A Devotion from G. Campbell Morgan
O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. —Psalm 96:9
The word translated “beauty” here is somewhat rare. It suggests honor or glory or beauty, an inherent quality, not something put on from without, but something revealed to the eye and appealing to the emotion and the mind as glorious and beautiful in itself, yet belonging essentially to the item with which we are brought into contact.
The psalmist is appealing to people to praise God, calling them to recognize his greatness, his glory, calling them to think of his power and majesty, urging them to answer the things their eyes see and their hearts feel by offering praise to him. In this call so poetic and full of beauty is revealed the meaning of worship, its condition and glory. “O worship the Lord.” The supreme thing is worship. But how is worship to be rendered? “In the beauty of holiness.” Wherever you find beauty, it is the outcome of holiness. Wherever you find beauty as the outcome of holiness, that beauty itself is incense, is worship. To live the life of holiness is to live the life of beauty, and that is to worship.
When Charles Kingsley lay dying, he said, “How beautiful God is!” We are almost startled by the word. We speak of his majesty. We speak of his might. We speak of his mercy, his holiness, his love. Yet there is nothing of God that he has made more conspicuous to us than his beauty. Every manifestation of God is full of beauty.
The beauty of God, blossoming in the daisy, blazing in the starry heavens—brings you back to my text, “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” All the beauty of flowers, in form and color and perfume, are of God. All the beauty of the seasons—spring and summer and autumn and winter; all that is beautiful in human beings physically, mentally, spiritually, and all that is beautiful in the interrelation between people is of God.
God is a God of glory. God is a God of love. But he is also the God of beauty.
I stayed with a friend in Devonshire who brought from his greenhouse a spray of roses and put them under the microscope. And the more closely I looked, the more perfect they were. The beauty of God is revealed in the tiniest cell of the flower. God is very beautiful, and everything that is of God is essentially beautiful.