What makes something beautiful, and how is beauty perfected?

The world has various ideas. In 2020, the global beauty industry was valued at US$500 billion. For many, beauty comes through applying external products bought at a price. We live in a world where beauty is often “made up”. Concealers cover imperfections; eyeliners enhance perceived inadequacies; creams redeem age.

Alongside this is the notion that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Here beauty is a subjective quality, defined only by the onlooker. Opinions could vary wildly. What is beautiful to one may be downright hideous to another, and no amount of adornment will necessarily resolve disputes!

Cutting across the grain of both these ideas is the sentiment made famous by Christina Aguilera in her 2002 song, Beautiful. “You are beautiful no matter what they say; words can’t bring you down”. In this case, beauty is no longer determined by what a company creates for you or what a culture decides about you. Your beauty is fundamentally determined by you and you alone. What you tell yourself is all that matters.

It’s little wonder that songs like this have become social anthems for people who feel ostracised by the world. There is an empowerment that comes through self-affirming individualisation. Perhaps this song has shaped the thought of this current generation more than we realise. It has possibly also caused more grief than it’s willing to admit. What if, for example, a person genuinely cannot find beauty in themselves. What if their individualised truth is that they are ugly? We must accept this as a genuine possibility in a perfectly subjective, hyper-individualised world.

The Bible thinks of beauty in radically different ways, and Psalm 50 gives us insight into what true beauty is.

First, it is fundamentally objective in that all beauty is derived from God. In this way, the measure of beauty is determined by how much it aligns with God’s ideals. This usually has much less to do with physical appearance than it does with character.

Secondly, beauty radiates out from within, rather than merely being applied as a thin veneer to the outside. Jesus refers to this principle (albeit in a negated way) in Mark 7 and Matthew 15. Following a dispute with the Pharisees about law-keeping, Jesus goes on to tell the crowds that it’s not what goes into a person that makes them unclean, but what comes out of them. His point is that beauty and perfection are matters of the heart more than matters of the hands.

So, what makes something beautiful, and how is beauty perfected? Perfect beauty is achieved when God’s presence occupies the heart of a person, place or community and when that heart glows under the influence of his glorious presence. It’s what gave Zion its beauty (Psalm 50:2), it’s what provides the church with its beauty (Colossians 3:15-17), and it’s what every aspect of God’s eternal kingdom will be characterised by (Revelation 4:2-6; 7:9-17; 19:6-9; 21:1-8).