ISAIAH 61:10-62:3 - New Clothes for Christmas

So, by a show of hands, how many people here this morning are wearing something that they got for Christmas yesterday? Getting clothes for a Christmas gift can either be exciting or boring, depending on your age—though there are some kids who love getting new outfits for Christmas, more often than not you can discern just a glimpse of disappointment in a child’s face when they open up a box and find a new shirt instead of the toy they’ve been asking for. The older you get, the more you start appreciating getting new clothes—and you really know you’ve grown up when you start asking for new clothes for Christmas!

Reading Isaiah’s words here in our text this morning, we see that he really got excited over new clothes, didn’t he?

Isaiah 61:10 (LSB)

I will rejoice greatly in Yahweh; My soul will rejoice 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 headdress, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

A few verses earlier in this chapter, we see that the reason that Isaiah was so glad to be clothed this way was because it represented God’s favor instead of His anger:

Isaiah 61:3 (LSB)

To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a headdress instead of ashes, The oil of rejoicing instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of Yahweh, that He may show forth His beautiful glory.

Throughout this book, Isaiah has been prophesying to Israel that God was bringing judgment on them for their sin of rebelling against Him and breaking the Covenant He made with them. The general breakdown of Isaiah is that the first 39 chapters focus on how God will bring the Assyrians and Babylonians down in judgment, and then Chapters 40-66 present the hope that God will show mercy and restore them.

Here in Chapter 61 the focus is on the righteousness that God will give His people—if you look down through the four verses of our passage you see the word righteousness repeated four times. (And remember one of our basic rules of Bible study—when you see a word or an idea repeated over and over again in a passage, that’s your cue to pay attention to what God is saying about that topic.)

So the point of these verses is righteousness from God. In the Old Testament, the word righteousness carries the idea of

RIGHTEOUSNESS: Being faithful to a standard of MORALITY or CONDUCT; particularly regarding God’s CHARACTER and MORAL nature

So when Isaiah rejoices in the new clothes God has given him and his people, he is rejoicing over the righteousness that God is giving him—he is exulting over the fact that he has been made perfectly right with God. And so this passage is a call for you this morning to

Rejoice in the GIFT of RIGHTEOUSNESS you have received through FAITH in Christ

As I want to show you from the Scriptures this morning, these verses have been fulfilled in the work of Jesus on the Cross—His coming to earth as a baby and His earthly ministry here among us was the way that He accomplished the righteousness that He has clothed you in. We saw a couple of weeks ago that Jesus read from Isaiah 61 when He began His ministry:

Isaiah 61:1–3 (LSB)

The Spirit of Lord Yahweh is upon me Because Yahweh has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, To proclaim release to captives And freedom to prisoners, To proclaim the favorable year of Yahweh And the day of vengeance of our God, To comfort all who mourn, To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a headdress instead of ashes, The oil of rejoicing instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of Yahweh, that He may show forth His beautiful glory.

The Incarnation of Christ that we celebrate at Christmas was the means by which He secured the righteousness that you rejoice in. So let’s look together at the reasons we have to rejoice in the gift of righteousness you have received by faith:

First, as we have already noted, He has given you

I. A New Righteous WARDROBE (Isaiah 61:10)

Isaiah 61:10 (LSB)

As Matthew Henry points out in his commentary on this passage,

Observe how these two are put together; those, and those only, shall be clothed with the garments of salvation hereafter that are covered with the robe of righteousness now (Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 1204). Peabody: Hendrickson.)

In other words, these garments come as a set—if you don’t have the robe of righteousness, you cannot put on the

Garments of SALVATION

This righteousness that God promised to the remnant of Israel here in Isaiah was perfectly fulfilled in the work of Jesus Christ—and the New Testament speaks of the righteousness of Christ as something that we put on as a garment:

Galatians 3:27 (LSB)

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Philippians 3:9 (LSB)

and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own which is from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God upon faith,

Jesus perfectly kept not only the letter of the Law, but the Spirit of the Law as well—as Hebrews 1:3 tells us that He

Hebrews 1:3 (LSB)

...is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature...

The perfect righteousness of God was found in Jesus Christ, and He gives that righteousness to you when you come to Him by faith.

Jesus came to earth in flesh—the perfectly righteous God Man—so that He could offer that flesh on the Cross as a sacrifice for sins He never committed.

