The Bible speaks of beauty. It often says that a woman was beautiful in form and appearance. It says of men that they are handsome and admirable in strength and stature. The Bible speaks of physical beauty as something that God has made. Because God is perfect and pure in his beauty, all that He has made reflects His beauty. Man is drawn, notices and is captured by beauty. Our eyes see and become fixed on something beautiful. Our hearts think and daydream and dream about beautiful things. We watch the sunrise and sunset because they’re beautiful. Some enjoy the beauty of nature. Others the beauty of the heavens, the sky. Others see animals as beautiful. All of us recognize beautiful people. The things we make have a beauty, an admirable quality about them that we desire. God is beauty and His beauty is seen all around and because we are created in His image, we love beauty. It takes our breath away.
A Newsweek article states that women start to spend a significant amount of money on their hair, face and body, as early as their ‘tween’ years, the few years before they become a teenager. The report suggests that tweens spend an average of $7,170 throughout this phase, just to look and feel better about themselves. Over the course of a lifetime, the average woman spends nearly half a million dollars on beauty and hair treatments alone, say the editors at Newsweek. Additionally, Americans (men and women) spend around $7 billion on cosmetics a year, not including cosmetic surgery, diets and weight loss programs. We love our beauty. It takes their breath away.
I am convinced that we’ll never rid ourselves of the nagging thought, “How do I look?”. If I think I look good, I feel good about myself. If I know others think I look good, I feel even better about myself. We pursue beauty in order to be accepted. It’s possible to place so much emphasis on feeling good about myself that “how do I look” consumes my life. Clothing has a major part to play in this.
How we dress and undress our bodies speaks to how we view our image and the purpose of our beauty.
THE ORGIN AND PURPOSE OF CLOTHING AND BEAUTY
The concern over our image is a result of the fall of sin. Adam and Eve were not ashamed of their bodies and they did not need clothes, until after they sinned. Sin ushered in a need for clothing because of the shame over being naked. The origin of clothing should tell you everything about the purpose of clothing. Covering.
Genesis 3:21 states that God made clothing. Clothing is God’s idea. Every person since Adam and Eve wears God’s idea. Being clothed is God’s intent to cover our bodies; to cover our shame; to keep and guard and cherish our bodies. Clothing is not intended to consume us, but to remind us.
While clothing was a consequence of sin, it was also a demonstration of the grace and mercy of God in covering shame due to sin. The body reflects God, but clothing speaks to God’s care for the body and his promise of grace for our sin. Shame in being naked before others is, I believe, the physical counterpart to the spiritual reality of shame in being exposed in our sin before a holy God. Clothing is the physical counterpart to the grace given us in Christ. Many people, though, do not hesitate to undress their bodies. This is because they have no shame or fear over their sin before a holy God. A Christian engaged in sensuality does so because they have ceased feeling conviction over their sin. What once brought them shame to do now they do without delay or regret.
THE TWISTING AND RUINING OF THE PURPOSE OF CLOTHING AND BEAUTY
Proverbs 11:22 says, “Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.” In other words, if a woman dresses seductively, her beauty is as a gold ring in a pig's snout. What is seductively? To sexually stimulate another. This would be a waste of her beauty. But this is not a waste by the cultural standards of our day. Rather it is the height of achievement: how many men can you get to notice you and lust after you. The purpose of image and beauty has been twisted and ruined. Why do stores use half-naked people to sell clothes?! To make us feel as attractive and desirable as the people in the picture. Whereas God designed clothing to cover us, now we design clothing to be taken off.
In Peter’s day, the external use of adornment and cosmetics could be seen as an attempt to seduce. So, if a married woman left her home adorned and alone there was great suspicion. But writing to Christian wives whose husbands were not Christians but allowed them to go to Church, Peter asks them to consider their external appearance. (1 Peter 3:3-4) If she was to leave home without her husband to go to church, that would be questionable. But if she left the home without her husband, but also without adornment or cosmetic, her intent to go to church to worship God would be all the more clear. So, while today you don’t have to leave your home un-adorned, please understand that by the way that you look your intent is either confirmed or denied. Quite simply, your intent to follow Jesus is upheld or torn down by how you present yourself.
Tim Keller says that men perceive beauty as something to be prized. Women desire to be prized. Men feel powerful if they have many beautiful possessions. Women feel secure if they are treated as beautiful. The combination of these two factors makes for a dangerous scenario because men use power to acquire and women use beauty to be acquired - men take by force, while women want to be “purchased” or carefully chosen.
The twisting of a man’s natural desire and of the woman’s natural need results in men stealing and rejecting and in women seducing and disrespecting. The more a person calls attention to their body, the more they are going against God’s intent. To take off your clothes (or to wear hardly none at all) is to go against God by taking off what He has put on. To call attention to yourself beyond how God has made you is to go against God’s design.
THE RESTORING OF THE PURPOSE OF CLOTHING AND BEAUTY
The body is an image. The body is a temple. It is an image in the sense that it reflects something or someone it is in the likeness of. For the Christian this is Christ. It is a temple in the sense that it is the dwelling place of the presence of God. This is the Holy Spirit. This doesn’t mean that Christians should be the worse dressed and ugliest people on the planet! Not at all. But it does mean that we are not consumed with our image and by the things that will make us look and feel better. We will not draw attention to ourselves out of sinful motivations, namely pride and sensuality.
1 Thessalonians 4:4 says that we should control our body in holiness. This means controlling and using it in a way that is set apart for God and for His glory. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says that our whole body, along with our spirit and soul, should be kept blameless. This means that we should take care and preserve our bodies in the knowledge of and recognition that Jesus is coming back.
Inward beauty determines outward beauty. An inner submission to God will result in an exterior obedience to Him. If you are submitted to God, in your heart, then your external beauty will reflect that. Why you dress will be pleasing to Him above being pleasing to any man or woman. When a person turns to Christ they begin to have a sense of His love for them and in turn they begin to do all things out of love for Him. While before they used their image to gain acceptance, now they use their image as a reflection of God. How you dress is a reflection of your heart’s desires. If you dress fashionably seductive, your heart is pursuing attention and affection. If you dress fashionably modest, your heart is content with or without attention and affection. We must empty ourselves of the desire to be beautiful for the purpose of being noticed and praised and having the power over someone. We must fill ourselves with the desire to be beautiful for the purpose of reflecting God, the true object of the desire of our heart. Internal beauty makes external beauty possible, not the other way around.
We would do well to remember Paul’s words in Romans 12:1-2. We are called to present our bodies as worship to God. We are called to not be conformed to the worldly way of thinking about our bodies, but to be transformed to the godly way of thinking. The mind, how we think, is critical. Our mind must be consumed with God, then we will be able to think and discern what is the will of God and how we should act, reflecting Him in a good, acceptable and perfect way.
“The Beauty Breakdown: What a Lifetime of Cosmetic Maintenance Will Cost a Modern Diva.” Newsweek 2010. Web. 20 April 2010
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