He covered his face, or _they_ covered _their_ faces, lest they should
see. As a man brought suddenly into the sunlight, especially if out of
a darkened chamber, by an instinctive action shades his eyes with his
hand, so these burning creatures, confronted with the still more fervid
and fiery light of the divine nature, fold one pair of their great
white pinions over their shining faces, even whilst they cry 'Holy!
Holy! Holy! is the Lord God Almighty!'
And does not that teach us the incapacity of the highest creature, with
the purest vision, to gaze undazzled into the shining light of God? I,
for my part, do not believe that any conceivable extension of creatural
faculties, or any conceivable hallowing of creatural natures, can make
the creature able to gaze upon God. I know that it is often said that
the joy of the future life for men is what the theologians call 'the
beatific vision,' in which there shall be direct sight of God, using
that word in its highest sense, as applied to the perceptions of the
spirit, and not of the sense. But I do not think the Bible teaches us
that. It does teach us 'We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as
He is.' But who is the 'Him'? Jesus Christ. And, in my belief, Jesus
Christ will, to all eternity, be the medium of manifesting God, and
there will remain, to all eternity, the incapacity which clogs
creatures in time--' No man hath seen God at any time, nor _can_ see
Him.'
But my text, whilst it thus suggests solemn thoughts of a Light that
cannot be looked at with undazzled eyes, does also suggest to us by
contrast the possibility of far feebler-sighted and more sinful
creatures than these symbolical seraphs coming into a Presence in which
God shall be manifest to them; and they will need no veil drawn by
themselves across their eyes. God has veiled Himself, that 'we, with
unveiled faces, beholding His glory, may be changed into the same
image.' So the seraph, with his white wings folded before his eyes, may
at once stand to us as a parallel and a contrast to what the Christian
may expect. We, _we_ can see Jesus, with no incapacity except such as
may be swept away by His grace and our will. And direct vision of the
whole Christ is the heaven of heaven, even as the partial vision of the
partially perceived Christ is the sweetest sweetness of a life on earth.
There is no need for us to draw any screen between our happy eyes and
the Face in which we 'behold the glory as of the only Begotten of the
Father.' All the tempering that the divine lustre needed has been done
by Him who veils His glory with the veil of Christ's flesh, and therein
does away the need for any veil that we can draw.
But, beyond that, there is another consideration that I should like to
suggest, as taught us by the use of this first pair of the six wings,
and that is the absolute need for the lowliest reverence in our worship
of God. It is strange, but true, I am afraid, that the Christian danger
is to weaken the sense of the majesty and splendour and separation of
God from His creatures. And all that is good in the Christian
revelation may be so abused as that there shall come, what I am sure
does in effect sometimes come, a terrible lack of due reverence in our
so-called worship. What does that lofty chorus of 'Holy! Holy! Holy!'
that burst from those immortal lips mean but the declaration that God
is high above, and separate from, all limitations and imperfections of
creatures? And we Christians, who hear it re-echoed in the very last
Book of Scripture by the four-and-twenty elders who represent redeemed
humanity, have need to take heed that we do not lose our reverence in
our confidence, and that we do not part with godly fear in our filial
love. If one looks at a congregation of professing Christians engaged
in their worship, does not one feel and see that there is often a
carelessness and shallowness, a want of realisation of the majesty and
sanctity and tremendousness of that Father to whom we draw near?
Brethren, if a seraph hides his face, surely it becomes us to see to it
that, since we worship a God who is a consuming fire,' we serve Him
with far deeper 'reverence and godly fear' than ordinarily mark our
devotions.