Open your Bibles with me to the
book of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 61. This morning I want to speak
to you on the subject, the garments of salvation. Mainly from verse
10, I'll deal with the whole chapter in brief, Look at verse
10 of Isaiah chapter 61 on the garments of salvation. It says
in verse 10, I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be
joyful in my God for he hath clothed me with the garments
of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe
of righteousness as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments
and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels." Now, as you
know, this language that is used here is a language that uses
symbols to describe salvation and all of its blessings. This
is a metaphor, that's a symbol or an image. of salvation and
the symbol is salvation as clothing, as a garment that God puts upon
his people. Now that kind of language is
not new in the book of Isaiah. It goes all the way back to the
book of Genesis and I want you to turn there with me. Genesis
chapter 3. In fact you'll see the first
time that this metaphor is used. is right after the fall of man
in Genesis chapter 3. And as you know, Adam and Eve,
Adam fell. Adam, as the representative of
the whole human family, plunged the whole human race into sin
and death. And Adam and Eve, once they fell,
it says their eyes were opened and they realized they were naked.
Now, nakedness in the scripture is also a metaphor for lack of
righteousness, unrighteousness. It's a metaphor for shame, being
exposed to the wrath of God. That's the spiritual importance
of that nakedness there. And what they did, you remember
what Adam and Eve did, they, by their own volition and their
own way of thinking, they got fig leaves and sew garments to
put over their nakedness, to cover themselves, fig leaf aprons. And there you have another symbol,
another metaphor, you might say. Man trying to cover his guilt,
to cover his lack of righteousness, to cover his shame with his own
ways, his own works. And after the Lord, when he brought
them before him The scripture says they were ashamed, they
were afraid. That's because of that guilt
and alienation because of sin. The Lord pronounced and proclaimed
the coming of the Messiah in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15,
the seed of woman, who would bruise the head of Satan. That's
Christ, the seed of woman. That speaks of His humanity.
He's God in human flesh, God-man. And how He would come and overturn
what Satan did in bringing the human family into sin and condemnation. And Christ, for his people, for
God's chosen people, would bring in righteousness. He would put
away the guilt of sin and the condemnation by taking the place
of his people and dying in their stead as their surety. He was
set up before the foundation of the world as the surety of
God's people. And it says, look at Genesis
chapter 3 and verse 20. Now after that proclamation,
remember he pronounced three curses, one upon the serpent,
one upon the woman, and one upon the man. And it says in verse
20, and Adam called his wife's name Eve. Did you ever notice
that how in the book of Genesis, Eve is not named Eve until after
the fall? Before the fall, you know what
her name was? Woman. That's the only thing
she's called, woman. Adam means man. And then woman,
that was Eve. And it says, and Adam called
his wife's name Eve. And if you've got a concordance,
if you look there what the name Eve means, it's a word that means
living. And what that's saying is that
Eve is the mother of all the living. Now, the point that's
being made there is very serious and very important. And it's
showing the promise of the Messiah who would be born the seed of
woman. You see, if there was no promise
of a Messiah, no promise of Christ, who would come and establish
righteousness for his people, Eve would not be... Her name
wouldn't be Eve. She wouldn't be living. She wouldn't
be the mother of the living. She'd be dead, the mother of
the dead. But because of the promise of Christ, she's the
mother of the living. The Messiah would come as the
seed of woman. And it says here that Adam called
his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living.
And then look at verse 21. Now here's the first metaphor,
the first symbol, the first image of salvation being like a garment. put upon God's people. He says,
and unto Adam also and his wife did the Lord God make coats of
skins and he clothed them. Now there's a literal meaning
to that. There was an actual animal that
was slain there. And I believe it was a lamb.
The reason I believe that is because in the next chapter you
see that Abel was the keeper of sheep. But it doesn't matter.
Blood had to be shed. You know why? Because God told
Adam, in the day that you eat thereof, dying thou shalt die. The wages of sin is death. Salvation
comes through the death of a substitute. Blood must be shed. Without the
shedding of blood, no what? Remission. No pardon of sin. And so here it is, the Lord God
shed the blood of an animal, an actual animal, and made an
actual coat of skin that he clothed Adam and Eve with. Now, those
were literal as a literal animal, literal blood, literal coat,
but they were types. These things are types and pictures
of something spiritually and eternally and infinitely better
than any physical clothing. It was a type of the death, the
blood of Christ, which would establish righteousness to be
imputed, charged to his people. The coat that God's people wear,
and we can say it that way in symbolic language, is the imputed
righteousness of Christ. We stand before God clothed in
his righteousness. Now that's not a literal coat.
