In the Beauty of Holiness by C. M. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 7, 1911

In the Beauty of Holiness

By C. M. S.

SIN stripped man's Eden raiment from him, and left his soul as naked as it did his body; and as long as we remain in sin, we have no covering for the soul. Naked we stand in the presence of all the clothed hosts of heaven, even as our first parents stood in the presence of all the other clothed creatures of the world.

But God has promised a clothing for those who forsake sin. He says: “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and . . . I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.” Rev. 3:5. As sin unclothed man, righteousness will clothe him,—not his own righteousness, for in the sight of heaven that is but “filthy rags.” That covering will be composed of the righteousness of him who lived the life of the human on earth sinlessly, and shed his blood for man's redemption. It is in the robe of Christ's imputed righteousness that redeemed man must appear in the presence of God, even as it is written: “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” Thus “clothed upon,” the soul will stand arrayed in the beauty of the perfection of Christ.

But nature suffered with man in the fall. Her form and face have been altered as much as his in the tragedy that opened with his disobedience. And as the human still bears some resemblance to the Eden man, so does nature as we see her still bear the imprint of the divine Sculptor, who shaped and fashioned her features, and pronounced them “very good.” There is enough still that is lovely to point us back to Eden lost, and forward to Eden restored.

In the beautiful rivers that run down from the mountains to the sea, we have still a slight reminder of the rivers of Eden that flowed out to the four corners of the earth to water and beautify it. They are also still a symbol, though shattered and imperfect, of that “river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God;” of that “pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.”

In the beautiful trees that God permits still to bedeck this scarred and groaning earth, we have a reflection of the trees of the garden that furnished food for our Eden parents, and of that tree of which, though they might not partake under penalty of death, yet partake they did, and surrendered their dominion to the powers of darkness. Though dim reflections of former beauty, still they carry our minds forward to that other tree in the city of God, standing on either side of the river of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations. How they, though marred and imperfect, bridge the chasm from Eden lost to Eden regained!

And the mountains of earth, how they speak to us of the power of God, who has “comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance.” In all their towering grandeur, ragged, rugged, and irregular, they speak of a hand of power whose strength earth has no meter to compute. They are the sources of the rivers, and so they tell us of him who is the Source of the great river of life and salvation. They remind us also of the dwelling-place of God, “in Zion, my holy mountain.” They cause us to think of Jerusalem restored, which is to be “the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain.”

Group them in the gallery of the mind, these mountains, rivers, wooded hills, and flower-strewn plains, and they still

tell us in wondrous chorus of the goodness, the power, the wisdom, the mercy, the long-suffering, and the love of our Father, the builder and the maker of all. But group them as they one day will be grouped for our view when they are all clothed again in the “beauty of holiness,” and when we can look upon them with eyes undimmed and unfettered by sin, and we shall need the tongue of immortality to tell the half of the beauty of that wondrous scene.

In that glorious grouping of the beauties of God's renewed creation, the “beauty of holiness” will have brought back the harmony and perfection lost through the regency of sin in this portion of the universe. In that beauty of holiness must those stand whose eyes are permitted to behold the beauties of that renovated realm. In the beauty of holiness let us serve him, that we may stand clad, on that day, in the garments of his righteousness. No taint of sin will be there; no tear shall dim the eye; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

C. M. S.