusted in Christ for our redemption, our salvation, we are indeed beautiful in His infinite sight, and are His children (John 1:12), the children of an infinitely good God! Think about it.
“The One Who knows me best
Is the One who loves me most
…
I am Your beloved, You have bought me with Your blood
And on Your hand, You've written out my name
I am Your beloved, one the Father loves
Mercy has defeated all my shame.”
– J. Helser, I Am Your Beloved
He desires the ongoing intimacy of that redeemed relationship!
- Mark Cadwallader, Board Chairman of Creation Moments