Like I'm wearing here. I can't take it off and put it
on. Even though the Bible does tell me to put it on, we'll deal
with that in just a minute. Put on Christ. But that's what
we stand before God. We're clothed in His righteousness.
We stand before God in righteousness that Christ accomplished for
us, not our own. We didn't accomplish it. We didn't
establish it. We didn't even contribute to
it. And that's what that means. And from then on, When the scripture
speaks of the garments of salvation, it'll talk about the garments
of victory, the garments of praise and all. It all goes right back
to this first type here. How God justifies sinners. It doesn't change. Even in the
book of Revelation, here's the first book of the Bible. The
book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, it talks about
the saints being clothed in white linen. And it says, this is the
righteousness of the saints. And I don't know how many preachers
will tell you that that's the works of the saints. It is not. It's the work of Christ on behalf
of his saints. It's his righteousness that makes
me a saint. It's his righteousness that makes
you a saint if you're in him. Not our works. Now there are
works to be done. But that's not our righteousness
before God, and that's where this is first established. And
we could go on and on. We could talk about the priesthood
under the Old Covenant, the priestly garments, white linen. That's a picture of this righteousness
that Christ would accomplish. And we could go on and on. Nakedness,
as I said, is a metaphor of unrighteousness, of rejection, which brings shame. But being clothed in righteousness
is a metaphor for justification, being accepted with God. And
that brings confidence and boldness. And this is a metaphor for the
righteousness of God in Christ freely imputed to all of God's
chosen people. Now go back to Isaiah 61. Now this whole chapter is a prophecy
of Christ. You know, scholars, biblical
scholars will argue over who's speaking here. And especially
in the first part of it, look at verse one, the spirit of the
Lord God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach
good tidings unto the meek. He has sent me to bind up the
brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening
of the prison to them that are bound. We talked about that in
the Sunday school lesson or in the first hour about the liberty
of Christ and the bondage of legalism. Verse two, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of the vengeance
of our God, to comfort all the mortals. And we'll come back
to that in just a moment. Who's speaking there? Well, it's
clear. And we have New Testament commentary
on who's speaking here. It's the prophet Isaiah speaking,
but he's talking about the Messiah. This is a prophecy of Christ
who is to come. Christ who is to come. And if
you'll turn over to Luke chapter four, Here's the proof of that. Look at Luke chapter 4 and turn
to verse 16. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ had
just begun his public ministry. He was about 30 years old when
he began his public ministry in Judea. And you know how that
all started. John the Baptist. It's recorded
back in Matthew chapter 3. John the Baptist was preaching
the baptism of repentance. And Jesus of Nazareth came on
the scene. And he said, John, baptize me.
And you remember what John said. He said, I'm not worthy to baptize
you. And Christ said, suffer it to be so. Allow this to happen. He said, it's necessary for us,
talking about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to
fulfill all righteousness. And Christ's baptism was a picture,
a symbol of his work of salvation and redemption for his people.
He died, he was buried, he rose again. And that's what it was. Remember the Holy Spirit descended
on him in the form of a dove and the Father spoke from heaven,
this is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And then immediately
he went up into the mountain of temptation, and that's where
he was tempted of Satan. Scripture says he was tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. And when he came off that mountain,
he entered into his hometown of Nazareth. And this is where
he is in Luke chapter 4. And he went into the synagogue.
Look at verse 16. It says, And he came to Nazareth,
where he had been brought up, And as his custom was, he went
into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up for to read.
That's why they would do it. Somebody would stand up and read
the scripture. And verse 17, and there was delivered
unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. That's Isaiah. And when
he had opened the book, he found the place where it is written.
Listen to what he says in verse 18. The spirit of the Lord is
upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor. He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind,
and set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable
year of the Lord." Now, he stopped there. The first two verses are
the first verse and then part of the second verse. And, of
course, you know the scripture originally wasn't written in
verses and chapters. You know that. But he stopped
there because he'd made his point from that portion And what was
his point? Well, look at verse 20. He says,
and he closed the book, he gave it again to the minister, that's
the leader of the congregation, and he sat down, and the eyes
of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say to them,
this day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. What Isaiah was
speaking of is fulfilled right here in your ears as I stood
up to read it. That's what Christ is saying
there. What's he saying? He said, I am the Messiah. That's what he was saying to
those people. And of course you know what happened. He went on
and he talked about salvation of God's elect. He talked about
election and God saved a Gentile. There are many widows in Israel,
but he saved a Gentile. There are many lepers in Israel,
but he saved a Gentile. And you know what happened. They
took him outside and they were going to throw him over a cliff,
but he walked powerfully through them unharmed. He's the Messiah. So there's no doubt who this
is talking about. This is talking about Christ
who would come and fulfill righteousness within which his people would
be clothed, are clothed. Look over at Psalm 22 with me.
