God’s Beauty is His Holiness.  The Holiness of God consists in His Love to Himself primarily and is the rectitude of His Nature, whereby he is pure, and without spot in Himself, therefore Beautiful and delightful to behold to those who have  pure doves eyes.  God knows Himself and views Himself  and God’s idea of Himself is that no other being is more beautiful than I AM.  God’s idea of Himself is His Eternal Son.  His Son is Beautiful.  His Son is infinitely holy therefore infinitely beautiful.

This Beauty of God is communicable.  Meaning that we can partake of His Beauty by the power of the Holy Spirit 2 Cor. 3:18.  We partake of his Beautiful Divine Nature 2 Peter 1:4.  As you continue to behold greater views of the Beauty of the LORD you also will become more like that which you love.  You love to behold the beauty of the LORD above all else like David Ps. 27:4.  God the Father is infinitely Beautiful, God’s Beautiful Son reveals the Father’s to us and the Holy Spirit is the Beauty communicated.  All three are Holy and in harmony One with the Other. Three in One, One in Three.  OH, so Beautiful!

Beauty is a choice perfection of the Divine Nature.  An excellency of God.  This is the True and Genuine Character of God.  He is Beauty, He is Beautiful, Beautiful in Himself, Beautiful in His essence, beautiful in the highest degree, possessing whatsoever is comely, lovely, excellent and desirable to behold. The notion of Beauty is inseparable from the idea of God.

God’s Beauty is the Highest because First Beautiful and all other beauties reflect their glory back to Him.  In that sense He is the First and Last.  Whatsoever is Perfect Beauty is God.  Truly God is Most Beautiful.  All the Names of God are Beautiful and comprehend His Beauty.  All the various Beauties and Excellencies of the Divine Nature are contained in Him as One Simple Beauty.  God is Beautiful in all He does for God is Holy and cannot but act according to His Holy Immutable Nature.  God acts consistent with Himself and that is beautiful to see.

This post will give general ideas about the Beauty of God and then examples of how that beauty manifests itself through all 4 stages of the Christian life.

