Forthright Fixation

Over the last month or so, I have been taking a look at beauty throughout Scripture. What is included below is only a portion of its uses, yet I think it is a well rounded look at what God intended to communicate in regard to the issue.

I. The Beauty of God

“I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.”
Ezekiel 1:27-28

“Your eyes will behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.”
Isaiah 33:17

“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.”
Psalm 27:4

After studying this last verse the question came to mind, what does it look like to dwell in the house of the Lord? My answer came in Psalm 140:13. (Psalm 15 also addresses this.)

“Surely the righteous shall give thanks to your name; the upright shall dwell in your presence.”

II. The Beauty of Redemption

       A. Sin

“Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins.”
Isaiah 64:11

“From the daughter of Zion all her majesty has departed. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer.”
Lamentations 1:6

       B. Forgiveness

“Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.” Isaiah 52:1

“Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem”
Ezra 7:27

“For how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty! Grain shall make the young men flourish, and new wine the young women.”
Zechariah 9:17

III. The consequence of taking pride in beauty

“But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his.”
Ezekiel 16:15

“His beautiful ornament they used for pride, and they made their abominable images and their detestable things of it. Therefore I make it an unclean thing to them.”
Ezekiel 7:20

-Babylon

“And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.”
Isaiah 13:19

-Egypt

“The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it, nor the fir trees equal its boughs; neither were the plane trees like its branches; no tree in the garden of God was its equal in beauty… I will give it into the hand of a mighty one of the nations. He shall surely deal with it as its wickedness deserves. I have cast it out.”
Ezekiel 31:8, 11

IV. Actions that are deemed beautiful

“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’”
Isaiah 52:7

“…a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head…. But Jesus said, “…She has done a beautiful thing to me.”
Mark 14:6-7

Hopefully as you read these verses they will speak to you the truth of the gospel and that God will use them in your life as He wills.

Filed under: Attributes of God, Knowing God