The Beauty of Holiness

Isaiah 6:2-3
Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

Psalm 29:2
Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

“Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD.” Therefore, “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” God is holy and those who have this holy divine life in them must worship the Lord in the beauty of His own holiness.

The beauty of holiness is the beauty of God for God is holy. In human yet divine terms, the beauty of holiness is the beauty of Jesus. The beauty of holiness is the beauty of Jesus shining through us.

The life and character of Jesus manifested in us is true holiness. The fruit of the Holy Spirit is the expression of the holiness of Jesus. The fruit of the Spirit is love expressed as joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance. This is holiness, the life of the holy one made manifest.

Holiness must originate in the life of the holy one—Jesus. When Jesus lives through the Jesus-dependent believer, the beauty of holiness is seen. The fruit of the Holy One is love in all of it’s beautiful manifestations.

Joy, deeper than soul-level happiness, is beautiful. It is divine radiance.

Peace, emanating from the indwelling Christ, is beautiful. It is beyond human calm.

Longsuffering, the patience of Jesus Himself, is beautiful. It is supernatural understanding.

Gentleness, the kindness of God, is beautiful. It is the opposite of man’s way.

Goodness, bubbling up from the fountain of good/from the Lord Himself who is good, is beautiful. It is who God is.

Faith, that which produces faithfulness, is beautiful. It is the great faithfulness of God working in man as man trusts in God.

Meekness, a genuine preference for God’s will, is beautiful. It is absolute surrender to the will of God.

Temperance, Spirit-energized self-control, is beautiful. It maintains divine restraint.

With these elements combined, the fruit of the Holy One manifests the beauty of holiness. The Spirit-filled life is the Spirit filling you with the life of Jesus. Since Jesus is holiness personified, the Spirit-filled life is the beauty of holiness. This is real holiness.

Often holiness is reduced to mere external requirements that even unbelievers can readily imitate. But if such externals are not animated by the indwelling Christ, they are not holy. They are, instead, efforts of self-righteousness that God labels as filthy rags, and just as all unrighteousness is unholy, so all self-righteousness is unholy.

The Spirit-filled life is humanity clothed with deity and deity clothed with humanity. Faith accesses the reality of Christ living in the believer. The beauty of holiness then is the beauty of the Holy One radiating from the inside out.