General Ideas

1.  His Beauty is not visible to the human eye, it must be understood.  Physically you may view an object with no mixture of evil and fit for its purpose, but this beauty is only a reflection of and pointer to the Original Beauty.  God is where all other beauties originate from and you cant see God with your eyes for He is Spirit. God the Holy Beautiful Spirit. We can’t see His Divine Beauty with our eyes.  We know, see and delight in beholding His Glory for He is Infinitely Beautiful, there is no flaw in Him and there is no mixture of evil in Him.
2. God is only originally Beautiful. God is Beauty itself and of Himself.  Divine Beauty is not dependent on another outside of Himself, he has it in, and of Himself.  We have no beauty from ourselves.  His Beauty is no more derived from another than His Being. God’s Beauty is by and in Himself for He is the fountain of all Goodness. God is the first cause and all other beauty comes from Him.  God is the fountain and source of all beauty
   1. Application.  God created beautiful things to reflect his Beauty therefore when you see a beautiful sunrise or flower, praise God and say “LORD most beautiful You sure do make beautiful flowers!”  God’s beauty was meant to be acknowledged by you and delighted in and then the glory goes to God.  We usually do the first two but no the last.  We usually see and delight in the beauty of creation but we won’t adore God and praise Him for it.
3. God is Perfectly Beautiful! All that is needed for God to be God and perfectly Beautiful is there, anything not supposed to be there is not in Him.  No deformity but only perfect beauty.  If we were to look at a daisy that had a pedal missing we would not count it perfectly beautiful for a pedal is missing.  When viewed the mind would see something of an asymmetry or disproportion because a pedal was missing.
   1. God is perfect in that he has nothing missing.
   2. God is perfect in beauty in that he has everything that comprehends the most perfect being.
   3. God is perfect in beauty in that he has no more of one attribute than another.  No disproportions.  God has no more love than He has hate.  God infinitely loves Himself and infinitely hates all that is contrary to Himself.
   4. God is perfect in beauty in that He has no deformity in him.
   5. Application.  Parts of our hearts and lives may be beautiful but due to the weakness of our flesh the beauty of our Christianity doesn’t shine so bright.  We must strive to behold God’s beauty and be like Him who is perfect in beauty.  We must strive for perfection which is the best direction.  Without a beautiful heart you will not see the LORD!  Purify your whole heart.  Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
4. His Beauty is infinite.   Herein consists the Greatness of God’s Beauty in that it is infinite.   God’s beauty has no bounds or limits.  Oh, How infinitely Beautiful He is.  He is an overflowing fountain of Beauty.  His Infinite Holiness renders Him infinitely Beautiful.  Yeah, God is Beauty Itself.  There is no limit to His Beauty.  There was no beginning to It, It always was, is and will be the same. ever overflowing, communicating itself generally to all in creation but in a special way only to believers. God’s idea of Himself is infinitely beautiful.   God see’s His Son and says “There is no being more beautiful, it doesn’t get any better than that.  Jesus the Son of God is Infinitely Beautiful.
   1. Now Im starting to wonder how to apply this truth.  How does knowing God is infinitely beautiful motivate me to draw nearer to God and deny myself?   HHHmmmm.  Okay.  The more Beauty you can behold the happier you will be!!  YES and Amen.  How do you behold more Beauty than you did before, for God is infinite Beauty therefore you cant put bounds on the amount of Beauty you are able to see.  Plus, you cant ask God for to much!!  However much you have been asking for it is to small.  God is bigger than that, He has infinite Grace in Christ waiting for you so why do you ask for so little?  Do you not want to see Him greater than before.  Was He Beautiful beyond your imagining last time you meditated on the Person and work of Christ and His love for God and you at the cross?  Ask God to let you experience His love for you greater than before and more than you can imagine. Ephesians 3:17-21.   Put you mind on things above where you will see Christ with your physical eyes.  The most Beautiful sight.  The Beautific Vision of our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.
   2. Behold the Beauty of God in order to know the great evil that sin is.  Imagine beholding earthly beauties only that are a shadow of the Great Infinite Beauty.  It would be worse then going to a garden in spring and finding only a desert of dead things.  It would be sin to chiefly desire beholding anything less than God.  Behold God’s Beauty as “the one thing I desire and that will I seek, to behold the Beauty of the LORD” at the cross Ps 27:4  , which is His Holiness consisting in Love.  To lust after beholding the beauty of God is a good thing, but to lust after the beauty of a woman not your wife is sin.  Most of you guys are missing out.  Stop looking at porn and behold the greater Beauty of God.  Now if you looking at porn you probably don’t even know what its like to behold the Beauty of God in Christ, this you will know when beholding Him and not porn.  Get hooked on beholding Christ crucified for you sin.  Get hooked on God, obedience is addicting once you sincerely try a holy life, it’s the best and no other life is better.
   3. Prize the Beauty.  Highly Value It!!  It took the blood of Jesus Christ God’s only Son to purchase the beautification of your soul from total deformity and depravity to perfect beauty as we behold His Beauty and Glory at the cross and experience His love in holy communion and conversation.  How much is the blood of Christ worth?  The value of the gift is determined by the price paid.  Beauty is the gift.  The life and death of Jesus, God’s Eternal Son was the price.  How do you prize the beauty of Christ?  Christ is the pearl.  The pearl is beautiful.  How much of your life are you willing to give up to purchase the most beautiful and desirable Pearl?  Deny yourself everything as you behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire and meditate on the cross daily!
5. God’s Beauty is immense.  The immensity of God.  This ought to boggle your mind.  God’s Beauty is infinite.  God is not just Beautiful in heaven, But all of His Infinite Beauty is everywhere.  All of God is everywhere always for God is both immense and omnipresent.  This also is part of the Greatness of God’s Beauty.
   1. Application  Ps. 119:32  “I run in the path of your commands,
          for you have broadened my understanding.”  For “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.”  Purify your heart at the foot of the cross, look to Jesus when you feel guilty of sin, see Him there dying for you sin, isn’t it beautiful.  See him leaving Heaven for a sinner like you.  Isn’t He Most Beautiful!  Ask God to increase the intensity of your love as you behold greater views of His Beauty because he has broadened your understanding so that you could see God in all His Glory and Beauty better than before.  You ears had heard that He was Beautiful but now you see Him, therefore you repent of the lower view of God and keep the higher view in mind as you humble yourself even further for the next communication of His Beauty to your whole heart.
6. His Beauty is immutable.  God’s Beauty doesn’t change no matter how much He communicates it to us.  Wow isn’t this a relief!!  Imagine if God could be Beautiful in Holiness one day and the next day Evil.  What a horrible thought.  Praise the Lord that He is immutably Beautiful.  Imagine meditating on the Beauty of the Lord and then one day He has some evil in Him, what a blasphemous thought.  God is always Beautiful.  He was Holy from all eternity past.  His love to Himself always was, is and will be the same yesterday today and forever.  His Beauty does not change!  A rose will blossom and look most beautiful in spring, then it withers.  Not so with God, He doesn’t change like shifting shadows, but God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all for He doesn’t Change.
7. The Beauty of God is His Holiness. Holiness is the very beauty and loveliness of Jehovah himself. ‘Tis the excellency of his excellencies, the beauty of his beauties, the perfection of his infinite perfections, and the glory of his attributes. What an honor, then, must it be to a creature who is infinitely below God, and less than he, to be beautified and adorned with this beauty, with that beauty which is the highest beauty of God himself, even holiness. The highest honor of angels is their holiness. ‘Tis astonishing that God should make even the angels, or any creature, in his own likeness, but how much more admirable is it that God should sanctify sinners—loathsome and abominable creatures—and make them like to himself.  God’s Name is Beautiful.  “Hallowed be thy Name.”
   1. Do you want to be beautiful for Christ on your wedding day?  How Beautiful can you get?  In order to be more beautiful you must seek holiness.  A pure heart and life.  A pure heart is beautiful to the LORD and is a pleasing dwelling place for Him when it is holy, when you are denying yourself no matter what and following Jesus
8. God’s Beauty consists in the knowledge of God.  God knows all things.  God knows Himself.  God has an idea of Himself if I could so say.  That Idea of Himself is His Son, His express image.  That image of God in the Son is Perfect and without flaw and no mixture of evil.
   1. Application.  How does knowing that God’s Beauty consists in the knowledge of God change the way I will live my life today and tomorrow?  Since His Beauty consists in the knowledge of God we must see to understand more of Him in Christ!!  We must grow in our knowledge of God and His will for us and do it in order for our knowledge of His Beauty to grow!!  Read your Bible daily begging God to show you His Beauty!  Never stop growing in your knowledge of God because therein consists the Beauty of God.  As you grow in the knowledge of God keep your holy eyes fixed on His Beauty and don’t stain your eyes with sin.  Sin will hinder your sight of the true knowledge of God’s beauty.
9. God is self-sufficient therefore He gets His Beauty from no one.  Rather God is an infinite fountain of Beauty and Glory therefore He need not get His Beauty from another.
   1. Application
10. God’s Beauty and His Blessedness.  God is infinitely Happy.  His Happiness alway is for He has always beheld His Beautiful Son and therein is God happy.  God Beautiful Son is infinitely delightful to behold.
11. God’s Beauty and His Loveliness.
12. God’s Beauty and His Goodness.  God’s goodness is the flux of His will whereby He is beneficial to his creatures.
13. God necessarily love his own infinite Beauty in proportion to His understanding of it.  God has infinite beauty to behold and He has infinite capacity or infinite knowledge to behold His infinite Beauty or Holiness.  God has infinite capacity to love and delight in His own Beauty and excellency and therefore nothing can be lacking to His being infinitely happy.

