Beauty and God

By Mark Driscoll, Mars Hill Church

To be made in the image and likeness of God is to yearn for the creation of beauty that reflects our Creator.

In the genesis of Genesis we discover that "In the beginning God created . . ." In the end God will again create and His second creation will supercede in beauty the first because those things and persons liberated from sin ascend to greater heights than are possible to the unredeemed.

God is the source of art since His creation is the essence of all art. God was the first Creator and provided the elements necessary for art; light, color, shapes, natural objects, diversity, creativity, space, unity and beauty.

After creating man and woman, God proceeded to create a covenant in which they could also create in their image and likeness. Upon seeing his beautifully crafted lover-friend, Adam recognized God's masterpiece and spoke of her in a poem. The first words we have from any man were rhythmic beauty crafted deep from his heart in response to the beautiful creation of God. From Genesis onward the remainder of Biblical history shows painting, sculpting, music, architecture, crafts, poetry, psalms & drama as elements of the redemptive process.

Perhaps the finest artist to have lived was Bezalel, a godly man who made sacred art (Exodus 31-40). The first Spirit-filled man in the Bible, he was chosen by God to be skilled, knowledgeable and able to teach in all kinds of craftsmanship. Since God did not want to be worshipped outdoors like the pagan/pantheistic gods, God assigned Bezalel to build the tabernacle. Repeatedly we are told of the result of the Spirit's leading in his life, "he made…" To be biblically inspired is to make. Aristotle defined art as the capacity to make. Art is the making of anything, from a meal to a symphony.

Bezalel's art was where man met God since the very presence of God dwelt with his art. His art combined fine materials and tremendous symbolism pointing to Christ. His bronze altar for sacrifices pointed to Christ, our sacrifice. The laver, where priests washed and were cleansed before entering the Holy Place and presence of God, pointed to Christ our forgiver of sin. His golden lampstand pointed to Christ the Light of the World. The Table of the Bread of the Presence of Life pointed to Christ the Bread of Life. The Alter of Incense pointed to Christ our incense, the beautiful fragrance to the Father, through whom our prayers ascend to His throne.

Bezalel's counterpart in the building of the temple, Hiram (1 Kings 5-8) was a godless man who also made beautiful sacred art by drinking common grace. Sidions, he and his men worshipped Ashtoreth, the goddess of lust and war (1 Kings 11:5). However, God chose them to create beauty for Him because they were skilled with cedar and pine logs. Indeed, the Creator receives glory from the gifted creators even when their foolish hearts are darkened. Hiram shows us that art for arts sake, absent of an evangelistic tag line or redeemed heart can and does glorify God if done well.

Bezalel's contemporary, Aaron (Exodus 32), was a righteous man who made idolatry. In an effort to entertain a market, Aaron attempted to construct the image and likeness of God. God was displeased with his graven image since the Creator had already created in His image and likeness and told them not to make any graven images. In Aaron we find that even Godly men craft idolatry when God, and not His works, become their visual focus; thereby violating both God and art.

To be human is to desire to create beauty. Beauty is drawn from the well of sincerity. Beautiful art confronts us with universal alienation, suffering, death, ugliness, humiliation, meaninglessness and lostness and points us to seek the source and solution to such pain. Great art drinks to intoxication from the cups of sin and grace.

To accomplish this, the artist cannot merely reflect the fallen state of things in which beauty has been stripped and beaten. It must lift the heart to the condition of things before Adam and Eve worshipped their created selves instead of their Creator in paradise lost. It must also cause a thirst for the beauty yet to be revealed in paradise. Good art seeks to express, consciously or unconsciously, the journey from dead immanence to living transcendence.

Christ is the brush for such creations since He is the one through and for whom all things are created (1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:15-20; Eph. 1:3-14; Jn. 1:3). In Christ, beauty became stripped and beaten, yet resurrected again transformed and renewed. In the death, destruction, defilement and resurrection of Christ's beauty, sin is redeemed and redirected toward the Father. It is Christ who is the pinnacle of renewed physical reality (Rev. 3:14). Therefore, to be empowered by the Spirit to create works of redemption that mirror the ministry of Christ, to the glory of the Father, is the heart and essence of being a co-creator.

Mark Driscoll is the pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington.