In Isaiah 61:10 there is a reference to the robe of
righteousness: "I will rejoice greatly in the Lord; My soul will
exult in my God, for He has clothed me with garments of
salvation; He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a
bridegroom decks himself with a garland and as a bride adorns
herself with her jewels." This is a tremendous picture of the
sanctity of the redeemed, arrayed in the splendor of God's
holiness.
Of course, the image that should immediately come to our
minds as we contemplate this passage from Isaiah is that of the
bride of Christ, without spot or wrinkle, bedecked in fine linen,
as she is described in the nineteenth chapter of Revelation.
Here we are told that the fine linen is the righteousness of the
saints. What a tremendous thing it is to aspire, with all of
one's heart and soul and mind, to be clothed with the fine linen
of God's righteousness. But what does it mean to be clothed in
the garments of salvation, and how can we attain to it?
It is clearly not our own doing, for, in the text from
Isaiah, it says "He has clothed me with the garments of
salvation, and He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness."
It is God who clothes us. Nothing that we do, in and of
ourselves, can possibly be sufficient to earn us salvation or
righteousness. As it says in Isaiah 64:6, all of our own
righteousness is as filthy rags. Only God can cleanse us from
iniquity and cause us to be truly blameless, or righteous. The
Lord says in Zechariah 3:4, "See, I have taken your iniquity away
from you and will clothe you with festal robes."
Nevertheless, we read of the bride in Revelation 19:8 that
it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen. And in
Isaiah 52:1, the Lord exhorts us with these words: "Awake, awake,
clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion; Clothe yourself in your
beautiful garments." So we see that while only God can
accomplish this, we also have responsibility in the matter. We
must seek God earnestly, asking him to clothe us with the
garments of blamelessness. And when He begins to answer, we must
then, in turn, respond to His promptings to obey Him, even when
He speaks in the still, small voice of conscience.
What does it mean to be clothed with the robe of
righteousness? It means to abide continually in Godly attitudes.
To give an example, to be clothed with forgiveness means that you
are walking in forgiveness continually, without any interruption.
It means that you have decided ahead of time that, no matter what
anybody does to you, no matter how harmful or insane it is, you
will forgive that person before, during, and after the incident.
It means that you are walking in total empathy for those who hate
you, even if you are being dealt a death blow.
Or, to give another example, to be attired in the robe of
patience means that, no matter how trying someone may seem, you
are not angry or upset with that person, and you still treat him
or her with gentleness. To be attired in the garments of
patience also means, that no matter how difficult a situation may
be, you are not allowing those circumstances to alienate you from
God and from humanity. Apart from the operation of the grace of
God, we cannot exercise patience on a continual basis, but with
God all things are possible. We all fall short in certain ways,
but if we sincerely call upon Him to clothe us, He can supply us
with forgiveness and patience.
I believe that God is trying to teach us how to walk in such
a way as to be completely clothed by his attributes. What are
some of these attributes? What other attitudes should we be
walking in continually? What raiments should we be wearing?
Well, there's the garment of kindness. As we go about our daily
lives we should have an aura of kindness about us. I'm not
talking about a hypocritical kindness that pretends to be nice
but is really secretly harboring unkind thoughts toward others.
I'm talking about genuine kindness in thought, word, and actions,
in which one is never assuming evil of anyone.
We need to be bedecked with unconditional love. We are to
love our enemies. This means thinking and doing what is in the
best interest of those who hate us, even when it is to our own
disadvantage. We are to do this, not sometimes, but always.
This is to be done on a continual basis. That's what's meant by
being arrayed with these attributes. If we cease in these
attitudes, then we are either naked, or, what's worse, we become
clothed with our own filthy rags, a hypocritical righteousness
that has the appearance of goodness but is really only a
pretense. We can appear to be doing good outwardly, but
inwardly, we can be filled with hatred, bitterness, and
unforgiveness. Only God can deliver us of these things. We must
ask Him earnestly to do so, for only then can He clothe us with
His attitudes, motivations, desires, and intentions.
