Dressed for Glory and for Beauty
Introduction: The War on Form
We live in an age that is deeply suspicious of uniforms, of vestments, of any kind of external form that claims to represent an internal reality. Our modern sensibilities prize a kind of formless authenticity. We want our leaders in jeans, our worship leaders in artfully distressed t-shirts, and our churches to look more like coffee shops than cathedrals. The operating assumption is that true spirituality is a purely internal affair, and that any concern for outward appearance is, at best, a distraction and, at worst, rank hypocrisy. Sincerity has become the only virtue, and it is a sincerity that must always appear casual, spontaneous, and unadorned.
Into this drab, gray, and self-consciously unadorned world, Exodus 28 lands like a thunderclap of gold, blue, purple, and scarlet. God, having given Moses the pattern for His dwelling place, the tabernacle, now turns His attention to the men who will serve within it. And His first concern is what they will wear. This is not a footnote. This is not a matter of cultural preference. This is a divine command that strikes at the very root of our modern, gnostic assumptions. God cares about the clothing. God commands beauty. God institutes a holy uniform, not to obscure the heart, but to declare the holiness of the office and the majesty of the God who established it.
This chapter is a frontal assault on the cult of the casual. It teaches us that God is not glorified by our attempts to be down-to-earth and relatable. He is glorified when we reflect His own glory and beauty. The priestly garments were not designed to make Aaron feel good about himself, or to express his unique personality. They were designed to make him a walking, living icon of the heavenly reality, a signpost pointing to the majesty of Yahweh. And in them, we see a glorious foreshadowing of the true High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the garments of salvation with which He clothes His people.
The Text
"Now as for you, bring near to yourself Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the sons of Israel, to minister as priests to Me, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's sons. You shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty. You shall speak to all those wise at heart whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they make Aaron's garments to set him apart as holy, in order for him to minister as priest to Me. These are the garments which they shall make: a breastpiece and an ephod and a robe and a tunic of checkered work, a turban and a sash, and they shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother and his sons, in order for him to minister as priest to Me. They shall take the gold and the blue and the purple and the scarlet material and the fine linen."
(Exodus 28:1-5 LSB)
A Divine Appointment (v. 1)
We begin with the call itself.
"Now as for you, bring near to yourself Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the sons of Israel, to minister as priests to Me, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's sons." (Exodus 28:1)
The first thing to notice is that the priesthood is not a democracy. It is a divine appointment. Aaron did not submit a resume. His sons did not campaign for the position. God says to Moses, "bring near to yourself Aaron." This is a sovereign summons. The initiative lies entirely with God. This is crucial because the priest's role is to mediate between a holy God and a sinful people. If the people were to choose their own representative, he would be just that, their representative. But he must be God's chosen man to be God's representative to them. He is set apart from the people in order to serve the people.
This principle runs all the way through Scripture. "And no one takes this honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was" (Hebrews 5:4). This verse from Hebrews is, of course, applied directly to the Lord Jesus. Christ did not glorify Himself to become a high priest; He was appointed by the Father. The Aaronic priesthood was established from the beginning as a type, a shadow, pointing to the true and eternal Priest who was to come. The authority of the office comes not from the man, but from the God who calls the man.
The call is specific, naming Aaron and his four sons. This establishes a hereditary line, but it also contains a solemn warning right from the outset. We know the story. Nadab and Abihu, named here in the glory of their calling, will later be consumed by fire for offering unauthorized, "strange" fire before the Lord (Leviticus 10). The call to holy office is a high honor, but it is also a grave and perilous responsibility. To be brought near to God is a place of great blessing, and also of great danger.
The Purpose of the Uniform (v. 2)
Next, God states the purpose for the garments with beautiful simplicity.
"You shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty." (Exodus 28:2)
Here are the two foundational principles of biblical aesthetics. The garments are to be made "for glory and for beauty." Let that sink in. This is God's design brief. The Hebrew for glory is kabod, which means weight, substance, honor, and majesty. The word for beauty is tipharah, which means splendor, adornment, and magnificence. These are not work clothes for the messy business of sacrifice. They are a royal uniform that visually communicates the weightiness and splendor of the office, and more importantly, of the God being served.