I know sometimes, you know, I try not to labor you with turning
to a lot of scripture, but I want you to see this. You know, Psalm
22 is one of the Messianic Psalms. It's called the Psalm of the
Cross because it's speaking of the death of Christ, the death
of Messiah. It starts out in verse one, my
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? You remember how Christ spoke
that from the cross, quoting this verse, showing them that
his death and his own alienation from the father because of the
sins of his people charged to him, that it was the fulfillment
of this passage. Well, read at the end of it.
Look at verse 30 of Psalm 22. Here's the results of his death.
Now listen to it. It says, a seed shall serve him. Now the seed there is his generation,
his people. It says it shall be accounted
to the Lord for a generation. He died for a people. He died
for his sheep. He died for God's elect. That's
his generation. And he says in verse 31, now
how are you going to know who his generation is? How are you
going to know who his seed is? It says, they shall come and
shall declare his righteousness, not their own, not the preacher's,
not any man's, but his righteousness unto a people that shall be born,
that's the new birth, that he hath done this. He did it, not
me, not you. He did it. He did what? Not just that he died for you,
but that he established this righteousness that I have, that
I possess, that I'm clothed with, this garment of salvation. And that's how this whole thing
runs throughout the scripture. So go back to Isaiah 61. Listen
to it, verse 10. He says in Isaiah 61 10, I will
greatly rejoice in the Lord, in Jehovah salvation. I'm not going to rejoice in myself,
but in him. My soul shall be joyful in my
God, not ashamed, not condemned, but joyful, joy in the Lord.
Four, now what's the reason? For he hath clothed me with the
garments of salvation. Now this tells you that whatever
he's talking about, it's an act of God, not an act of man. He
hath clothed me. This is an act of a sovereign
God. What did Paul write in Romans
8? We read it earlier. He said, what shall we say these
things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? He that spared not, not his own
son, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? Who
can lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that
justifies. That's what this is talking about.
We're justified. We're accepted. We're declared
not guilty. We're declared righteous before
God. Because of Christ. Salvation
is of the Lord. He did it. God imputed it to
His people. Christ worked it out in time
by His obedience unto death. And without salvation, There's
no hope of eternal life and glory. There's no hope of forgiveness
of sins. No man born of Adam could do this, because no man
born of Adam can work or apply righteousness. There's none righteous. No, not one, the scripture tells
us. There's none good. No, not one. That's why the psalmist
David said, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputed not
iniquity, whose sins are what? Covered. Now that doesn't mean
just covered over to be hidden from men or anything like that.
It means that there's an atonement. It means there's a Savior who
brought forth a propitiation, a sin-bearing sacrifice, having
our sins charged to Him, and He went to His death to pay that
debt in full. And as a result, what David meant
by that, we're told by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul
in Romans 4, 6 through 8, that that's righteousness without
our works. God imputed righteousness, that's what this is speaking
of, and he says it here. The garments of salvation, he
hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered
me with the robe of righteousness. Now how does he clothe us with
the robe of righteousness? He lays it to our charge. He
imputes it to us. That's right. He puts it on our
account. And that's a real thing, that's
not plain. Look back over at verse 2 of Isaiah 61. Now Christ, the Messiah, stood
up and he read this to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
What that means is the time that God appointed before the foundation
of the world for Messiah to come and do his work. And the day
of vengeance of our God. Now you know what day of vengeance
he's talking about? That's the day of justice. that
God would work out in time in the death of Christ for the sins
of his people. That's what he's talking about.
He's not talking about his wrath upon sinners at his second coming.
Now that is a truth. And that's coming. But other
scriptures teach that. That will be a day of vengeance. When Christ comes the second
time, it'll be a day of vengeance. God's justice will be served. in the condemnation of all who
are found without Christ. But that's not what Isaiah is
talking about. He's talking about the first
coming of Messiah to establish this righteousness and it's a
day of vengeance of our God. For what reason? Look at verse
two. To comfort all that mourn. There's no comfort for sinners
under God's justice when they're condemned. But here's comfort. because our sins will be taken
away. Redemption will be accomplished.
