As we study the concluding verses of Isaiah 61 we cannot be certain who is speaking. I don't know if the praises to God are Isaiah's words alone---words with which he interrupts his prophetic narrative because the glory of the preceding verses are so wonderful---or whether they represent Isaiah and all the people of Isaiah's nation who place their trust in the Lord or whether they represent all the believers of all nations.
"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 His righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations." (Isaiah 61:10-11) We can be certain that such words can only be spoken by believers, for the words declare that He is "my God". We cannot declare Him as our God unless we have placed our faith in Him.
From the beginning of our chapter until now, Isaiah has been relaying a message from the Messiah. When we place our trust in Christ, our filthy garments of sin are replaced with garments of salvation. The robe of His righteousness is flung about our shoulders and from then on, when God the Father looks at us, He sees the righteousness of God the Son. We have no righteousness within ourselves. We cannot do enough good works to erase our sins because righteousness has always been by faith, not by works. The Scriptures told us way back in Genesis that Abraham's faith is what imputed righteousness to him. Abraham lived long before Christ but he believed in the one true God and he believed that God was going to bring the Redeemer---the One who would bless all nations---through his offspring. Therefore he was saved by his faith in what was to come. He trusted God to bring about what He had promised.
The Lord promised to bring the Redeemer from Abraham's descendants and He has done so. The Redeemer has been made manifest to the Gentile peoples of the world as well. This is why Isaiah could declare that the righteousness of the Lord and the praise of His goodness would "spring up before all nations".
What message did the Gentile nations hear? The gospel message. My ancestors and most of your ancestors were Gentiles. They worshiped false gods. They engaged in many immoral rituals. They made offerings and sacrifices to deities that did not exist, and in some cases even made human sacrifices, which is an abomination in the eyes of God. But Christ, who came from the family tree of Abraham, came to rescue not only Jews but also Gentiles from fruitless living. He came to wash our sins away and to clothe us in His righteousness, without which we can never stand before a holy God. And that gospel message spread far and wide, bringing Gentiles into the family of God.
If not for the gospel message, I would still be lost in my sins. I would still be wearing the filthy garments of useless works. I would still be living a fruitless and pointless life. But because of what the Redeemer did for me, I can praise the Lord and say: "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 His righteousness."
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