One of the many images we find in the Scriptures are those of garments and their relationship to God and God’s salvation.
In the hymns of the Church and in the writings of many Patristic writers we note that Eve and Adam are stripped naked by their own sinfulness. A nakedness which God in His love and mercy chooses to cover as God covers both our sin and shame:
In Paradise of old, the wood stripped me bare, for by giving its fruit to eat, the enemy brought in death. But now the wood of the cross that clothes mankind with the garment of life has been set up in the midst of the earth, which is filled with boundless joy. As we behold it exalted, people, in faith, let us cry out to God with one accord: Your house is full of glory! (Matins hymn, Feast of the Elevation)
In Genesis 3:21, after Eve and Adam had sinned, it is God Himself who is said to cover their nakedness:
And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them.
It is an act of mercy on God’s part for His human creatures who have through sin rebelled against Him. But we are pitiable creatures in God’s eyes, and God provides for us so that we can survive in the world of the Fall. The hymns of the Cross suggest it is through the Cross that we are clothed again with a garment of life.
In Exodus 19, the people of Israel are all told to wash their garments in preparation for the theophany that Moses was to experience on the mountain. The people themselves are forbidden from even approaching the mountain, and yet they are commanded to wash their clothes in preparation for what Moses would receive from God on their behalf. The washing of their clothes was a sacramental act as part of their cleansing themselves to meet the Holy God. In Christianity, we take that all a step further in baptism when we wash not our clothes but ourselves in order to put on Christ. We strip off our old garments belonging to the fallen world, and put on Christ as a garment as a sign of the new life we have embraced in Christ.
Garments play a significant part the sacramental life of Christians – through baptism we are given a special spiritual garment which we ask God in the petitions to help us “keep the garment undefiled”) and for which we will have to give an account on Judgement Day (“and preserve the baptismal garment undefiled unto the day of Christ our God”). This is symbolized in the white garment the newly baptized put on when they come up from the watery grave and rise to the new life. As it says in Revelation 16:15 – “Blessed is the one who keeps watch and preserves his garments in order not to walk naked and be shamefully exposed.”
So we pray at the baptismal service:
Preserve pure and unpolluted the garment of incorruption with which You have clothed him (her), by Your grace, the seal of the Spirit, and showing mercy to him (her) and to us, through the multitude of Your mercies.
The priest declares immediately after baptizing the person that:
The servant of God, ______, is clothed in the robe of righteousness, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
And then everyone at the baptism sings:
Grant to me the robe of light, O Most Merciful Christ our God, Who clothe Yourself with light as with a garment.
And
As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ. (Galatians 3:27)
The newly baptized is said to clothe himself/ herself in Christ our God. Which also resonates with the the Transfiguration account in which the very clothes of Christ are said to show forth a brilliant whiteness (Mark 9:3; Matthew 17:2; Luke 9:22).
Not only is each newly baptized Christian spiritually clothed with the garment of salvation at baptism, but also, the priests who serve God since the time of Aaron in the Book of Exodus, have been commanded by God to wear special garments. When Aaron is chosen with his sons to serve as priests, one of the first things God commands is: “And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty” (Exodus 28:2).
In Isaiah 61:10, we read these words which the priest prays as he vests himself with the priestly garments before the Liturgy:
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, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
The garments as a sign of salvation are not just for this world but belong to the eternal life in God. In 2 Esdras 2:39, we encounter this prophecy of what we will receive in the glorious age to come:
Those who have departed from the shadow of this age have received glorious garments from the Lord.
St Isaac of Nineveh writes:
For the Cross is Christ’s garment just as the humanity of Christ is the garment of the divinity. (Contemplating the Cross)
We put on Christ, Christ puts on our humanity. We are clothed in each other. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil stripped us bare when we ate of its fruit. Now the cross clothes Christ who is stripped naked and nailed to it. The images of clothing and salvation are common throughout the scriptures.
Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling, so that by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. (2 Corinthians 5:2-4)
Fraternized 