Our wardrobe is very extensive. The Bible only gives us the
slightest glimpses, or hints, as to the extent of the wardrobe
that is our inheritance in Christ. And this inheritance is for
our use, not only in the by-and-by, but in the here and now. In
fact, we have a far greater need for these garments now than we
ever will in the age to come, in which there is no evil. Where
there is no wickedness, there is no opportunity to return good
for evil or to exhibit longsuffering, or unconditional love.
Where there is no hardship, there can be no self-sacrifice, and
where there is no privation, there can be no generosity.
Of course, the more deeply we love the Lord, the more we
will long to exhibit His character to the world in the midst of
our own circumstances. If we love Him passionately, then we will
desire, more than anything, to exhibit His character in our
hearts, attitudes and daily lives. We desire to don the apparel
of righteousness and goodness in direct proportion to the
intensity of our love for Him. How deeply we want to know how to
wear what is pleasing to Him!
Here, then, are just a few of the articles in our wardrobe:
in addition to forgiveness, patience, kindness, and unconditional
love there is thankfulness, joy, peace, longsuffering, goodness,
gentleness, self-control, forbearance, ingenuousness, fairness,
generosity, humility, self-sacrifice, modesty, courage, faith in
God's unwavering goodness to us, empathy, gladness, and praise.
I'm sure you can think of many others.
We are to wear as many of these things as we possibly can.
And, what is most important, once we put them on, we are to take
care not to take them off again, only to expose ourselves to the
shame of our nakedness. If they fall off, we must put them on
again, not through any strength of our own, but through a total
dependence upon the grace of God.
A few of the garments I have mentioned are described in the
Bible. For example, Isaiah 61:3 mentions the garment of praise,
and Psalm 30:11 says, "Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing
for me. Thou has put off my sackcloth and girded me with
gladness." This is clearly the work of God's grace. But He has
also given us the power, through the shed blood of Christ, to
appropriate His grace. It is usually possible, by an act of the
will, either to accept or reject happiness or depression.
Similarly, we can usually choose to walk either in a spirit of
ingratitude or in an attitude of thankfulness. If we dwell upon
misery, we will begin to become pessimists, whereas if we dwell
upon that which is positive, we will become optimists. If we
harbor bitterness we will walk in hatred, but if we are clothed
with forbearance and forgiveness, we will walk in the beautiful
garments of kindness and unconditional love.
It is not flattering to us to be clothed in ugly garments,
but as we walk in inward beauty, and if, as a result of this we
begin to exercise beauty in our relationships with one another,
it is very becoming to us, and we cannot help but be noticed.
However, our objective is not to be noticed, but to please our
lover, Jesus Christ. He can't be fooled. He knows whether or
not our garments are pure. We often don't even realize ourselves
that our garments are soiled or worn. Jesus said in Revelation
3:4 that the church in Sardis had a few people who had not soiled
their garments, implying that there must have been others who had
soiled their garments. And He said to the church in Laodicea,
"you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and
blind and naked. I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by
fire, that you may become rich, and white garments, that you may
clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness may not be
revealed."
It's possible to walk in good works, but God knows better
than we do why we are walking in them. Is it in order to look
good? Or is it in order to assuage guilt? Are we only
pretending to be good in order to gain respect from others, or
are our deeds flowing from a heart that truly desires to see
others prosper, even at our own expense? All of humanity is
tainted by selfishness, but God can and will change our hearts
and remake us. But He usually only does this for us if we know
in the first place that we need Him to do it. It is when we see
that our garments are spotted, or that we are really naked, that
we are able to come to Him, and exchange our filthy rags for His
garments of righteousness and praise.
May God grant that each of us might see those areas in which
we need to be clothed more fully with the garments of Christ.
Lord, we do not desire to walk in a miserable and soiled or naked
state. We pray that you would grant us revelation, that we might
exchange our garments for yours, that we would be able, more
fully, to walk in all of the raiments of your heavenly wardrobe,
so that each of us might be a vessel of glorious praise to you.
Richard M. Riss
Calvary Chapel, Windsor, NJ, October 11, 1992