There’s a hint of Jesus’ act of offering Himself as a sacrifice here as well. You’ll notice in verse 10 that Isaiah further describes the garments of righteousness in similar terms to the clothing that Aaron wore in the Tabernacle:

Isaiah 61:10 (LSB)

...As a bridegroom decks himself with a headdress, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

In Exodus 29:6 we read that Aaron was to wear a headdress when he appeared before YHWH in the Tabernacle:

Exodus 29:6 (LSB)

and you shall set the turban on his head and put the holy crown on the turban.

We receive our garments of salvation because Jesus took on the

Garments of a PRIEST (Hebrews 8:1-2)

The turban that Aaron wore was set with a crown that displayed the inscription “Holy to the LORD” (Exodus 39:30). Here in our text Isaiah says that part of the righteous wardrobe includes the garments of the One who became our High Priest and offered the sacrifice that purchased our righteousness:

Hebrews 8:1–2 (LSB)

Now the main point in what is being said is this: we have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the holy places and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.

Jesus Christ is our perfect High Priest—he wears the priestly garments that represent His offering Himself as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. But Isaiah adds yet another layer to this picture—He is also the “bridegroom that decks Himself like a priest…” The righteous wardrobe that you receive from God through faith in Christ is also the

Adornment for a BRIDE (Ephesians 5:26-27; cp. Rev. 21:2; 18-21)

Isaiah rejoices because of how God has clothed His people in His righteousness “as a bride adorns herself with jewels” (Isa. 61:10). Our High Priest has not only presented the perfect sacrifice to God for our righteousness, He is also preparing us as His Bride: When the Apostle Paul wanted the men in Ephesus to understand how to act as husbands, he pointed to the way Jesus Christ treats His Church:

Ephesians 5:25–27 (LSB)

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

Isaiah describes Jerusalem decked out in jewels as a bride when her bridegroom comes to receive her—and this is precisely what we see in the description of the New Jerusalem in Revelation:

Revelation 21:2 (LSB)

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

And a few verses down we read that the walls of the city are adorned with “every kind of jewel”—jasper, sapphire, agate, emerald, onyx, carnelian, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysophate, jacinth, amethyst—with the gates of pearl and the streets of transparent gold. And all of that splendor and beauty and purity and holiness was purchased by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ!

Rejoice, Christian, in the gift of righteousness that God has given you through faith in Christ—you have a new wardrobe, and in verse 11 of our text we see that we can rejoice because we have been given

II. A New Righteous CREATION (Isaiah 61:11)

Isaiah 61:11 (LSB)

For as the earth brings forth its branches, And as a garden causes the things sown in it to branch out, So Lord Yahweh will cause righteousness and praise To branch out before all the nations.

Isaiah 61:11 (ESV)

For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.

The word here in Hebrew is the same word that we find in the account of the Creation of the World in Genesis 2--

Genesis 2:9 (LSB)

And out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow (there it is) every tree that is desirable in appearance and good for food...

Just as God caused the trees and grasses to “branch out” in the First Creation, so He is promising that there will be a New Creation that will sprout up righteousness—and just like the first creation

He CAUSES it to GROW

It will not be up to the will of man—God will cause that righteousness to grow in the earth. And He will do it through the One that “branches” from King David’s family tree—Isaiah uses this picture of a branch to speak of the coming of Jesus in back Chapter 11:

Isaiah 11:1–2 (LSB)

Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, And a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of Yahweh will rest on Him, The spirit of wisdom and understanding, The spirit of counsel and might, The spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh.

We read in 1 Corinthians 15:23 that Jesus was the “firstfruits of the Resurrection”—His Resurrection marked the beginning of the New Creation that God has been inaugurating in this world. And in the Gospels, Jesus talks about the growth of the Kingdom in terms of a growing and spreading mustard plant that sprouted up and became larger than all of the other plants in the garden—a tree that the birds could come and nest in (Matthew 13:31-32). This Kingdom, this New Creation, is a kingdom that has been planted by Christ by His death, burial and resurrection, and it is a Kingdom of righteousness that He is growing to this very day!

