The Garment & the Robe · The Symbolism of Scripture
The Garment & the Robe
Scripture is not much interested in what people wear. It is intensely interested in who provided it — and from the fig leaves in Genesis 3 to the linen in Revelation 19, that single question is asked at every appearance of the image, and answered the same way.
What It Stands For
— what you are covered with when you are seenIn the ancient world clothing was expensive, durable, and public. A garment was inherited, pledged as security for a loan, torn as a sign of grief, and taken as a trophy. It said your trade, your tribe, your rank and your condition before you had spoken. Scripture uses it for exactly that: not for taste, but for standing.
What people made for themselves
- Genesis 3:7Fig leaves, sewn in a hurry, and they do not survive the next conversation.
- Isaiah 64:6Our righteousnesses, described by a prophet as a filthy garment.
- Matthew 22:11-12Whatever the man at the feast came in wearing. He is speechless when asked about it.
What God provided
- Genesis 3:21Coats of skins, made by God — and something died for them.
- Zechariah 3:4Filthy clothes taken off a high priest by command, and rich robes put on.
- Isaiah 61:10Garments of salvation and a robe of righteousness — He clothed me, says the prophet.
- Luke 15:22The best robe, brought out to a son who came home smelling of a pig farm.
- Galatians 3:27Christ Himself, put on — the language is of clothing, and it is His.
- Revelation 19:8Fine linen, and the text stops to say it was granted to her.
The one grammatical fact worth carrying through the page
The Greek ἐνδύω endyō (G1746) means to put a garment on, and the New Testament uses it of Christ in both voices. In Galatians 3:27 it is what has happened to the believer; in Romans 13:14 it is what he is told to do. Both sentences use the same verb of the same Person, and the tension between them is the ordinary shape of Christian obedience rather than a contradiction.
Its Presentation Through Scripture
— sixteen stops, in canon order — and Scripture's own links markedAnd the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they sewed together fig leaves and made coverings for themselves.
The first clothing in the Bible is homemade and immediate. It is also, fourteen verses later, gone — replaced without comment.
And the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.
God makes coats of skins and clothes them. It is the last thing He does for them before they leave the garden, and skins mean something died.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons, because Joseph had been born to him in his old age; so he made him a robe of many colors.
A coat given by a father to one son out of twelve. Clothing as visible favour — and it starts a feud that runs for twenty-two chapters.
She grabbed Joseph by his cloak and said, “Sleep with me!” But leaving his cloak in her hand, he escaped and ran outside.
The same man loses a second garment, and it is used against him again. Joseph's story is bracketed by clothes taken off him.
Make holy garments for your brother Aaron, to give him glory and splendor.
The priest's clothing is specified by God for glory and for beauty — the only garments in Scripture with a design brief.
He is to wear the sacred linen tunic, with linen undergarments. He must tie a linen sash around him and put on the linen turban. These are holy garments, and he must bathe himself with water before he wears them.
And on the one day of the year he goes furthest in, he takes all of it off and wears plain linen. The glory is left outside the veil.
I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, my soul will exult in my God; for He has clothed me with garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom wears a priestly headdress, as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Garments of salvation and a robe of righteousness — and the verb is passive: He has clothed me. The prophet is not describing an achievement.
Each of us has become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
The other side of the same book: our righteousnesses as a filthy garment. Not our sins — our righteousnesses. That is the shock of the verse.
Now Joshua was dressed in filthy garments as he stood before the angel. So the angel said to those standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes!” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have removed your iniquity, and I will clothe you with splendid robes.” Then I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So a clean turban was placed on his head, and they clothed him, as the angel of the LORD stood by.
A high priest stands accused in filthy clothes, and the exchange happens in front of the accuser: take them off him, and clothe him.
When the woman heard about Jesus, she came up through the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. For she kept saying, “If only I touch His garments, I will be healed.”
A woman reaches for the hem of a garment rather than the man wearing it, and Mark records her reasoning rather than correcting it.
But when the king came in to see the guests, he spotted a man who was not dressed in wedding clothes. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But the man was speechless.
The hardest garment text: a guest at the feast without a wedding garment, asked how he got in, and having nothing to say.
But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
The best robe, brought out before the son has finished his speech. The clothing arrives ahead of the explanation.
Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.
Paul makes it an imperative: put on the Lord Jesus Christ. The one place the reader is told to do the clothing.
