Holy Beauty!

Bezalel and Oholiab appear only here in Scripture, but their legacy will cast a long shadow through history. Their craftsmanship and execution of the Tabernacle is an unparalleled act of human creativity in response to divine instruction. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Shakespeare’s Hamlet may capture through art the heights of human expression of truth and beauty, but they cannot compare with the Tabernacle.

Philip Ryken, in Art for God’s Sake, notes that Moses, while he recorded the divine design for the tent of meeting, did not work on it himself. He did not have the ability and skills to execute the design, and he relied on others, the artists. Francis Schaeffer’s classic Art and the Bible challenges us to bridge the artificial gap between art and faith by allowing the significance of art to enhance worship and challenge our faith. For Schaeffer all reality is grounded in God’s ultimate reality, so that our spiritual lives are related to every other aspect of life, including the arts. Richard Harries, in Art and the Beauty of God, argues that biblical faith must give an important place to the idea and appreciation of beauty, as part of our worship. Art has a spiritual dimension, and spiritual life has artistic expression.

We are called to worship God “in the splendor of his holiness” (Psa. 96:9). Visual arts, music and dancing have always been a part of Jewish culture, as when the Israelites escaped from the Egyptians and they worshiped God by singing and dancing (Exod. 15:1-21). Today the arts are often divorced from faith, or even seen as a challenge to it, but art that reflects the beauty of God is surely one of the most powerful expressions of praise and deepest affirmations of faith. Jesus himself is beautiful beyond description.

Look at a favorite picture or listen to a favorite piece of music for five minutes, and then record your thoughts. How does it add to your worship of God?