Colour

God loves colour – he created it! Have you ever looked at the beauty of the tints and tones in a beautiful flower – God designed that! God is in to vibrant living colour – in fact we can discover much about God by taking notice of how he uses colour!

Indeed – not only does our creative God design his world with the most beautiful use of colour – but   colour is important to him for other reasons – for colour displays his character.

The first striking instance of this was when God commanded Moses to build the first Tabernacle in the wilderness – which was in fact a tent – a place where he could meet with men. God instructed Moses –

• “Make the Tabernacle from ten curtains of finely woven linen. (Linen is white) Decorate the curtains with blue, purple, and scarlet thread and with skilfully embroidered cherubim”. (Exodus 26)

Only a blind person could come near this tent without noticing these four colours –

• WHITE -  BLUE -  PURPLE -  SCARLET

And these four colours give us balanced picture of the character of God – a picture which is repeated again and again throughout the Bible.

I believe that one of the great mistakes of many churches is that they focus on one colour to the exclusion of the others – one of the results of which are the divisions, denominations and the plethora of churches we find in our world today. We will explore this in more detail later.

The fact is that these four colours represent different aspects of the character of God -

• Fine Linen, which is dull white, is normally the clothing, at least in the Middle East, of the common man.

• Purple is the colour associated, almost universally, with Kingship/Royalty.

• Scarlet, again almost universally – is the colour associated with sacrifice – for it is the colour of blood.

• Blue – is the colour of heaven – where God was supposed to live.

So these four colours – are chosen by God to represent the four main aspects of his character. He is -

• God over all

• King of Kings and Lord of Lords

Yet he is at one and the same time

• The suffering Servant

• The Man

As God we honour and worship him. As King we live under his authority and rule. As servant he meets our every need and provides for us all we require for life and for eternity and as Man he is the friend who is closer to us than a brother or sister – one who knows what it is like to live my life – to feel my pain and to know my suffering.

And I need to know God in each of these ways –if not my appreciation of him and my relationship with him will be incomplete.

Of course four colours – these four aspects are not enough to describe all God is – for his character is multi faceted – but in his own wisdom God gives us these four colours to help us understand him.

But these four colours also reveal a bigger principal seen throughout the Bible and it is the principal not only of four COLOURS – but the principal of FOUR.

For instance, and perhaps most strikingly, we have four gospels – each of which has a theme connected with these four COLOURS.

• Matthew – primarily views Jesus as a King who has come to set up His Kingdom.

• Mark – primarily views Jesus as the suffering servant of God who has come to offer himself as a sacrifice for men and women.

• Luke primarily views Jesus as the perfect man – an example for all to follow.

• John primarily views Jesus as the majestic, divine and holy Son of God.

Jesus also came for four main reasons –

• He came as a conquering King to invade the realm and territory of Satan in order to establish his Kingdom. In so doing he defeats (as a King) the power of darkness, evil and death.

• He came as a servant to seek lost humanity and lead them back to relationship with his Father – to bring them home. So we have pictures of him as the servant shepherd seeking for the lost sheep and when he finds them he carries them in his arms to the safety of the Fathers fold.

• He came also as a man – experiencing out pain, our joys, and our sorrows and at one and the same time demonstrated a life of perfect communion with his Father.

• And he came as God– to reveal to us the very heart of The Father – the human face of God if you like – in his unfailing love, grace, mercy and compassion.

And all of these meet the need of the human condition –

• He comes to me as my loving King – and in love I bow daily and acknowledge his Lordship in my life. I need a King.

• He comes to me as my servant, shepherd, and saviour – to sacrifice himself for me and to bring me back to the Father. I need a Servant/Saviour

• He comes to me as Friend – the one who is closer and more intimate than any human companion can ever be. I need a friend.

• And he comes to me as God of all creation – God of my life – the one I worship and adore. I need a God to worship.

But, as we said earlier, what has happened is that very often, Churches and individual Christians have focused on one colour – on one aspect of who God is – and as a result we have imbalanced and sometimes dysfunctional Churches and Christian lives. For instance –

Some churches emphasise the Kingly aspect of God and his Divine Authority. Their big emphasis is apostolic authority – strong leadership and the subservience and obedience of the people. This movement very often sing battle songs, talk about taking the land and major on spiritual warfare. Some of us experienced the fallout from what was called the “Heavy Shepherding Movement” – still prominent in some circles – where if you will not come under the authority of the leaders – you are rejected and ostracised. This is dysfunctional church. I think this is  probably the most destructive colour imbalance – because it is power based and very often becomes abusive.

Other branches of the church, in what are termed “Evangelical Circles” place an imbalanced emphasis on Jesus as Saviour – to the exclusion of everything else. He is Saviour of course – but he is more than that.

Yet others, major on Jesus as man and friend – on the sympathetic nature, love and mercy of God – to the exclusion of the fact he is righteous King with expected standards of behaviour in his Kingdom. The end result of this is – anything goes – because God is love – which of course he is – but he is more than that. And so we could go on.

Suffice to say – a balanced, healthy Church and Christian life require that we relate to God in all the aspects of his character and enjoy him in full Technicolor!

Steve Taylor