Righteousness is established. You see that? And look at verse
3. He says, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, Zion's a
picture of the church, the called out ones, the redeemed ones,
to give unto them beauty for ashes. You know when When sinners
would mourn over the death of a loved one, or when they would
come to sorrow over sin, it was common for them to tear their
clothes and throw ashes on their head. Well, instead of that,
we're going to have beauty. Now, whose beauty are we going
to have? Is it your religious efforts? Is it the beauty of
your life, trying to do this, trying to do that? No, it's the
beauty of Christ. We behold his beauty, the psalmist
wrote. How we do that? We behold Christ.
For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you're
complete in him. And he says, the oil of joy for
mourning. That's the Holy Spirit giving
joy as we look to Christ and rest in him. And he says, in
the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, we praise
God. Praise God from whom all blessings
flow. Praise Him all creatures here
below. That they might be called, now listen, that they might be
called trees of righteousness. Do you know that if you're a
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've been brought to faith
in Him in repentance, you're a tree of righteousness? A tree
that cannot be moved. How'd you get that way? Look,
well you planted yourself in some church. No, look, the planting
of the Lord that He might be glorified. In other words, you're
a tree of righteousness. You didn't plant yourself. You
didn't create yourself. You were planted there by the
Lord that He might be glorified. Not that you might be glorified
or I might be glorified. It's not to draw attention to
ourselves. No, it's to draw attention to
Him and His honor. You see how this works? This
is an act of God. This is salvation which is of
the Lord. This is the planting of the Lord. This is the work
of the Lord. Many of you know, in the past, I've preached several
times out of the book of Zechariah. If you want to turn, if you want
to see if you can find Zechariah, go ahead. It's on page 1171.
Oh, that's my Bible. So, Zechariah. There's one of
the most beautiful pictures of this very subject, the garments
of salvation, in chapter 3. And it's again a prophecy of
Christ And you know Zechariah, he was a prophet in the return,
the return of Judah from Babylon, from the captivity of Babylon.
And the people were commanded of God to build the temple, rebuild
the temple. And they were very lax in doing
so. They let it go. In fact, they
let the temple go and the walls of Jerusalem go and started building
big houses for themselves. And God sent his prophets to
admonish them and to call them to repentance. Well, here, Zechariah
has a vision in Zechariah 3. Listen to it. It says in verse
one, it says, he showed me Joshua the high priest. Now Joshua here,
it was the high priest of Israel at that time. And Zechariah sees
this vision. These are called the night visions
of Zechariah. He sees this vision of this high priest, Joshua,
standing before the angel of the Lord, or you'd say the messenger
of the Lord, and Satan, Satan's the adversary, the accuser of
the brethren, standing at his right hand to resist him or to
accuse him. So here's Joshua, the high priest
of Israel. He's standing before the angel
of the Lord. And there's Satan standing there
to be his adversary, to accuse him. Verse 2 says, And the Lord
said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan. In other words,
somebody comes to speak for Joshua. Somebody comes to be an advocate
here. for him. Who is it? The Lord. Who is the Lord? That's Jehovah.
That's Christ. This is a vision of Christ. And he says, The Lord rebuke
thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke
thee. Now the first point, what he's
doing, he's defending Joshua. What's the first point of his
defense? Election. even the Lord that hath chosen
Jerusalem." And then he says, is not this a brand plucked out
of the fire? What's the second point of Joshua's
defense that the Lord pleads? Number one's election. God chose
him. Number two is redemption. A brand
plucked out of the fire. That's redemption. That's what
that's speaking of. The fire of God's wrath and displeasure. He's a brand. He was hot for
it. In other words, he deserved it,
but he's been plucked out of it. Election and redemption. Now look at verse 3. Now Joshua
was clothed with filthy garments and stood before the angel. The
angel there is the Lord, that's the judge. And he answered and
spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Now this is the
Lord speaking, Take away the filthy garments from him. And
unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass
from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. There's that metaphor again.
Take away his sin, the filthy garment, and put on him a robe
of righteousness. You see? Isn't that a beautiful
picture? of our salvation, the garments
of salvation, the garments of praise, the planting of the Lord. And that runs throughout the
scripture from Genesis. All the Lord's people, all the
Lord's chosen, all the Lord's redeemed, all the Lord's saints
will be clothed in the garments of salvation, the garment of
righteousness. And this includes anyone from
Adam until the end of the human race who have been saved by the
grace of God. Listen, even the Old Testament saints had this
garment upon them by promise. And based upon the future coming
of Christ, the Messiah, the Lord our righteousness to accomplish
this redemption. We'll look back at Isaiah 61. What he's speaking of here is
salvation by the grace of God in Christ. What he's speaking
of here is Christ's righteousness imputed. What he's speaking of
here is Christ's righteousness imputed and received by his people
in God-given faith. Verses four through nine of this
chapter describes the gospel ministry. Look at it, verse four.