Beauty by Contrast.

“Dark am I, yet lovely” Song 1:5

Even the creatures’ happiness is heightened by the full and balanced exercise of the divine attributes, for their lasting happiness consists in a full knowledge of God and self, of which they would be deprived if God did not communicate himself fully. And this means that there must be evil in the world, so that the fullest savor of the divine beauty and goodness may be tasted by contrast.

God is not only beautiful but is Beauty itself and the foundation and fountain all beauty.  God is God, and distinguished from all other beings, and exalted above all, chiefly by his divine beauty, which is infinitely diverse from all other beauty.  God’s Beauty is “that wherein the truest idea of divinity does consist.” Edwards says.

There is the common beauty of God and the special Beauty of God.

Common Beauty of God.

1.  God’s common Beauty in Creation.  This is seen by all around the world no matter what.  This Beauty of God is seen in creation.  In the heavens and all over the earth the beauty of God is manifested in the things that have been made so that no one is with ought excuse, no one can say God has not revealed Himself to me.  Beholding common beauty in general revelation won’t save anyone.
2. God’s common natural beauty in the image of God in man.  All of these constitute the natural beauty of the soul that all men have, wether good or evil.
   1. Seen in greatness of ones knowledge
   2. The extent of ones power
   3. Largeness of ones capacity Ps. 119:32
   4. Acuteness of ones understanding

Special Beauty is revealed only to believers.  Beholding this Beauty has saving power and sanctification power.

1.  Saving power.  The revelation of the special Beauty of Christ to the guilt ridden soul is both sorrowful and joyous at the same time.  Grieving over sin yet delighted to behold His Beauty.  But therein we see our deformity the greatest when we see Him the most Beautiful.  Meaning the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of blind unbelievers to see the Beauty of the LORD at the cross and experience His Love and Grace to them in that spiritual knowledge.  Spiritual because revealed by the Holy Spirit. The sight of the Beauty of the LORD or knowledge of God’s Holiness doesn’t come with just the understand but also with great delight in beholding.  The greater the delight the greater the beauty of the soul, for the soul that delights in the holiness and loveliness of God will become more holy and lovely thus becoming more beautiful.  There is a sight with a special delight that when tasted you will want more and will forsake all sin and cleanse your heart at the cross daily beholding His beauty there.  Meaning God sent Jesus to bear our sins.  God commanded and Jesus went and obeyed.  Jesus obeyed God out of his Love to Him.  Jesus did not sin.  When we see Jesus feeling the full Wrath of God for our sins and it hurt Him beyond imagining and He did this because God wanted Jesus to purchase His Bride.  It is delightful to see how beautifully Jesus Christ stayed holy and proved His love to God and sinful man all in one act.  Then He said it was finished.  He paid the price and at the same time put His Beauty on display like never before for all to see.
2. Sanctifying power.  Sanctification in simple terms means that you are becoming more like Christ.  You are becoming more holy than before.  Your soul is becoming more and more beautiful.  The beautification process has just begun.  And when you die you will be perfectly beautiful with no flaw in you and will still become more and more beautiful as you behold the Glory of God in the face of Christ.  This is life everlasting that we may know Him.  For now this beholding transforms us from one level of beauty or glory to another.  2 Cor. 3:18  This process of beautification goes in 4 stages.

Believers are one with the Beauty of God

We are one with God through our union with Christ.  The closer we are to Christ the closer we are to God, the more beautiful we are.  God see’s this beauty as growing forever therefore infinitely beautiful.  In God’s Mind in Eternity pas You were, always are and will be infinitely beautiful due to being One with the infinite Beauty of Christ.  You are His Fullness.  The Beauty of Christ is His Glory.  Your are the Glory of Christ as woman is the glory of man! 1 Cor. 11:17

God views Christ as One with His bride!  What is Christ’s is ours.  He is ours and we are His.  His infinite Beauty is ours.  We will forever become more and more beautiful!!  His Son is Beautiful.  No being more beautiful than God in Christ and us one with Him in Christ.  Your are the Bride of Christ, the most beautiful, holy, spotless, virgin Bride of Christ.  Draw near to Him more than you draw near to the most beautiful flowers for He is infinitely more worthy to be beheld and most delighted in.  His Beautiful Name, Jesus is like perfume poured out, pleasing and draws me nearer, trusting You more, leaning on You and You alone.

A Christians beauty shines brightest in trials.

First, it seems, the Reformed account of the beatific vision focuses on seeing God personally rather than essentially. The essence, all agreed, is invisible and out of reach of creaturely perception. Rather, the vision of God is a personal vision, and as such, never ceases to be a gift. Second, and this would leave Turretin to the side, the beatific vision is a vision of God pro nobis. For Owen, the vision of God is translated through Christ’s mediatorial office; the God who is for usin Christ is only known in Christ. For Edwards, the beatific vision is given by an act of God’s love, such that the vision is had in that love. The focus then, for both Owen and Edwards, is on the God who gives the vision rather than the vision received. For both, this vision takes up the history of redemption such that it is a vision of God qua Redeemer.

the Triune God of glory opening up his life in love to his creatures in a vision of his true self.

