Isaiah 28:5-6 - Homilies By W. Clarkson

God our Glory, Beauty, etc.

"In that day," i.e. in the day when God shall reign over his people, either the day of their return to him in loyal obedience, or the day of their return to their own land under his delivering power—in that day God would be everything to his chosen people; he would be the Object and the Source of their glory, their beauty, their righteousness, their strength. We may see how God in Christ is the same to us.

I. OUR GLORY . "The Lord of hosts shall be for a Crown of glory." We glory in our God as the Lord of all power and might, as the One whose right hand is full of righteousness, as the faithful Creator, etc.; but we glory most in him as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in him who so pitied a rebellious race "that be gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth," etc. In Christ Jesus the glories and grandeurs of the Divine character are most brilliantly illustrated.

II. OUR BEAUTY . "For a Diadem of beauty." In the gospel God has

III. OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS . "For a Spirit of judgment." The man who has "learned Christ" is a man of integrity; to him injustice, unrighteousness, dishonesty, the withholding of that which is due, of whatever kind, is not Duly distasteful, but impossible: "the spirit of judgment," the spirit of equity and truth is in him, gained from Christ, implanted by the Divine Spirit. If this spirit, which is the Spirit of Christ, be not in him, he is none of Christ's ( Romans 8:12 ).

IV. OUR STRENGTH . "And for Strength to them that turn the battle to the gate." They who truly know God in Christ are "strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." God communicates to them something of the "exceeding greatness of his power." In Divine strength they are strong