THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS

(Republished Post by: Lilly Hobbs)

I simply cannot get over the fact that in the resurrection, the Lord makes even death itself beautiful.

The relationship between Christ’s defeat of death and the cultivation of beauty is certainly worth contemplating.

When we think of the cross and Jesus’ resurrection, we tend to think of Jesus conquering the grave, and with it, granting all His people freedom from death, freeing us from sin and providing us with eternal life.

As Christians, we should absolutely perceive the Gospel as a movement from death to life. However, our God doesn’t stop there.

On the cross, Jesus took our sins and our shame. Yes. But He also removes our ugliness.

When God created the earth and man, what did He do? He declared it good. His creation was free from sin. It wasn’t just good, it was also beautiful, but with the Fall, that beauty was marred. Sin did not just corrupt man’s heart; it brought ugliness into the beautiful world He created.

The perfect beauty of the Garden of Eden was instantly transformed into a battlefield, a battlefield full of violence and war, day by day destroying the beauty and the innocence of God’s good creation. 

Ever since the Fall creation has groaned under the weight of all of mankind’s ugliness. Mankind was wounded both internally and externally by the enemy.

Remember, our enemy cannot create anything good, or pure, or beautiful because he has cut himself off from the very source of those things. All he can do is steal, kill, and destroy the beauty He sees Christ creating (John 10:10).

I find it quite interesting that God told Adam that if he ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would die. However, we know Adam didn’t die as soon as he ate the fruit. He started to decay, and the beauty he had been given by his Creator came slowly undone until it was completely consumed and turned to dust by death.

Christ, however, came to defeat death and all that it brought with it. On that old rugged cross, Christ took on every part of our ugliness. Can you imagine? The very incarnation of beauty itself was made hideously ugly.

Not only does the Lord seek to restore that beauty and innocence by inviting us to die to ourselves and experience a glorious resurrection in Him, but He goes a step further.

He invites us to be made holy, to take on His beautiful image, and to share that with Him for eternity. What love!

I read a quote the other day that made me pause and reflect on the goodness of Jesus. It said, “He that sees the beauty of holiness sees the greatest and most important thing in the world. The old has passed away; all things have become new. We are to pursue godliness with unbridled zeal.”

Jesus defeated both death and ugliness. He walked out of the tomb victorious and beautiful!

This, my friend, is what He does for each of us. He brings us back to life, conquers our ugliness, and restores our beauty.

The beauty of holiness is indeed the greatest and most important thing in the world. Why, you ask? Because Jesus wasn’t willing to let us stay in our ugliness. He paid the price on that old rugged cross so that you and I could be made beautiful like Himself.

We don’t deserve it, we could never earn it, but our ugliness is made beautiful by love.

“Our humblest moments are the spaces in which God’s reign returns to earth, and I believe that the beauty we claim and create in response to that in-breaking life can be a radical defiance of evil. We are called to courageous creation, for the making of beauty is our gentle and holy defiance of the forces of disintegration and the powers of darkness.”  (Sarah Clarkson)

SO, WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE?

= Has Jesus truly changed you?

= Are you claiming the Lord’s beauty in a world full of evil and darkness?

= What are you going to do differently?