For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
And the same verb in the perfect: as many as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. The garment is a Person.
Like them, he who overcomes will be dressed in white. And I will never blot out his name from the Book of Life, but I will confess his name before My Father and His angels.
White clothing promised to the overcomer at Sardis — a church told a few verses earlier that its reputation was better than its condition.
She was given clothing of fine linen, bright and pure.” For the fine linen she wears is the righteous acts of the saints.
The last garment in the Bible, and the sentence holds two things at once: the linen is the righteous acts of the saints, and it was granted to her to wear it.
And the LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and He clothed them.Short, undramatic, and the whole symbol is in it: God made, and God clothed.
The beasts whose skins they were, must be slain; slain before their eyes to shew them what death is. And probably 'tis supposed they were slain for sacrifice, to typify the great sacrifice which in the latter end of the world should be offered once for all. Thus the first thing that died was a sacrifice, or Christ in a figure.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Genesis 3:21
God made coats of skins--taught them to make these for themselves. This implies the institution of animal sacrifice, which was undoubtedly of divine appointment, and instruction in the only acceptable mode of worship for sinful creatures, through faith in a Redeemer (Heb 9:22).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Genesis 3:21
Both are reading a real inference and both are honest about it being one. Genesis says God made coats of skins; it does not say an animal was sacrificed, and it does not describe an altar. What the text does say is enough to notice: the covering that lasted cost a life, and it was not the wearer’s.
The Filthy Garment
— Isaiah 64:6, and the word most readers get backwardsEach of us has become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.Read the noun again. It is not our sins that are described this way.
Isaiah is not saying that bad deeds are filthy — nobody needed a prophet for that. He is saying that the good ones are, when they are offered as a covering. And the same prophet, three chapters earlier, describes a different set of clothes altogether, with a passive verb: He has clothed me.
Unclean - Formerly there were some that feared thee; but now we are all as one polluted mass, nothing of good left in us by reason of an universal degeneracy. And all - The very best of us all are no better than the uncleanest things.
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, 1765Wesleyan
Isaiah 64:6
Sinners are blasted, and then carried away, by the malignant and violent wind of their own iniquity; it withers them and then ruins them.
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710Nonconformist
Isaiah 64:6
Now Joshua was dressed in filthy garments as he stood before the angel. So the angel said to those standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes!” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have removed your iniquity, and I will clothe you with splendid robes.” Then I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.” So a clean turban was placed on his head, and they clothed him, as the angel of the LORD stood by.The exchange staged as a scene — and Satan is standing there while it happens.
Zechariah 3 is the passage where the symbol is acted out rather than described. A high priest — the man whose whole job was to be properly dressed — is standing in filthy clothes with an accuser beside him. He is not told to clean them. They are taken off him by command, and the new ones are put on while the accusation is still in the room.
Where It Points
— the garment stops being a thingFor all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.Perfect tense — something already done to the reader.
Instead, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.Imperative — the same verb, the same Person, as a command.
baptized into Christ-- (Ro 6:3). have put on Christ--Ye did, in that very act of being baptized into Christ, put on, or clothe yourselves with, Christ: so the Greek expresses. Christ is to you the toga virilis (the Roman garment of the full-grown man, assumed when ceasing to be a child)
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, 1871Reformed
Galatians 3:27
Defining in what way we are sons of God, he says: through baptism. But he did not say: you who were baptized became children of God, as the sequence would seem to require, — but far more expressively: you have put on Christ.
Theophylact of Ohrid· Commentary on Galatians, 1107Eastern Orthodox
Galatians 3:27
Theophylact notices the thing that makes the verse strange. Paul is proving sonship, and the expected sentence — you became children of God — is the one he does not write. He writes that they put on Christ instead, and treats that as the stronger statement of the two. Matthew Henry adds the plain obligation that follows: In our baptism we put on Christ; therein we profess our discipleship to him, and are obliged to behave ourselves as his faithful servants.
But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.Note the timing: the robe is called for before the son finishes the speech he rehearsed.
"He gave the best robe," that which Adam lost, the everlasting glory of immortality. "He put a ring upon his finger." That is the ring of honor, the title of liberty, the outstanding pledge of the spirit, the seal of the faith
Peter Chrysologus· Sermon 5, 450Latin, fifth century
Luke 15:22
The father's devotion is not content to restore only his innocence. It also brings back his former honor. "And give him sandals for his feet." He was rich when he departed, but how poor he has returned!
