The Psalmist talks of worshiping the Lord in “the beauty of holiness” (Psalms 29:2, 96:9). For years I’ve wondered what that meant. There seemed to be a promise in that phrase, and I wanted to understand it, so I kept searching for its meaning. I found helpful inspiration in the account of John in the book of Revelation.
The Bible relates a rather profound spiritual experience that John had of the presence of God. A transcendent view of the beauty of spiritual reality flooded his consciousness. Beginning to describe this view, he wrote: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1). Mary Baker Eddy writes about this experience in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet beholding what the eye cannot see,—that which is invisible to the uninspired thought. This testimony of Holy Writ sustains the fact in Science, that the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the unillumined human mind, the vision is material” (p. 573).
Obviously John was experiencing “the beauty of holiness.” But what is it? And how can we find it?