Isaiah rejoices because he sees God clothing His people in righteousness, and he sees “righteousness and praise” sprouting up as God causes it to grow in the midst of His people. And at the end of verse 11 we see that God is causing this righteousness and praise tobranch out “before all the nations”—in other words, the nations that saw the fall of Israel and Jerusalem to its enemies in the judgments God poured out on them will now see God bringing His righteousness through them! In causing this righteousness and praise to branch out,

He CONFRONTS the NATIONS

with His righteousness. For generations past, Jerusalem and Israel had served as a warning to the other nations of what happens to a people who break covenant with YHWH—now, Isaiah says, they will see what happens when a people have been forgiven by YHWH! This new creation, this new Kingdom of Righteousness that God is causing to spring up and grow and flourish before the nations is a Kingdom that is going to overtake and displace those nations!

This is what is in view in the book of Daniel, when Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that the marvelous statue he saw was shattered and blown away by a stone not cut by human hands that “became a great mountain and filled the whole earth”. Daniel explained the dream to Nebuchadnezzar, saying that someday

Daniel 2:44 (LSB)

“...the God of heaven will cause a kingdom to rise up which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself stand forever.

After Jesus rose from the dead, He told His disciples that “all authority in Heaven and on earth” had been given to Him, and He authorized them to go and extend that Kingdom throughout the whole earth:

Matthew 28:19–20 (LSB)

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all that I commanded you...

And indeed, after He ascended into Heaven, Daniel 7:14 says that

Daniel 7:14 (LSB)

“And to Him was given dominion, Glory, and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations, and men of every tongue Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not be taken away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.

Jesus accomplished all of this by His death, burial and Resurrection—He purchased a new righteous wardrobe, He inaugurated a new righteous creation, and in Isaiah 62:1-2 we see that He has also given His people

III. A New Righteous NAME (Isa 62:1-2, 12; cp. Jeremiah 23:6)

Isaiah 62:1–2 (LSB)

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet, Until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, And her salvation like a torch that is burning. The nations will see your righteousness, And all kings your glory; And you will be called by a new name Which the mouth of Yahweh will designate.

Down in verse 4, God tells Israel that her days of being forsaken and desolate under His judgment will come to an end:

Isaiah 62:4 (LSB)

It will no longer be said to you, “Forsaken,” Nor to your land will it any longer be said, “Desolate”; But you will be called, “My delight is in her,” And your land, “Married”; For Yahweh takes pleasure in you, And to Him your land will be married.

And this causes Isaiah to rejoice—he says he will “not keep silent” and “not be quiet” because of the new name God has given His people. And so this shows us that in the same way we must rejoice and exult in the righteousness God has given us in the Name of Jesus Christ—first,

We MAGNIFY it in our WORSHIP

This must be the source, the theme and the destination of everything we do and say and sing here when we gather for worship—the righteousness purchased for us through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We will not keep silent, we will not be silent about the Good News of our rescue from our sin and rebellion against God by the work of Jesus Christ our High Priest, and we will never stop magnifying the love with which He loves us. We live as a people who are being purified and refined and adorned with the beauty of forgiveness, without spot or wrinkle or blemish or any such thing, and we are always tying that righteousness back to the Gospel.

This is why we specifically take time in our order of worship to confess our sins to God—not so that we can beat ourselves down with what terrible people we are or heap guilt and shame on ourselves—we do it so that we can magnify the glory of God in His work of redeeming us out of our sin! We make confession of sin and assurance of pardon a central part of our worship because the righteousness purchased for us through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ is the heart of our existence!

We worship in this way so that anyone who walks into this sanctuary on a Sunday morning will see a people who are utterly dependent on the work of Jesus Christ for their righteousness. And if ever a visitor gets the impression that we have a pretty high opinion of our own goodness without reference to the blood of Jesus, then we need to shut our doors until we get our hearts back where they belong—magnifying the righteousness of Christ and not our own!

Because Isaiah doesn’t just say that he will keep magnifying the gift of God’s righteousness for the sake of his own worship, does he? He says he will keep singing and exulting and proclaiming the gift of God’s righteousness until it goes forth as brightness and her salvation as a burning torch that the nations will see that righteousness, and that all the kings of the earth will see the glory of the LORD (Isaiah 62:2).

The reason that we magnify the righteousness of God in the Name of Christ in our worship is so that

We MANIFEST it in our WORLD

The goal of our worship is not just to have our own little Christian enclave where we all tell each other about the righteousness of Christ—we are to shine that light until the nations see it!