This is a direct rebuke to our modern, sentimentalist notions of worship. We have been taught that God only cares about the heart, and so the outward forms are irrelevant. God disagrees. He commands that the holiness of the priest's work be reflected in the glory and beauty of his attire. The garments were a constant, visible sermon to the people of Israel. They preached that the God they served was a God of majestic glory and breathtaking beauty. They taught that approaching this God was a serious, weighty business, not to be done lightly or casually.
Beauty, then, is not in the eye of the beholder. Beauty is objective. It is rooted in the character of God, and He is the one who defines it. When we create and appreciate beauty that is in accord with His revealed character, we are glorifying Him. These garments were beautiful because they reflected heavenly realities. They were a little patch of heaven on earth.
The Spirit of Craftsmanship (v. 3)
God not only commands the product, but He also provides the means of production.
"You shall speak to all those wise at heart whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they make Aaron's garments to set him apart as holy, in order for him to minister as priest to Me." (Exodus 28:3)
Notice the connection here. The craftsmen are described as "wise at heart." But this wisdom is not a native human talent. It is a divine endowment. God says, "whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom." This is a foundational text for a biblical theology of work and art. Skill in weaving, in metalwork, in design, is a gift of the Holy Spirit. We tend to compartmentalize, thinking of the Spirit's work as restricted to preaching, evangelism, and the "spiritual" disciplines. But here, the Spirit of God is filling men with the wisdom to be excellent tailors.
This demolishes any sacred/secular distinction in our work. All honest and skillful labor, when done for the glory of God, is spiritual work. God is the ultimate artist, the master craftsman, and when He gifts men with artistic and technical skill, He is imparting a reflection of His own creative character. The purpose of this Spirit-filled skill is explicitly theological: "to set him apart as holy." The word for this is consecration. The garments themselves are a means of grace, a tool for marking Aaron as belonging wholly to the Lord for a specific task.
The Divine Wardrobe (v. 4-5)
Finally, we are given a summary of the garments and the materials to be used.
"These are the garments which they shall make: a breastpiece and an ephod and a robe and a tunic of checkered work, a turban and a sash... They shall take the gold and the blue and the purple and the scarlet material and the fine linen." (Exodus 28:4-5)
The list is specific. Each item, which will be detailed later in the chapter, has profound symbolic significance. The breastpiece holds the names of the tribes of Israel over Aaron's heart. The ephod carries their names on his shoulders. He literally bears the people before the Lord. Every piece preaches the gospel. The point for now is the specificity. God does not give vague instructions. He provides a detailed pattern because He is a God of order, not of chaos.
And look at the materials. Gold, the most precious metal, signifying divinity and purity. Blue, the color of the heavens. Purple, the color of royalty. Scarlet, the color of blood and sacrifice. And fine white linen, signifying righteousness. These are not the colors of earth. They are the colors of the throne room of God. The priest, when robed for duty, was clothed in the very fabric of heaven. He was a man, a sinner like his brethren, but his uniform declared that he stood in a heavenly place, representing a heavenly king.
Clothed in Christ Our Priest
This entire chapter is a magnificent portrait, a shadow of a greater reality. Aaron, in all his glory and beauty, was still a sinful man who had to offer sacrifices for his own sin. His beautiful garments covered a flawed man and would eventually wear out. They were a temporary, glorious picture of the perfect High Priest to come.
Jesus Christ is our great High Priest. He is not clothed in glory and beauty; He is glory and beauty. The fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. He did not need a uniform to set Him apart, for He was "holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens" (Hebrews 7:26).
And what is the application for us? We who are in Christ have been made a "kingdom of priests" (Revelation 1:6). We are a "royal priesthood, a holy nation" (1 Peter 2:9). And as priests, we too have been given garments. The prophet Isaiah rejoiced, "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness" (Isaiah 61:10).
Our priestly vestment is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ Himself. It is a garment of pure, unblemished white linen, woven in heaven and given to us as a free gift. We are commanded to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 13:14). This is our glory and our beauty. It is not a beauty of our own making, but a beauty that is imputed to us by faith.
But let us not fall back into the gnostic trap of thinking this is a purely invisible reality. Because we are clothed in Christ's righteousness, we are then called to live it out. We are to clothe ourselves with "compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience" (Colossians 3:12). The glory and beauty that God commanded for Aaron's wardrobe is to find its ultimate expression in the character and conduct of His people. Our lives, our families, our worship, and our work are all to be crafted by the Spirit of wisdom, for glory and for beauty, reflecting the majesty of the God we serve.