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I don’t know about you, but I want to live a beautiful life; a life that is blessed, fulfilled, worth living, happy and attractive. But what does the beautiful life look like? And how can we live it? This is the final post in a series considering Beauty. We’ve considered a

Cycle of beauty that begins with the Lord, extends to creation, takes personal bodily form in Christ, is displayed corporately by the Church, (and) culminates in heaven.

Strachan and Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards on Beauty

We’ve explored the beauty of creation; the deeper beauty of relationships – particularly the love relationship between the persons of the Trinity. As we wait ‘in this age’ beauty can be seen in the person and work of Christ, and in the Church. And beauty will finally be revealed and enjoyed in heaven, as we see God face to face, and become like him, loving perfectly even as we are loved.

We’ve seen that through repentance and faith in Christ a person can be  united to him by the bond of the Holy Spirit, so that even now we are able to enter into the beauty of the Trinity through our faith union with him.

So what difference should this make for our lives here and now? What does the beautiful life look like?

The beautiful life

We first need to notice that it is possible to live the beautiful life. We see that in a verse we keep coming back to:

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

Christ is beautiful; and as we gaze on him we become more like him, more beautiful. And we need to have the Holy Spirit; but as those who are repenting and believing, as the Spirit helps us to gaze on Christ, the Spirit also makes us more like him. Here are seven aspects of what the beautiful life might look like for us, as we are transformed into the likeness of the beautiful Christ. I’ve tried to link the areas up with a particular aspect of beauty, as set out in the post What is beauty?

1, Inner beauty: Proportion / Harmony

Not so long ago I was on a long train journey. Sitting nearby was a teenage girl who spent the whole journey adjusting her appearance and taking selfies. I had compassion for her; and I found myself praying that she would prioritise the inner beauty that satisfies and will never fade but will actually grow. (Of course, it’s also worth acknowledging that as men also grow in inner beauty she won’t feel the need to live in that way.)

‘The life of the Christian is to be a life of beauty experienced and portrayed.

Louis Mitchell, Jonathan Edwards on the Experience of Beauty

Jonathan Edwards talks about ‘well-proportioned Christians.’ Another of Edwards’ famous sermons is catchily titled ‘Christian graces concatenated together’ – that is, growing together. He considers the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22-23, along with other graces such as faith and humility. Edwards argues that if the Holy Spirit dwells in a believer and is working in us, then we should be growing in all of these areas, so our lives become increasingly beautiful. There should be a harmony between them within us; they should be found in us in the right proportion, as they are in Christ. And they should be growing together, for they depend on each other.  For example, concerning love and humility:

So love promotes humility. For the more the heart is ravished with God’s loveliness, the more will it despise itself and abase and humble itself for its own unloveliness and vileness. And humility promotes love. For the more anyone has of a humble sense of his own unworthiness, the more he will admire God’s goodness to him, and the more will his heart be drawn out in love to him for his glorious grace.

Jonathan Edwards, Christian Graces Concatenated Together

He suggests that if we’re growing in some areas and not others we need to ask why. Furthermore, returning to a regular theme in this blog, part of growing inner beauty is looking away from self, to beauty outside of ourselves. Matthew Capps writes:

God’s beauty has an attractive, motivational, and even sanctifying power. Beauty is the path that leads one to total exodus of the self as one is enraptured in the beauty of God. God is the beauty that humanity has longed for, and in Him humanity finds the eternal beauty of which believers will never tire.

Matthew Capps, Reimagining beauty

2, Relationships: Order/ love / complex beauty

There is a beauty in relationships properly lived out: husband and wife (Ephesians 5:22-33), parents and children (6:1-4), pastor and congregation (Hebrews 13:17), government and subjects (Romans 13:1-5) and so on. There is a beauty to loving caring leadership; and joyful willing following that leadership. These things bring out certain aspects of beauty that we’ve thought about: The beauty of order, of love, of harmony, of proportion.  

3, Church life: Gospel culture – love

We have returned often in this blog to the theme of gospel culture – living out the gospel we say we believe. And there is a beauty to doing so. As we forgive one another – that is beautiful. As we bear with one another; as we each use the particular gifts God has given us to build up the body; as we put the interests of others before our own – those things are beautiful. A church life built on the teaching of the New Testament is beautiful.

4, Outreach: Love / other focused – attractive and overflowing

Beauty lived out will also make us attractive to the wider community. Love looks to the interests of others, it overflows. And as the local church loves – so it is attractive to those around, and overflows to the community. (Matthew 5:14-16, Philippians 2:15).

Capps writes that the person skeptical about Christianity will never ‘. . . come to affirm the truth of God’s revelation unless . . . they first perceive it as beautiful.’ CS Lewis made the same point, aiming to show that Christianity was beautiful in order that his readers might then be interested to find out whether it’s true. There’s so much brokenness around us; and as we shine like stars – individually and as a church community –  those around us will want to know what is different about us.

5, Creating and preserving beauty: Imaging the creator

We saw in a previous post that we can image the beautiful God by creating and preserving beauty. There is much in the world that is ugly; but we can counter that by creating beauty. Those engaged in the creative arts; those who build and reorder homes; gardeners; those who engage in preserving and sustaining God’s creation – all are imaging their beautiful Creator.  

6, God’s beautiful providence: Intensification of complex beauty

In a previous post we considered the beauty of Christ, supremely displayed at the cross. Beauty is intensified as different apparently contradictory aspects are brought together into a harmony that is even more beautiful. Think of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, or the story of Job. Somehow the experiences they have – going down into despair, and then being lifted up to a higher level of existence and joy – intensify and expand the beauty of the whole.

And so it with us. In life we go through great hardship and difficulty. We can face suffering, weakness, trauma, shame, to name a few. These experiences are painful and continue to be so. But Christians believe in a God who can bring good out of those things, and the concept of the intensification of beauty suggests that – just as with Christ on the cross – the overall symphony will be far more beautiful as a result.

18 months ago I wrote these words about what’s currently happening in the Church of England of which I am a part:

We can be confident of this: Our good and sovereign God is weaving a tapestry – he is writing a symphony throughout human history. The symphony he is writing is a symphony of great complexity, with many notes that appear divergent; and many chords in a minor key. We are in the midst of the symphony, observing individual notes being added to the score, and wondering how they fit into the overall symphony. But when we look back from the vantage point of eternity we will delight in the complex and intricate beauty of the whole – how the seemingly divergent notes, and the parts written in a minor key, came together to create a whole symphony that is more beautiful than we could ever have imagined.  And whatever happens in the Church of England in 2023 and beyond will be part of that magnificent symphony.

January 2023

That is true of the Church of England; it is true of the events of world history; and it is true of our lives. And this glorious reality can help us in our struggles and sufferings right now. I don’t want to minimise those struggles and sufferings – they can feel unbearable at times. But we can step back; and through the pain and the tears we can say with confidence “God is working something beautiful through this.”

7, Living with the hope of heaven: Beauty Consummated

We’ve considered the beauty of heaven in a previous post. But of course, one of the ways in which we are prepared for that is as we hope in heaven now.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

1 John 3:1-3

As we hope in Christ and what we shall be with him in heaven, so we are made ready to meet him there. (See also 2 Peter 3:11-13; Hebrews 12:1-3.)

Taking it further

‘Christian graces concatenated together’ – sermon by Jonathan Edwards

Jonathan Edwards on beauty – Owen Strachan and Doug Sweeney

Jonathan Edwards on the Experience of Beauty – Louis Mitchell

Reimagining Beauty – An Enquiry into the Role of Beauty and Aesthetics in the Spiritual formation of Congregations – Matthew Capps