Thy Beautiful Garments
Our Bible passage, introduction to Sunday 4th February service and hymns are below.
_________________________________
Our principal verses are:
Isa 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Isa 52:2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
Isa 52:3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
Isa 52:4 For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.
Isa 52:5 Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed.
Isa 52:6 Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.
Isa 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
Thy Beautiful Garments
It is very suitable for us to apply this prophecy to gospel times, as Isaiah’s readers surely did. Zion putting on strength may be likened to the worldwide conversion of the Gentiles to salvation. Jerusalem putting on her beautiful garments symbolises the gift of justifying righteousness given to Christ’s Bride. Paul describes believers as those who have ‘put on Christ’. Here, the Old Testament church is called to rise from sleep to ‘put on’ and wear the divine redemption promised by the coming Messiah’s success.
Garments washed in blood
The beautiful garments of Christ’s church are robes of holiness and truth; washed robes, made white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14). They speak of the covering of grace by which God’s elect are covered with Christ’s holiness, represented by Christ’s intercession and secured under Christ’s protection. Dressed in her beautiful garments the Bride testifies to the work of her Husband by which she is fitted for heaven. In putting on Christ we confess Him to be the sole ground of our hope and acceptance with God.
Freedom in Christ
The instruction to shake off the dust and loose ourselves from our chains does not imply creature power in salvation but our freedom to know and enjoy gospel privileges. Christ’s church is a cleansed and liberated people destined for God’s presence. The end of Israel’s slavery in Egypt and Assyria typified a greater, future restoration. Christ’s church was enslaved by sin and Satan and bound under the curse of the law. Now it is free. We have been redeemed for the glory and honour of God’s name. Christ is our King and God’s elect dwell as free men and free women in the kingdom of His purity and peace.
Beautiful feet
Isaiah admires the feet of the messenger who brings good news of liberty to the captive. Our Lord Jesus traversed the hills and mountains of Israel preaching His gospel. The apostles carried the message to the Gentiles. Today, sent preachers continue to publish peace and bring good tidings of salvation to a lost and needy world. Pastors serve as watchmen on the walls of Zion, publicly declaring truth in the streets of the holy city, seeing eye to eye when they share the message of free and sovereign grace.
God’s arm made bare
The effectual call of the Holy Ghost in gospel preaching enables God’s people to go out of the prison and depart from the captivity of sin. Only vessels containing the pure gospel of grace and the unmixed message of accomplished salvation are required. No unclean accessory need be employed. God’s gospel, applied by the Spirit, calmly and thoroughly achieves its purpose of gathering the elect who march to glory with the Lord Jesus at their head and His power surrounding.
Christ, the Messiah
Here the prophet grants the believers of His age a fresh glimpse of the coming Messiah. The Servant of the Lord shall be exalted, extolled, and be very highly esteemed but He will also be more marred in His body and suffer more in His soul than any man before or after. Nevertheless, by His suffering He will amaze, silence and curtail the powers of this world, or rather, the power of His death will move unhindered and unopposed in the kingdoms of this world to gather Christ’s sheep and secure His flock.
One faith, one church
Once again we see how the faithful remnant of Isaiah’s generation was supplied with views of Christ and how the ‘gospel’ in Isaiah informed their knowledge and inspired their trust. In the midst of their own troubled times the certainty of the Messiah’s coming and the assured success of God’s servant was confirmed. In every age, God’s elect receive God’s promises through the preached word and the revelation of scripture. They received it and believed it, and so do we.
Amen
Our hymns are below.
Hymn 1
Gadsby selection 527
The Gospel. Rom. 10. 15; Isa. 52. 7; Rom. 1. 16
W. Gadsby C.M.
1
What a divine harmonious sound
The gospel-trumpet gives;
No music can with it compare;
The soul that knows it lives.
2
Ten thousand blessings it contains,
Divinely rich and free,
For helpless, wretched, ruined man,
Though vile and base as we.
3
It speaks of pardon, full and free,
Through Christ, the Lamb once slain;
Whose blood can cleanse the foulest soul,
And take away all stain.
4
The vilest sinner out of hell,
Who lives to feel his need,
Is welcome to a Throne of Grace,
The Saviour’s blood to plead.
5
The Lord delights to hear them cry,
And knock at mercy’s door;
’Tis grace that makes them feel their need,
And pray to him for more.
6
Nor will he send them empty back,
Nor fright them from the door;
The Father has in Jesus stored
All blessings for the poor.
Hymn 2
Gadsby selection 103
The Imputed Righteousness of Christ. Isa. 61. 10
Count Zinzendorf trans. by J. Wesley L.M.
1
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.
2
When from the dust of death I rise,
To take my mansion in the skies,
E’en then shall this be all my plea:
“Jesus has lived and died for me.”
3
Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay,
While through thy blood absolved I am,
From sin’s tremendous curse and shame?
4
Thus Abraham, the friend of God,
Thus all the armies bought with blood,
Saviour of sinners, thee proclaim –
Sinners, of whom the chief I am.
5
This spotless robe the same appears,
When ruined nature sinks in years;
No age can change its glorious hue;
The robe of Christ is ever new.
6
O let the dead now hear thy voice;
Bid, Lord, thy banished ones rejoice;
Their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, the Lord our righteousness.
The Lord's commands are His enablings and everything the Lord requires from His people He freely gives to them. Here the Lord tells His people to awake, put on strength, put on beautiful garments, break forth into joy, depart from false religion and behold the Lord Jesus Christ. And everything He asks of us, He provides for us.
4 February 2024