A Color Wheel

A few weeks ago, my dad used this illustration of a color wheel to teach us some truths about following God. While the illustration was mainly directed toward my youngest brother, for his understanding, I really liked the parallels that my dad was able to draw, and with his permission, I decided to post his message here.

This color wheel illustrates the fact that all colors come together to become white. In the world of light (not in the world of pigments), all the colors of the rainbow unite together to become white light. We know this because when we use a prism to divide light into its separate parts, we see rainbows.

In a similar way, God has many different aspects of His character. He is both a God of love, and a God of justice. A God of mercy, and a God of vengeance. And these characteristics, which may at first glance seem to be entirely different from each other, unite in His Person in a balanced, holy way.

Many people tend to create their own “god.” They choose one aspect of His character and dwell on that instead of on His whole Personage. Looking at the color wheel, you might say that they take the outermost edge of Red and Orange and say “This is God.” Or they might take the outermost edge of Blue and Green and say, “No, this is God.” Both are correct that God has those attributes, but both are wrong to believe that is all God is. They are creating their own god, which is idolatry. So when you say, “A loving God would never send anyone to Hell,” you are creating your own god – because that statement is not true about the One True God.

Another thing that my dad pointed out is that this color wheel looks very much like a target. The tiny white center represents holiness. The closer you get to the bull’s eye, the better. One of the Hebrew words for sin actually means “missing the mark” – missing the target. Every time that we fall short, we miss the bull’s eye of holiness.

I don’t recall if my dad went into this specifically or not, but something came to my mind during his talk. If you notice, the bull’s eye is right in the center. It is interesting to me that the ancient philosopher Plato believed that virtue was actually the balance between two vices. So for example, on one hand you could have the vice of cowardice, where you are overcome by fear, and on the other hand you could have the vice of foolhardiness, where you jump into danger without giving it any thought. In the middle, as a balance between the two, would be courage. This color wheel could illustrate this well. You could say that cowardice is the yellow edge, and foolhardiness is the purple edge, and courage is right in the middle, in the bull’s eye.

The theme of my dad’s message could be “balance.” We need to read the whole Bible and embrace the whole character of God, which is balanced between the extremes people often try to place on Him. And we need to live a life worthy of His saints, not falling short of the mark, living a life that is balanced – not moving in the direction of unholy extremes, but instead hitting the bull’s eye of perfect holiness.