ROBES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

The Tabernacle, glittering with gold, filled with heavenly images and symbols, represented God’s throne room and His very real and glorious presence among His people. Knowing the Almighty’s holiness, who would dare enter?

God spoke to Moses: “Have your brother Aaron, with his sons, come to you from the Israelites to serve me as priest … Make holy garments for your brother Aaron, for glory and beauty. You are to instruct all the skilled artisans, whom I have filled with a spirit of wisdom, to make Aaron’s garments for consecrating him to serve me as priest. These are the garments that they must make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a specially woven tunic, a turban, and a sash. They are to make holy garments for your brother Aaron and his sons so that they may serve me as priests. They should use gold; blue, purple, and scarlet yarn; and fine linen” (Exodus 28:1-5). Only after Aaron was properly clothed with “holy garments”could he enter the Holy Place.

But that’s Old Testament stuff. How does this relate to life under the New Covenant of grace?

Isaiah was looking forward when he wrote “I rejoice greatly in the Lord, I exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10), in “splendid clothes” (Isaiah 61:3).

To be clothed in my own righteousness would be to wear “fig leaves” (Genesis 3:7) or “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6, NKJV).

Christians don’t wear “a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a specially woven tunic, a turban, and a sash.”  By Christ’s saving and transforming grace, we’re taught to “take off (the) former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth” (Ephesians 4:22-23). We’re admonished to wear “truth like a belt” … “righteousness like armor” … and salvation like a helmet (Ephesians 6:10-17).

One day, just around the corner, every Christian will be the guest of honor at the most elaborate of feasts. We’ll be “given fine linen to wear, bright and pure” (Revelation 19:8). Robed in righteousness, we’ll sing out, “Hallelujah, because our Lord God, the Almighty, reigns! Let us be glad, rejoice, and give him glory” (Revelation 19:6-7).

“… think on these things” (Philippians 4:8, KJV).