Peter Chrysologus· Sermon 3, 450Latin, fifth century
Luke 15:22
Chrysologus reads the robe as the glory Adam lost — a beautiful connection, and a reading rather than a statement of the parable. The parable itself belongs to the Prodigal Son, where the father, the elder brother and the timing are worked out in full.
What Scripture says outright
- Isaiah 61:10
The prophet names the clothing outright — garments of salvation, a robe of righteousness — and says who put them on him.
- Galatians 3:27
Paul says the garment is Christ, using the ordinary verb for getting dressed.
- Revelation 19:8
Revelation interprets its own image in the same verse: the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints — and it was granted to her.
- Zechariah 3:4
The angel states what the change of clothes means as it happens: I have caused your iniquity to pass from you.
What readers have heard in it
Readings named as readings — the first two are very old and worth knowing.
- Genesis 3:21
That the coats of skins are the first sacrifice, and therefore the first gospel picture. Held by Wesley and JFB and much of the tradition; Genesis records the making and the clothing, and not the killing.
- Genesis 3:21
That the “coats of skins” are the mortal body itself, which humanity will one day take off. Gregory of Nyssa argues this at length in On the Soul and the Resurrection. It is a serious ancient reading and a minority one, and it is named rather than adopted.
- Matthew 22:11
That the host supplied wedding garments at the door, so the guest’s offence was refusing one. It makes excellent sense of his silence and is repeated everywhere — and there is no first-century evidence for the custom. The parable simply says he had none.
The Hard One
— Matthew 22:11-12, kept hardBut when the king came in to see the guests, he spotted a man who was not dressed in wedding clothes. ‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But the man was speechless.He is addressed as 'friend', asked a question, and has no answer.
This is the text the rest of the symbol has to be able to carry, and it is not softened here. A man is inside a feast he was invited to off the street, and something about what he is wearing is fatal. The “free garments at the door” explanation would resolve it neatly, and it is not evidenced. What the parable states is simply that everyone else had one and he did not, and that when he was asked about it he was speechless.
Read against the two columns above, the sentence lands where the whole symbol has been pointing since Genesis 3: everyone at that table was wearing something they had been given, and one man had come in his own clothes.
The Voices
— named, with the work to go and readThree lines of reading meet on this symbol. Wesley and JFB take the coats of skins as the first sacrifice and say so carefully. Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa read the same verse quite differently — the skins as what humanity fell into rather than what covered it — and Gregory builds a whole anthropology on it. Peter Chrysologus and Theophylact carry the third line, which is the one Paul is actually using: the garment as a Person put on. All three are represented above, and only the third is what the New Testament says outright.
The minority reading of the coats of skinsAugustine and Gregory of Nyssa
Augustine, in On the Trinity: “Hence it is that being naked of their first garment, they earned by mortality coats of skins. For the true honor of man is the image and likeness of God, which is not preserved except it be in relation to Him by whom it is impressed.”
Gregory of Nyssatakes it further, and reads the skins as mortal, animal nature itself — something to be taken off at the resurrection: “Just as if a man, who, clad in a ragged tunic, has divested himself of the garb, feels no more its disgrace upon him, so we too, when we have cast off that dead unsightly tunic made from the skins of brutes and put upon us”
It is included because it is ancient, serious, and genuinely different from the sacrificial reading — and because a page that printed only the familiar option would be telling the reader that the tradition was more unanimous than it is.
Who brings the robe outTheophylact on Luke 15:22
By "servants" you can understand Angels, since they are ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those worthy of salvation (Heb. 1:14).
And in the Catena: By the servants (or angels) you may understand administering spirits, or priests who by baptism and the word of teaching clothe the soul with Christ Himself. For as many of us as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ. (Gal. 3:27.)
The identification of the servants is his; the parable does not name them. What is worth keeping is the link he draws — the robe in the parable and the “put on Christ” of Galatians 3:27 are the same image, and the eleventh century had already noticed.
Where Marcus Lands
Fig leaves that did not last the chapter; skins that cost something; a priest re-dressed in front of his accuser; a robe called for before the apology was finished — and linen at the end that was granted.
Where to Go Next
— grouped, because a pile of titles is not a hand-offThe garment, and the studies around it
Where a garment is the whole scene
Where the covering is the doctrine
Where the picture goes on
Its neighbours in the index
The Symbolism of Scripture gathers every picture the Bible thinks in. This one sits with: