Bro. Ben's Bin

Thoughts on Beauty in an Ugly World

In their 2004 album Head for the Door, the Exies recorded a song called “Ugly,” which cried out the question:

Whether they realize it or not, this secular rock band has painted a pretty faithful, if incomplete, picture of the impact of sin on individuals, communities, and society as a whole. To be sure, the biblical images for sin’s effect with which we are more familiar are the metaphors of blindness and deafness (Matt 13:14-15; 2 Cor 4:4), and death (Eph 2:1). These word-pictures point to the way in which sin affects our reaction (or lack thereof!) to divine revelation. The value of the Exies’ metaphor is that it reminds us of how sin makes us unattractive to each other, how we are much less than the “very good” creation God designed us to be (Gen 1:31).

The idea that sin makes people ugly is the flip side of the coin in Jonathan Edwards’ understanding of beauty. For Edwards, God is "infinitely the most beautiful and excellent." "All the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation is...the reflection of the diffused beams of that being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory."  Edwards thought that the more a creature reflects God, the more beautiful they were. A beautiful person, then, is one who has been conformed to God’s character and purposes.

I think Edwards was on to something here. His definition of beauty means that Jesus Christ is the One who is supremely beautiful in creation. As God, Christ is beauty-itself, the perfect image of the Father (Col 1:15; 2 Cor 4:4). As man, Christ is the perfect fulfillment of what God intended humanity to be; He is the “New Adam” (1 Cor 15:45).

People are naturally attracted to beauty. Not only are men attracted to beautiful women, (and women attracted to handsome men), folks are generally attracted to beauty in nature, art, and craftsmanship. This would lead us to think that Christ is the most attractive Person in all creation (Jn 12:32).

Unfortunately, many find Christ and His Gospel profoundly unattractive. The Gospel makes claims which fall harshly on the ears of most non-Christians; you are a sinner (Rom 3:23), you stand under the judgment and wrath of God (Rom 6:23a), there is nothing you can do to gain God’s favor (Isa 64:6). Though the Gospel is also attractive in itself as “good news,” its beauty is seen more clearly, its attractive power felt more keenly, when people can ‘see Jesus.’ But where can people ‘see Jesus’ today?

The beauty of Christ is replicated in the lives of individuals and churches as people are progressively remade in the “image of Christ.” Christ-likeness is precisely the result which God has promised He will achieve in all of His children (Rom 8:29). It is also the aim of our own response to the sanctifying work of the Spirit in our lives (Col. 3:10-11). Our labor in forming Christ-likeness in people is most commonly called “discipling” (Gal 4:19; Matt 28:19-20). Growth in Christ-likeness matters for evangelism because the beauty of Christ seen in the lives of those who reflect His character is attractive, especially in contrast to the ugliness of a sin-scarred world.

This is the church-growth strategy of Christ and His Apostles (Matt 5:16; Titus 2:7-8, 11-14; 1 Pet 2:12). This must be our strategy. This should be what the teaching in our Sunday School classes and the preaching in our worship services are designed to achieve in the lives of those who claim the name of Jesus. What we are about is the transformation of our depraved characters into the character of Christ, the replacement of vice with virtue—in short, exchanging ugliness for beauty.