He says, they shall build the old ways, they shall raise up
former desolations, they shall repair the waste cities, the
desolations of many generations. What this is talking about, this
is a symbol, this is a metaphor of preaching the gospel and God
building up His spiritual city, His spiritual nation through
Christ. He says, verse 5, strangers shall
stand and feed your flocks. That's foreigners. In other words,
it's not just for the Jews. God has an elect people chosen
out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. He says,
the sons of the alien shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.
Plowmen and vinedressers in the Old Testament are pictures of
preachers of the gospel. That's what we do. We're sowing
seed. Preaching the gospel. And the sons of an alien. There'll
be Gentiles in this thing. You remember when Christ stood
before his hometown synagogue and read part of this passage
and then he began to speak of salvation of God's elect among
the Gentiles. That's when they got so angry
that they wanted to kill him. Wait a minute. You mean to tell
me that I was born a physical child of Abraham and I was circumcised
and I've been trying to keep the law all my life and you're
going to let these Gentile heathen come in and be part of our family?
Huh? For nothing? That's not going to happen, you
see. Oh yeah. You see, God saves sinners by
His grace based on the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. One
of the most fascinating things about the order of scripture
that I find is sometimes how things are put together. And
I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about. If you go
back and read through John chapter 3, and then read John chapter
4, and remember in John chapter 3, Christ is speaking to a Jewish
religionist named Nicodemus. Remember Nicodemus was one who
was a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a part of the Jewish governing
religious body. He was a very religious man.
And what does Christ tell Nicodemus? I'm not going to read the whole
chapter. It says you must be born again. What he's telling
Nicodemus is salvation is by grace. It has nothing to do with
the fact that you're a Jew, that you're circumcised, or that you've
tried to keep the law because you can't keep the law, you're
a sinner. Salvation is by grace. That's what he tells Nicodemus.
And then in John chapter 4, remember who he's speaking to there? The
adulterous Samaritan woman at the well. An ignominious sinner. Who any Jew, any self-respecting
Jew would say she has absolutely nothing to recommend her unto
God. And you know what he tells the woman at the well? Basically,
in other words, the same thing. Salvation is by grace. And what
he's teaching there in that divine order of things is that, look,
it doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. If you're
going to be saved, it's going to be by the sovereign mercy
and grace of God through the righteousness, the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and nothing else. No amount of works that you can
do will save you, and no amount of sin that you can do will keep
you from being saved. He says that not to excuse sin,
but to call His people to repentance, to plead Him. Well, look here. Look back. Verse 6 of Isaiah
61. He says, but you shall be named
the priest of the Lord. What that means is you'll have
free access to God by the blood of Jesus. That's what a priest
is. Has free access to God. Hebrews
chapter 10 speaks of that. You can read it. And he says,
and men shall call you the ministers of God. You'll serve God. You shall eat the riches of the
Gentiles, and in their glory shall you boast yourselves. For
your shame you shall have double. You'll have not only the forgiveness
of sins, but you'll be justified based upon the righteousness
of God in Christ imputed. For the confusion they shall
rejoice in their portion, In other words, instead of the confusion
of religion, there'll be a portion of grace. Therefore in their
land they shall possess the double, everlasting joy shall be unto
them. You see, this is through the
preaching of the gospel. Verse eight, for I, the Lord,
love judgment. I hate robbery for burnt offering,
robbing God of his glory. I will direct their work in truth.
I will make an everlasting covenant with them. That seals it, doesn't
it? The everlasting covenant. That's the gospel of God's grace
in Christ. Verse nine, and their seed shall
be known among the Gentiles and their offspring among the people.
All that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed
which the Lord hath blessed. They're gonna come to faith in
Christ. They're gonna say like we read
in Psalm 22. Those who are born of God. He
hath done this. His righteousness. My righteousness
is of Him. Well, verses 10 and 11. Our text
with verse 11 describes the fruits of the gospel ministry which
come by God's grace. Look at it. I will greatly rejoice
in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my
God, for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He
hath covered me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom
decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself
with her jewels. Look at verse 11. For as the
earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the
things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God
will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before
all the nations. A people who are righteous in
Christ will be raised up to praise God in the preaching of the gospel. That's what it is. He says, I'll greatly rejoice
in the Lord. I love that. And you know, the,
the, the Bible sometimes speaks of us putting on Christ, put
on Christ. You know what that means? That
means we believe in him. That means we follow him. We,
we love him. We praise him. We worship him
because of what he's done for us. The heart bringing forth
praise in Jesus Christ. All right.