Sometimes the beauty of how God has arranged for our salvation is, or at least seems like, an argument for its truth. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so what’s involved here is an agreement that we discover between our own sense of beauty and the order and the shape of the gospel. Or, if you like fancier words, there is a congruence between the human aesthetic sense and the gospel.
I’ve been reading the letter to the Ephesian Christians, which is as good a place as any to encounter the beauty of the gospel. There are all the “all” statements there, which expand the gospel’s effect to the broadest reaches of all creation and still let the love of God in Christ keep its place at the center of the gospel. Or should we say, God’s love is the reason, identity, and nature of the gospel. That’s all too brief, so go read Ephesians 1:3–10, 22–23; 2:4–7; 3:9-10, the passage about universal reconciliation in 2:14–22, and the prayers in 1:17–21 and 3:14–19. There’s quite a rush of allness and huge actions and infinite reaches, and therewith also beauty.
Logic is part of beauty, though the degree to which it is beautiful depends on the beholder. At any rate, the structural beauty of the gospel of salvation in Christ includes the fact that it makes sense. But I would have to make a plea for the illogic of God’s love (see further my posts “Love xiv: Crazy” and “God the Buffoon”) and, in view of Ephesians 3:18–19, for understanding that expanding knowledge of God’s love leads one to recognize that that love is beyond any possibility of our knowing it. The more you know, the more you know that you don’t know.
There are two dangers in discovering the beauty of the gospel, that “congruence between the human aesthetic sense and the gospel,” which both amount to the sense of the gospel’s beauty edging out (or kicking out) the gospel. First, we can think that this congruence means that we can be guided by our “aesthetic sense” in seeking to understand God and/or Jesus and/or the gospel. And it might be beauty in the form of logic that guides us in that way. For instance, all that allness might seem to require a certain belief in the ultimate salvation of every human that has ever lived or will live. In a word, universalism. I say “a certain belief” because I follow Ephesians 3:19 in refusing to say where God’s love ends. But this example can be matched by one heading in the opposite direction. Some Christians have rejoiced at the logic, even beauty, of God finally sending a lot of us humans to Hell.
The other danger of discovering the gospel’s agreement with your human sense of beauty is that, seeing yourself finding it, you can think that that somehow cheapens the gospel and therefore proves there’s nothing transcendent about it. One might as easily find a congruence between the aesthetic sense and some myth or belief system that does not include the gospel of Jesus and, in fact, contradicts the gospel. If the human sense of beauty (and, once again, of logic) prepares our minds to receive the gospel, it might also prepare us to receive something else. And we too quickly assume that the weakening of an argument for truth weakens the truth.
And what if we discover something ugly about the gospel? Isaiah 52:14 and 53:2–3 seems to say we might, and (thinking again of “God the Buffoon”) the other son of the prodigal’s father did just that (Luke 15:25–30).
So then, what? Appreciate the beauty, but don’t be fooled.
I’ve been reading the letter to the Ephesian Christians, which is as good a place as any to encounter the beauty of the gospel. There are all the “all” statements there, which expand the gospel’s effect to the broadest reaches of all creation and still let the love of God in Christ keep its place at the center of the gospel. Or should we say, God’s love is the reason, identity, and nature of the gospel. That’s all too brief, so go read Ephesians 1:3–10, 22–23; 2:4–7; 3:9-10, the passage about universal reconciliation in 2:14–22, and the prayers in 1:17–21 and 3:14–19. There’s quite a rush of allness and huge actions and infinite reaches, and therewith also beauty.
Logic is part of beauty, though the degree to which it is beautiful depends on the beholder. At any rate, the structural beauty of the gospel of salvation in Christ includes the fact that it makes sense. But I would have to make a plea for the illogic of God’s love (see further my posts “Love xiv: Crazy” and “God the Buffoon”) and, in view of Ephesians 3:18–19, for understanding that expanding knowledge of God’s love leads one to recognize that that love is beyond any possibility of our knowing it. The more you know, the more you know that you don’t know.
There are two dangers in discovering the beauty of the gospel, that “congruence between the human aesthetic sense and the gospel,” which both amount to the sense of the gospel’s beauty edging out (or kicking out) the gospel. First, we can think that this congruence means that we can be guided by our “aesthetic sense” in seeking to understand God and/or Jesus and/or the gospel. And it might be beauty in the form of logic that guides us in that way. For instance, all that allness might seem to require a certain belief in the ultimate salvation of every human that has ever lived or will live. In a word, universalism. I say “a certain belief” because I follow Ephesians 3:19 in refusing to say where God’s love ends. But this example can be matched by one heading in the opposite direction. Some Christians have rejoiced at the logic, even beauty, of God finally sending a lot of us humans to Hell.
The other danger of discovering the gospel’s agreement with your human sense of beauty is that, seeing yourself finding it, you can think that that somehow cheapens the gospel and therefore proves there’s nothing transcendent about it. One might as easily find a congruence between the aesthetic sense and some myth or belief system that does not include the gospel of Jesus and, in fact, contradicts the gospel. If the human sense of beauty (and, once again, of logic) prepares our minds to receive the gospel, it might also prepare us to receive something else. And we too quickly assume that the weakening of an argument for truth weakens the truth.
And what if we discover something ugly about the gospel? Isaiah 52:14 and 53:2–3 seems to say we might, and (thinking again of “God the Buffoon”) the other son of the prodigal’s father did just that (Luke 15:25–30).
So then, what? Appreciate the beauty, but don’t be fooled.
- The spell-checker says “allness” is not a word, so at the risk of using another word too affected by other uses, say “inclusivity” instead. On that theme in Ephesians, especially in 3:18–19, see the hymn “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy.”
- “Logic”: I’ve defined it as a parlor game played by a group of ancient Greek elite males, so perhaps I don’t like it. It would be in keeping with our age to regard logic as merely a rhetorical device.
The One Story 