“Take away all the moral beauty and sweetness in the Word, and the Bible is left wholly a dead letter, a dry, lifeless, tasteless thing. By this is seen the true foundation of our duty, the worthiness of God to be so esteemed, honoured, loved, submitted to, and served, as He requires of us, and the amiableness of the duties themselves that are required of us. And by this is seen the true evil of sin; for he who sees the beauty of holiness must necessarily see the hatefulness of sin, its contrary. By this men understand the true glory of heaven, which consists in the beauty and happiness that is in holiness. By this is seen the amiableness and happiness of both saints and angels. He that sees beauty of holiness, or true moral good, sees the greatest and most important thing in the world, which is the fulness of all things, without which all the world is empty, no better than nothing, yea, worse than nothing. Unless this is seen, nothing is seen that is worth the seeing; for there is no other true excellency or beauty. Unless this be understood, nothing is understood that is worthy of the exercise of the noble faculty of understanding. This is the beauty of the Godhead, and the divinity of Divinity (if I may so speak), the good of the infinite Fountain of good; without which, God Himself (if that were possible) would be an infinite evil; without which we ourselves had better never have been; and without which there had better have been no being.”  Edwards

All beauty consists in similarness, or identity of relation. In identity of relation consists all likeness, and all identity between two consists in identity of relation. Thus, when the distance between two is exactly equal, their distance is their relation one to another; the distance is the same, the bodies are two, wherefore this is their correspondency and beauty.  So bodies exactly of the same figure: the bodies are two, the relation between the parts of the extremities is the same, and this is their agreement with them. But if there are two bodies of different shapes, having no similarness of relation between the parts of the extremities, this, considered by itself, is a deformity, because being disagrees with being; which must undoubtedly be disagreeable to perceiving being, because what disagrees with being must necessarily be disagreeable to being in general, to everything that partakes of entity, and of course to perceiving being. And what agrees with being must be agreeable to being in general, and therefore to perceiving being. But agreeableness of perceiving being is pleasure, arid disagreeableness is pain. Disagreement or contrariety to being is evidently an approach to nothing, or a degree of nothing, which is nothing else but disagreement or contrariety of being, and the greatest and only evil; and entity is the greatest and only good. And by how much more perfect entity is, that is, without mixture of nothing, by so much the more excellency. Two beings can agree one with another in nothing else but relation; because otherwise the notion of their twoness (duality) is destroyed and they become one.

And so in every case, what is called correspondency, symmetry, regularity and the like, may be resolved into equalities; though the equalities in a beauty in any degree complicated are so numerous that it would be a most tedious piece of work to enumerate them. There are millions of these equalities. Of these consist the beautiful shape of flowers, the beauty of the body of man and of the bodies of other animals. That sort of beauty which is called “natural,” as of vines, plants, trees, etc., consists of a very complicated harmony; and all the natural motions and tendencies and figures of bodies in the universe are done according to proportion, and therein is their beauty. Particular disproportions sometimes greatly add to the general beauty, and must necessarily be, in order to a more universal proportion—so much equality, so much beauty—though it may be noted that the quantity of equality is not to be measured only by the number, but the intense-ness, according to the quantity of being. As bodies are shadows of being, so their proportions are shadows of proportion.

The pleasures of the senses, where harmony is not the object of judgment, are the result of equality. Thus in music, not only in the proportion which the several notes of a tune bear one among another, but in merely two notes, there is harmony; whereas it is impossible there should be proportion between only two terms. But the proportion is

Thus ’tis easy to conceive how God should seek the good of the creature, consisting in the creature’s knowledge and holiness, and even his happiness, from a supreme regard to himself; as his happiness arises from that which is an image and participation of God’s own beauty;4 and consists in the creature’s exercising a supreme regard to God and complacence in him; in beholding God’s glory, in esteeming and loving it, and rejoicing in it, and in his exercising and testifying love and supreme respect to God: which is the same thing with the creature’s exalting God as his chief good, and making him his supreme end.

Desire-  and be vigorous and lively, is the very same thing with the affection of love: and that disliking and disinclining, if in a great degree, is the very same with hatred. In every act of the will for, or towards something not present, the soul is in some degree inclined to that thing; and that inclination, if in a considerable degree, is the very same with the affection of desire.

With respect also to the creature’s holiness, God may have a proper delight and joy in imparting holiness the beauty of believers to them, as gratifying hereby his inclination to communicate of his own excellent fullness God may delight with true and great pleasure in beholding that beauty which is an image and communication of his own beauty, an expression and manifestation of his own loveliness. And this is so far from himself, that ’tis an evidence that he is happy in himself, or delights and has pleasure in his own beauty. If he did not take pleasure in the expression of his own beauty, it would rather be an evidence that he don’t delight in his own beauty; that he hath not his happiness and enjoyment in his own beauty and perfection. So that if we suppose God has real pleasure and happiness in the holy love and praise of his saints, as the image and communication of his own holiness, it is not properly any pleasure distinct from the pleasure he has in himself; but is truly an instance of it.

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