THE BEAUTY OF THE LORD (19 OF 23)
by J.D. Jones
Scripture: PSALMS 90:17
This content is part of a series.
The Beauty of the Lord (19 of 23)
Series: The Hope of the Gospel
J.D. Jones
Psalm 90:17
'The beauty of the Lord our God.' It was Charles Kingsley, was it not, who was overheard in his last illness murmuring quietly to himself, 'How beautiful God is! How beautiful God is!' Perhaps the phrase, 'the beauty of God,' strikes us as just a little inappropriate and incongruous. We do not often apostrophize God as Augustine did-'O beauty, so old and yet so new, too late I loved Thee.' And yet it must be true that God is beautiful. He is indeed the supreme and absolute beauty. The old Greeks put into their statues and representations of their gods their highest conceptions of human beauty; into their Aphrodite, all they knew of womanly charm; into their Apollo, all they knew of manly grace; into their Zeus, all they knew of royal majesty and dignity. The instinct that made them thus identify the divine with the beautiful was altogether right. It was only the mode of expression that was wrong. It was physical beauty they attributed to their deities, and they did this because their conception of deity was material and anthropomorphic. But the Godhead is not like unto silver or gold graven by art and man's device. God is a Spirit, and the beauty that characterizes Him is moral and spiritual beauty. You cannot express this beauty on canvas or in stone, but you can always feel it with the worshipful and believing heart.
From this point of view-that is, from the standpoint of beauty of character-how beautiful God is! You could guess as much from glancing at His works. I remember a friend of mine, after reading a chapter from, I believe, one of John Ruskin's works, remarking to me, 'What a beautiful mind the man has!' And so exactly when I look out upon the works of God's hands I always feel moved to say, 'What a beautiful mind God has!' Take the glory of the springtide. The earth in springtime fills anyone who has any sense of beauty with a perfect exhilaration of deligh ...
Series: The Hope of the Gospel
J.D. Jones
Psalm 90:17
'The beauty of the Lord our God.' It was Charles Kingsley, was it not, who was overheard in his last illness murmuring quietly to himself, 'How beautiful God is! How beautiful God is!' Perhaps the phrase, 'the beauty of God,' strikes us as just a little inappropriate and incongruous. We do not often apostrophize God as Augustine did-'O beauty, so old and yet so new, too late I loved Thee.' And yet it must be true that God is beautiful. He is indeed the supreme and absolute beauty. The old Greeks put into their statues and representations of their gods their highest conceptions of human beauty; into their Aphrodite, all they knew of womanly charm; into their Apollo, all they knew of manly grace; into their Zeus, all they knew of royal majesty and dignity. The instinct that made them thus identify the divine with the beautiful was altogether right. It was only the mode of expression that was wrong. It was physical beauty they attributed to their deities, and they did this because their conception of deity was material and anthropomorphic. But the Godhead is not like unto silver or gold graven by art and man's device. God is a Spirit, and the beauty that characterizes Him is moral and spiritual beauty. You cannot express this beauty on canvas or in stone, but you can always feel it with the worshipful and believing heart.
From this point of view-that is, from the standpoint of beauty of character-how beautiful God is! You could guess as much from glancing at His works. I remember a friend of mine, after reading a chapter from, I believe, one of John Ruskin's works, remarking to me, 'What a beautiful mind the man has!' And so exactly when I look out upon the works of God's hands I always feel moved to say, 'What a beautiful mind God has!' Take the glory of the springtide. The earth in springtime fills anyone who has any sense of beauty with a perfect exhilaration of deligh ...
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