To gaze on the beauty of the Lord
Psalms 27:4 - When that day comes, we will truly “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
Image generated by ChatGPT (OpenAI) using the DALL·E model.
“One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
Psalms 27:4 NIV
Barb and I both love the Psalms; if you haven’t had an opportunity to read her latest series that explores Psalm 34 in detail, follow this link and you can read them all! Today’s verse is part of a beautiful psalm written by David that is often quoted, memorized, and used in sermons.
This psalm begins with celebration of the Lord, then changes with this verse to a more contemplative mood. David had experienced God’s goodness and greatness; this verse appears to be his realization of the joy of seeking God and experiencing His presence.
As you’ll remember, in David’s time the “temple” was an elaborate tent — the tabernacle — that had been moved from place to place during and after God’s chosen people had wandered in the desert. God’s physical presence (the Shekhinah) appeared in the “Holy of Holies”, known in Biblical Hebrew as קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים (Qoḏeš). This was the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, and it was defined by four pillars holding up the veil of the covering under which the Ark of the Covenant was held above the floor. The Ark, as you’ll remember from both your Sunday School and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments that were given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.
David’s wish was to live in the tabernacle, to be surrounded each day by the presence and beauty of God. From David Guzik’s Enduring Word commentary (note that Guzik quotes from the NKJV translation of the Bible):
c. To behold the beauty of the LORD: David knew there was beauty in the nature and presence of God, beauty that could be perceived by the seeking eye of faith. He could think of no greater occupation than to fill his mind and heart with the goodness and greatness of God.
i. There is richness in God, revealed to the seeking heart, that many people never know. It is a shame that David knew this under the Old Covenant, and so many of us — with a greater covenant and greater promises — never know it.
ii. “The character of God is attractive, and fitted to inspire us with love for him, and to make us, as it were, run after him.” (Gray, cited in Spurgeon)
iii. Alexander Pope, a famous writer, once wrote: “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; the proper study of mankind is man.” He thought it was more important for us to learn about ourselves than about God.
iv. An even more famous writer, Charles Spurgeon, responded to Pope’s statement: “It has been said by someone that ‘the proper study of mankind is man.’ I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father.” (This came from Spurgeon’s first published sermon, titled The Immutability of God, delivered on January 7, 1855 — when he was 20 years old.)
d. And to inquire in His temple: In God’s presence, David wished to go from contemplation to inquiry. He wanted to know more of God and more of His ways.
i. It wasn’t that the earthly structure so fascinated David; he wrote this when the tabernacle tent served as a rather humble temple for Israel, before the wonderful building that Solomon built. “It was not the earthly temple itself that charmed David but rather the beauty of the Lord that was to be found at the temple in a special way.” (Boice)
ii. “The two acts complete the joyful employment of a soul communing with God: first perceiving and then reflecting upon His uncreated beauty of goodness.” (Maclaren)
We recently watched a wonderful little movie about the life of C.S. Lewis titled “The Most Reluctant Convert” (2021). In the movie, Lewis reflected on beauty and how he had an early spiritual epiphany when his older brother Warren showed him a perfect little garden in a box that was truly beautiful. I thought about that while writing this devotional, and found that Lewis had made many connections between beauty and the divine nature of God:
“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”
―C.S. Lewis,The Weight of Glory
In many of his works, Lewis noted the deep desire in most humans to connect with beauty and explained that our appreciation of beauty points to something greater than ourselves: God. Like the young woman in the image at the top of this post, we may appreciate a beautiful sunset, but we should never see it as the source of the beauty. Our appreciation of beauty is a reflection of a much deeper truth, just a taste of gazing “on the beauty of the Lord.”
As Christians, we are recipients of a promise which David did not have in his day. Through our faith, we have the promise of an eternal life with Jesus in the new Kingdom. When that day comes, we will truly “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Lord, help us to see all of Your attributes — Your mercy, friendship, provision, peace, strength, understanding, and willingness to love us unconditionally — in this world, for seeing these things in others is seeing Your beauty. Let us recognize and praise You as the source of all beautiful things, and teach us to see our recognition of beauty in Your creation as our longing to be with You and praise You forever. AMEN.