I believe that one of the most precious things about having a relationship with God is the ability to hear his voice. I hear his voice when studying the bible, when praying, through people, and through random things in my day to day. But it’s also been really especially cool to experience God speak to me through things that he knows I like and understand. And for many years now that thing has been movies. Years ago he spoke to me through The Lion King, and two years later he spoke to me through Beauty and the Beast. At the time I fleshed out the entire analogy in my journal. As I did, it wrote itself, with one sequential point following the other. So here it is! I hope you enjoy, and I pray that God uses it to speak to you in even more ways than he has spoken to me.

To begin, let’s compare the Beast and the members of his castle to the Kingdom of God. The Beast wasn’t always a beast, and the members of the castle weren’t always objects. They transform after they are put under a curse by a fairy who saw that there was no good in the Prince’s heart. His transformation into a Beast matches the outside to the inside. And then the members of the castle transform from humans into objects of the castle. After the Prince transforms, he doesn’t really rule the Kingdom anymore. Though the castle is still near the village, there is now a dark gloom cast over it, and we never see anyone go anywhere near the castle, much less into it. So essentially the Beast and the members of the castle live in exile.

Similarly, when the fall of man happened, Adam and Eve were exiled out of the Garden of Eden for sinning against God. The text says “lest they now pick from the tree of life.” In theory, if they had picked the fruit of the tree of life after they had sinned, they probably would’ve stayed forever in their sin. So there was protection from God for them even in their exile. But now these two beings that were created for a relationship with God had to deal with the issue of sin, and sin separates us from God. With sin now within us, part of our nature, we fall short of perfection. We cannot be holy on our own. So God, who is holy, out of his love, sent his son Jesus to live a sinless life on earth, die for our sins, in our place, and resurrect. Through him we have forgiveness for our sins, and are restored into relationship with God, that begins here, and continues in heaven. Jesus breaks the curse of sin, and the power it had over us. The members of the castle, and the Beast, similarly, would only be able to escape living in a permanent state of exile, if and when the curse gets broken. The Beast would need to find true love in order to break the curse. (Just like true love from God broke off the power and curse of sin.) When Adam and Eve sinned, they did not physically die but instead suffered a spiritual death. Though the Beast and the castle members didn’t physically die, they still transformed into things that they weren’t before. In their new state, they fell short of their purpose. The Beast was no longer ruling a Kingdom. And the castle members were no longer serving. Though everyone was physically alive, they didn’t experience the full life they once had when they were humans. Living as a Beast, a clock, a teapot or a candle was significantly more limiting than living as a human being. They would only return to their true form after the breaking of the curse.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”-2nd Corinthians 5:21

We experience a similar limitation. Through Christ’s sacrifice we can be counted as righteous & pure before God, and reconciled to Him. But so long as we are in human skin we still have our sinful nature to fight against until we get to heaven. We no longer have to live ruled by sin because Jesus sets us free. But when we accidentally sin, we have forgiveness, but we still need to genuinely repent before the Lord. It’s this constant battle between our flesh and our spirit. But because of salvation & reconciliation offered through Jesus, we get to experience forgiveness, full life with God on earth, and the promise of eternal life in heaven. He lets us choose if we want to accept Jesus and live in relationship with God. But if we choose not to, and die without salvation, it’s too late. Along the same lines, in the film, if the curse is not broken by the time the last petal falls, the Beast and the castle members would all be doomed to stay their current state forever. (Their version of hell.) The movie even phrases the curse as “for all eternity.” The rose thus becomes a symbol of temporal life.

Now let’s look at Belle. Belle is the one who breaks the curse. So for this analogy we’ll have her, in a very limited way, represent Jesus. And let’s have the people in her village represent the world. Belle sticks out, she’s beautiful and full of knowledge. However the villagers gossip about her behind her back, and reject her way of living. They say “she’s rather odd, she really is a funny girl (meaning weird,) that Belle.” But Belle is focused on living for more than her provincial life, beyond her village. Just like Jesus’s focus was on the things of heaven, the eternal. He’s focused on his mission of laying his life down so that anyone who accepts him, can be saved, and be with Father God. He said “my Kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36 Not only Belle, but also her father, didn’t perfectly fit into their town. This reminds me of what Bethlehem and Nazareth were like for Jesus. Bethlehem is known as the place that did not make room for Jesus to be born. He gets born in Bethlehem in a manger. Nazareth (the town where Jesus grew up,) was known as the place where Jesus could realize the least miracles, because of the lack of faith of the people there. The villagers didn’t see Belle’s hunger for knowledge as a good thing, just like some people didn’t accept Jesus as the messiah, or even accept the fact that they needed saving. The villagers called Belle odd because of her pursuit of knowledge, just as the righteous pursuit of God’s wisdom is dismissed as foolishness in the eyes of the world. Some even went so far as to call Jesus demonized, because they didn’t understand/believe that he was the son of God.

Belle, in the film, functions as a sort of ‘messiah’ for the Beast and the members of his castle, because she will break the spell. Let’s look at her arrival at the castle.

Before writing down the analogy, I rewatched the movie, and I noticed a tremendous loophole. If someone trespasses your property then that person is punished. If two people trespass your property then two people are punished. However the same does not follow in Belle’s story. When her father trespasses the Beast’s castle, he’s immediately taken in as a prisoner. It should then follow that when Belle trespasses, she is also taken in as a prisoner. But this doesn’t happen. She is not taken in as a prisoner until she chooses to be, so that she can take the place of her father.

Jesus is the world’s prisoner when he’s on the cross. He didn’t have to be, but he chose to be, so that we could be saved. “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life–only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay down my life–only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.“ John 10:18 Belle goes into the castle looking for her father. And when she finds him, she selflessly offers to takes his place in order to save him. Jesus also chose to come to the world with the intention of finding & saving us. The Beast allowed Belle to lay down her life for her father and take his place, to pay for his trespassing. And Jesus submitted to God’s will, to lay down his life, and pay for our sins on the cross. Belle’s punishment in the film was to live there for the rest of her life. Jesus too paid for our sins with his whole life.

Now let’s think of Belle (not as representing the messiah,) but as a normal human, who echoes the fall of man. Belle’s father was going to serve a life sentence in the prison cell, but Belle, when she takes his place, gets to serve in a spacious, beautiful princess room. She’s also free to roam around the entire castle, with the exception of one forbidden room. This reminds me of how Adam & Eve were allowed to eat from any tree in the garden, except from the forbidden tree: the tree of good and evil. When Belle disobeys and enters the forbidden room, she almost touches the enchanted rose. Had she touched the rose, she could’ve quickened the curse, and caused everyone in the castle to permanently stay in their spell-bound form. The sin of Adam & Eve corrupted humanity. From then on each generation was born with sinful nature. We have access to God by our spirit. And because of Jesus, we can, by his sacrifice, be made holy & have authority over sin, so that we are no longer ruled by it. The loophole is that Jesus is himself God. When he came down to earth, he was 100% man and 100% God. That’s how he was able to live perfectly, even as he faced temptation. And that’s how his sacrifice was counted to cover all of humanity’s sin once and for all. It was covered, because though he took the place of sin, no sin was found in him. So then he won against sin, and his own resurrection power raised him to life. Now through him, we too can be raised to life spiritually in our life on earth, and then live in heaven forever.

“Oh death, where is they sting? Oh grave, where is they victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1rst Corinthians 15:55-57

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free.” Luke 4:18