The Gospel Day; Or, the Light of ChristianityOrr, Charles Ebert
Religion
The Gospel Day; Or, the Light of Christianity
Orr, Charles Ebert
Christianity
Holiness is the image of God. A holy seer, in a vision, saw the Lord and
his high throne. He saw the angels hovering over and heard one shouting,
“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his
glory.” Isa. 6:1-3. Nothing in earth or in heaven is so beautiful as
holiness. The Scriptures are sublime in their description of the
loveliness of the celestial world. Poets have sung of the exquisite
delights of that better land. The crowning feature of attractiveness is
holiness. Should the despiser of holiness be permitted to stroll through
the fields of heaven he would find no object of beauty there. The rose of
Sharon would be but a faded flower, “no beauty that we should desire him.”
Isa. 53:2.
The one object and desire in the life of the sweet singer David, a
holiness admirer, was to dwell in the house of the Lord all his days to
“behold the beauty of the Lord.” Psa. 27:4. The beautiful holy image of
God was seen upon man in his creation. He manifested the holy character of
his Creator. He was in nature like God. The Almighty in looking over the
works of creation saw that everything he had made, man included, was very
good (Gen. 1:31); therefore we can rightly conclude that as he looked upon
man he looked upon a creature as pure and holy and faultless as an angel
in heaven, else he would not have pronounced him very good. Such without
controversy was the state of man by creation: as holy and as pure in his
nature as his Maker. But a sorrowful change came to man. He transgressed
the law of his God, and as a result the holy image of the Creator was
supplanted by the hideous deformity of sin.
After the transgression, God again looked upon man and “saw that his
wickedness was very great in the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Gen. 6:5. This grieved
him at his heart, and he repented of having made man. However he purposes
that man shall yet enjoy the blessing of a holy state. Accordingly he sent
his Son to this world to redeem him. This Son was in the image of the
Father “in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which
believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the
image of God, should shine unto them.” 2 Cor. 4:4. “Who is the image of
the invisible God, the first-born of every creature.” Col. 1:15.
The Father has ordained that man in the Son should be made holy or in his
original purity. “According as he hath chosen us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love.” Eph. 1:4. “In holiness and righteousness before him, all the
days of our life.” Luke 1:75.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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