When I was young, there was this whole vibe about not caring what you wear. We're not going to be like our parents who totally care and they're pretentious because of the clothes they wear. It's all fake. It's fake. We're real. We're different. We don't care about things like that. But we totally cared about it. And all of our dumb rejectionist outfits that we wore to not be like our parents, because it doesn't you're just not doing that's pretentious and fake. It was all pretentious and fake too. Everybody's always known that to some degree the clothes maketh the man. What you wear says something about you, even if it's not profound. It says something. And the take home lesson here isn't so always dress fancy. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying stuff means stuff. All the clothes that we wear, it means stuff, means something. Everybody's always known this since the dawn of time, including in the Bible, where for the last few days we've been looking at this motif that runs through the whole thing about being clothed and specifically being clothed in the righteousness of God. Once you have it on in the Old Testament or the New Testament, it seems like it really, really sticks. And so yesterday and today, we're working our way through a bunch of the places in the Old Testament where this being clothed with motif is on screen. And what I'm seeing is that the closer we get to the New Testament, the more explicit it is getting in pointing to Jesus and the stuff we're covering in Galatians. And so we're going to keep chipping away at it right now. I'm going to have my friend Jeffrey play some music and we'll just pick up where we left off yesterday. Cool. All right, setting that aside, we still get the point. There's something about what they're wearing and the ordaining of that very intentionally from God in a way that is clearly about more than just hygiene. These clothes mean something. You are robed in the garments, Levites, of those who are to play this unique role in facilitating the relationship between God and the people at this time in history. If you are getting a little bit bored of this and you're like, okay, I get it, yeah, people wear clothes in the Bible. Let me keep trying. Because if you feel that way right now, then I haven't done a good enough job. Give me a few more chances to bring into focus what I'm trying to say here, which is that this motif is gonna have a payoff, and the payoff is in your life. The payoff isn't just now we understand Galatians better. It's literally if you are in Christ, you are living the payoff of this motif of being robed in royalty, in putting on the righteousness of God, in putting on something that is bigger, better, and more meaningful than the clothes that you were born into or that you had on before. Let's try 2 Kings chapter 2. That's a huge fast forward from where we're at in Numbers and out in the desert with Moses and all of that stuff. We're talking hundreds of years later here. The era of the judges has come and gone, King Saul has come and gone, King David has come and gone, King Solomon has come and gone, the unified kingdom of Israel has split into two, the northern kingdom is floundering, the southern kingdom is trying to keep it together, and there's a couple of prophets who come along, two generations of prophets. One is Elijah, and then his successor is a guy named Elisha. What does Elisha ask for as Elijah is getting set to tap out and be done? He says, Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit. That's what he says to his mentor. Like, I want to do what you do, and like double I want to do that. I mean, there's a lot of different ways to interpret exactly what he's saying, but I think you get the heart of it. Right after that, Elijah gets taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, and Elisha, his successor, is there to see it. Then we get another clothes maketh the man moment, as Elisha becomes robed in the clothing, the symbol of the authority of Elijah, who's just been taken up into heaven. Here we go, Second Kings two twelve. Elisha saw this, the going up in heaven in the whirlwind, and cried out, My father, my father, the chariots and horsemen of Israel. And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them apart. He picked up the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the cloak that had fallen from him and struck the water with it. Where now is the Lord the God of Elijah? he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over. The company of prophets from Jericho who were watching said, The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha. And because of these incidents, that mantle that Elisha has with him for the rest of his life that he's wearing kind of like Doctor Strange's red cape, that symbol, that icon, that clothing that he has with him, it's a permanent symbol of him being the successor to Elijah and the authority of Elijah resting upon him. But also it's a symbol of the authority of God resting upon him. And those prophets right there, they saw that immediately, and every time anybody saw that mantle that Elijah was robed in, they were reminded, the clothes maketh the man. And in this case, the clothes are from Elijah and they're from God. And I think we see a little bit of a payoff on this clothes maketh the man idea in Matthew chapter 10, with the missional discourse and Jesus sending out the disciples. He's like, hey, you know, get a robe, put that on, and go out with this message. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And they go out and miraculous things happen, and also it's hard, and it's a big important step in them beginning to receive the authority from Christ to go out and be the church and be fishers of men and play the roles that they would all play until the end of their lives. I don't think these things are an accident. These motifs are real, they're here for a reason, but also I'm not done. How about Job at 2914? As we continue our journey through the Bible, looking at the motif of the clothes making the man and the clothes being from God's or God's clothes. I mean, it's kind of the point that we're driving at here. Job 29, 14. I put on righteousness as my clothing, justice was my robe and my turban. You've been around the Bible much. It kind of sounds like stuff that Paul is going to say later when he's talking about the armor of God. It's almost like this passage is a forerunner to the armor of God, but with more like super ancient Near Eastern desert clothing or something, right? It's like a several generations of clothing earlier. Let's go look at how the clothes maketh the man principle play out in Isaiah 61, verse 10. I delight greatly in the Lord, my soul rejoices in my God, for he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes up the sprout that comes up, and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations. And this motif blossoms even more as we get toward the end of the Old Testament in Zechariah, zebras, hurdle, zamboni, machines. There's Zechariah chapter three, verse four. Check this out. No, I'm not going to start in verse four. I'm going to start in verse one. Then he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. Ooh, wow, so we have a celestial standoff here. The accuser is there to say, This guy's bad. Here's everything bad he ever did. The Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke you, Satan, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you. Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire? Now Joshua, this is the high priest, was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. Clothes make a man. The angel said to those who were standing before him, Take off his filthy clothes. Then he said to Joshua, See, I've taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you. Then I said, put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him while the angel of the Lord stood by. Then the angel of the Lord gave this charge to Joshua. This is what the Lord Almighty says. If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here. Look at the way this motif of being clothed in the righteousness of God by clothes imparted to us by God has matured over the Old Testament. Every time it comes up, it takes a little more shape. And if you think about what we've been doing in Galatians, I mean the red lights and the bells are going off all over the place for you. It's like, dang, this isn't something that Paul is just making up or being like, oh, this would be kind of a cool little literary flourish or image that I could use to spice things up and make it a bit more poetic. Heck no. Paul is tapping into this deeply rooted motif that runs through all of the Old Testament that supports the idea that is the central idea of Galatians that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. It was a gift from God. God robed him in that righteousness. Abraham didn't earn the robe. He didn't take the robe by force from an unwilling God. Rather, it is by faith that he's blessed. It is by faith that he is counted righteous. And whose righteousness is it? It's a righteousness that's apart from the law. It's the righteousness of God put on Abraham, put on Paul, put on you and me if we are in Christ. My friends, this is not just a New Testament idea that is an innovation or a novelty that Paul cooked up while he was just quickly firing off some letter to solve problems at a church he visited one time. This is a payoff. And this is the kind of stuff that we just don't notice unless you make me do this all the time and force me to look closely at the Bible more closely than I would look of my own will and my own volition. You have forced me down the clothes maketh the man motif rabbit hole. And it's popping. It's real. Oh my goodness. Zechariah chapter three. The priest is standing there. He's all ashamed. He's getting insulted and mocked by Satan, the accuser. Here's everything wrong with him. Look at him. And what gets done for this priest? Hey, get that filthy stuff off of him. Put these robes reflective of the righteousness of God on him. And that's not the end. It's not just now you're wearing these robes. Doesn't that look better? It's now you're robed with the authority of God and the righteousness of God, and you're now prepared for the good works that have been prepared in advance for you to do. You're now prepared to play the role that God has prepared for you to play. Remember? The angel of the Lord gave this charge to Joshua. This is after he's been swapped out clothing-wise, and the new turbans on his head. This is what the Lord Almighty says. If you'll walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here. The robes aren't even the final payoff. The robes, the vestments, the clothes maketh the man aren't the final payoff. Okay, that's just the tease. That's just the Old Testament warm-up to this concept. But how many of these things, my friends, have we gone through from Galatians where we jump back into the Old Testament and we realize, yeah, that's not just like a one-off where there's like a verse, and maybe we're stretching a little bit to try to connect what's happening in Galatians to that a verse? It's everywhere in every genre of the Old Testament. And what's the next genre we run into to the Bible if we turn the page from Zechariah? Well, it's the Gospels. It's Jesus on screen. It's Jesus connecting the dots between the Old Testament and the New Testament. So does he latch on to this kind of stuff? Or does it sort of skip a generation with Jesus and he doesn't really think about the robing thing and then Paul is the one who resurrects it? Well, I wouldn't have done that tease if it doesn't come up in the teachings of Jesus as well. However, this seems like a beautiful pause point, and we'll just pick it up right where we left off tomorrow. Moving forward with this clothes maketh the man motif in the Bible, and that these clothes are from God and are the righteousness of God. We're going to move forward with that into the teachings of Jesus tomorrow, all with the purpose of getting back to Galatians 3 and better appreciating what it is that is happening right there at the end of that chapter and the implications for you and me if we are in Christ even today. I'm Matt, this is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.