Acts 26:18 (LSB)

to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’

Isaiah himself prophesied earlier in Chapter 2,

Isaiah 2:2–3 (LSB)

Now it will be that In the last days The mountain of the house of Yahweh Will be established as the head of the mountains, And will be lifted up above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, To the house of the God of Jacob, That He may instruct us from His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For from Zion the law will go forth And the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.

and further on in Chapter 56:

Isaiah 56:6–7 (LSB)

“Also the foreigners who join themselves to Yahweh, To minister to Him, and to love the name of Yahweh, To be His slaves, every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath And takes hold of My covenant, Even those I will bring to My holy mountain And make them glad in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”

All along, God’s purpose has been to make His people a “brightness and a burning torch” to shine the glory of His righteousness to the world so that all peoples will see and call on the Name of Jesus Christ to receive that righteousness and salvation by faith. We sing about and proclaim and demonstrate the righteousness of Christ given to us by faith so that the world will see it and submit to it!

We stand fast on this Gospel—we refuse to shut up about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ—because this Gospel is the cure for every trouble and turmoil that our world faces today. The chasm that exists in our society between races can only be healed by the blood of Jesus Christ!

Ephesians 2:14–16 (LSB)

For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups one and broke down the dividing wall of the partition by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might create the two into one new man, making peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, having in Himself put to death the enmity.

The rotting disease of gender rebellion and sexual perversion in our world can only be healed by the blood of Jesus Christ!

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (LSB)

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

The ocean of innocent blood shed in abortion clinics across this nation over five decades can only be cleansed by the innocent blood of Jesus Christ shed on the Cross!

2 Corinthians 5:21 (LSB)

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

The fearmongering and manipulation of our corrupt and rebellious leaders in this country can only be silenced by faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ:

1 Corinthians 15:20–25 (LSB)

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming. Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign UNTIL HE HAS PUT ALL HIS ENEMIES UNDER HIS FEET.

And so we will never be silent, we will never stop magnifying and exulting in the righteous Name by which we are called, the Name of Jesus Christ!

Christian—the greatest reason for you to rejoice this morning is that you have been given the gift of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Rejoice in the new clothes that He purchased for you—the robe of His righteousness and the garments of salvation that you have by faith in His death on the Cross and His resurrection from the grave. And don’t let anything silence that exultation—refuse to be silent about this Gospel, refuse to sit down and shut up about the forgiveness and cleansing and reconciliation with God that this Good News promises. Wear those new clothes with gladness and joy!

And we cannot spend these moments exulting in this Gospel and greatly rejoicing in this gift of righteousness without holding out this invitation once again—if you are still wearing the garments of your own righteousness, you need to hear what Isaiah says a couple of pages later, in Chapter 64:

Isaiah 64:6 (LSB)

For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, carry us away.

Your belief that you can satisfy God’s standard of righteousness because you go to church whenever you can and you try to be kind to everyone you meet and you give to charities and you spend time taking care of a sick relative and you care about justice and you are trying to root out your “inherently racist attitudes” and you only buy fair trade coffee—the Scriptures tell you that trying to impress God with that kind of righteousness is like rooting through the trash at a nursing home to make an outfit out of used diapers.

You need new clothes—clothes not polluted by the filth and corruption of your own good deeds—and you need those new clothes before the weight of your twisted sin blows you away. So hear the exultation and joy of this declaration to you this morning—You can be free of all of that guilt and shame and corruption today! You can throw off all of those miserable failures to please God and receive this robe of righteousness—confess your sin to Him, plead with Him to grant you forgiveness by the blood of Jesus Christ and grant you His righteousness for your sin and His covenant love for you for all eternity. The best Christmas gift you will ever receive was purchased for you two thousand years ago on that Cross, and He is eager to give it you you this morning! So come and receive the gift of righteousness from your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Jude 24–25 (LSB)

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:

Read over the definition of righteousness that we considered earlier. How well do you hold to the standard of God’s character and moral perfection in your daily life?

Read Isaiah 61:10 again and take note of all the types of garments described (priestly, bridegroom, bride). Which of these elements of the righteousness of Christ stands out to you the most?

Why is it significant that Isaiah uses the picture of a plant “sprouting up” to describe the righteousness of God given to His people? How have you seen your own life “growing up” into the “grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18)”?

Isaiah says that he will not be silent about the righteousness of God until all of the nations see it (Isaiah 62:1). How are Christians pressured to “be silent” about the Gospel in our country today? How does this affect your attitude towards our worship together as a church? What can you do to make worship a priority in your life as a believer?

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