Isaiah 61:3, commentary and pictures

Isaiah 61:3 promises that those who mourn in Zion with true repentance and contrition over sin will receive beauty and honor for ashes and disgrace, joyful anointing and gladness for mourning, and thanksgiving and praise for heaviness and despair. Those thus restored become firmly rooted, righteous and holy people planted by the Lord, bearing the fruits of the Spirit and good character to display His work and bring Him glory. This is the Spirit-anointed ministry of the Messiah, fulfilled in the life of Jesus and continued as He as Advocate sends the Holy Spirit to give grace, peace and reconciliation to all who believe. God accomplishes it by drawing people in love rather than to bruise them, and when they bow to the cross and draw near He forgives through the crucified and risen Lord, blots out transgression, imparts His own righteousness, heals bitterness and bruises, and pours gladness into the heart. The same comforting, binding up, healing and freeing work is authorized for His followers, shepherds and gospel workers to do tenderly for all who mourn, especially the poor and distressed, and for children and youth to be trained as fruitful saplings in the home and church. At the final deliverance the exchange will be complete, when sorrow, pain and death are ended and the saved stand before God wearing praise and the wedding garment in a united, glad kingdom with no more sadness.

Verse Wording Explained

The verse stands within a larger proclamation of good news to the meek, healing for the brokenhearted, liberty to captives and opening of prison to the bound, release for the bruised and blind, the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of God, and comfort for all who mourn. That anointed work brings restoration to fallen humanity and lifts the brokenhearted, with comfort for mourners belonging to healing and good tidings for the meek. The Spirit-anointed One is sent to preach, bind up, proclaim liberty, proclaim the acceptable year and the day of vengeance, and comfort, so that mourners in Zion receive beauty, joy and praise and become trees of righteousness planted by the Lord for His glory. Christ’s own testimony in Luke 4:16-18 confirms this as His mission, giving sufferers reason to come in faith to receive grace.

Those who mourn in Zion are those who grieve over sin with true repentance, contrition, humility, and a broken and humble spirit meeting the conditions of reconciliation of God to man and man to God. This mourning is not mere sorrow over painful consequences, nor melancholy, nor pretended humility, but the Holy Spirit’s revelation of ingratitude and hurt done to Jesus that brings the sinner in contrition to Christ to renounce sin. Though others may call such sorrow weakness, it binds the penitent to God and opens into holiness and joy, restoring graces lost through hardness of heart and transgression. The proud encased in self, pride, self-sufficiency, and intellectual religion and spirituality cannot receive Him, and His words are to them as an unknown tongue, while the humble and contrite heart understands His language as the right word to revive the spirit of the humble. The liberty and gladness promised as beauty for ashes and oil of joy for mourning belong to those who repent, shaping expression, words, tone of voice and business dealings to show faith, integrity and loyalty to God.

The promised exchanges mean disgrace and ashes are replaced by beauty and honor, mourning and sorrow by joyful anointing and gladness, and heaviness and despair by praise. The oil of joy is God’s comfort and gladness poured into the heart when the soul is consecrated, bows to the cross, believes His love and draws near, so He draws near, heals wounds and bruises made by Satan, heals bitterness of spirit, and keeps His people. The garment of praise is thanksgiving, cheer, light, and Christ’s righteousness put on by faith, for He takes away sin and imparts His own righteousness to those who receive Him as sin-pardoning Saviour, clothing the pardoned soul with light and full joy. This gives the right and duty to sing praise and thanksgiving, to be cheerful yet sober and watchful, to reflect heaven, to long to impart joy, and to carry brightness to the wearied, perplexed, suffering and weak in faith through mercy and medical missionary work, instead of mourning, sighing and complaining that misrepresent Jesus and spread gloom.

That they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified means the restored become firmly rooted, righteous, holy and redeemed people planted by the Lord, whose fruitful lives display His work and bring Him glory. Being made such trees means being set in His vineyard within His special care and blessing as a goodly vine by the wells of life to bring forth fruit by which He is glorified. Those just converted are to grow to full maturity in Christ and bring forth fruit as God’s own planting, with the picture from plant life explaining the mysterious truths of spiritual life. Full and free acceptance comes through the crucified and risen Lord, who blots out transgressions, remembers sins no more, takes away rebuke, appoints restoration replacing sorrow and heaviness with joy and praise, and establishes His chosen as righteous plantings belonging to Him.

Christ's Anointed Mission

The prophecy is the Messiah's own declaration of the ministry He was anointed by the Spirit of the Lord God to perform, spoken through Isaiah and taken by Jesus to Himself. That anointed work is done through the Holy Spirit working with human agents to comfort all who mourn, and especially to comfort those who mourn in Zion. To them He gives restoration in place of ruin, beauty and honor in place of ashes and disgrace, the oil of joy and gladness in place of mourning and grief, and the garment of praise in place of heaviness and despair. Those who receive this comfort become trees of righteousness, planted by the Lord, so that God is glorified and His work is displayed. The Sun of Righteousness has risen, and Christ waits to clothe His people with the garments of salvation.

His life and ministry fulfilled what the prophecy testified He would do. His own testimony in Luke 4:16-18 confirms that bringing good news, healing the brokenhearted, freeing captives, comforting mourners, and replacing sorrow with joy and praise identifies His mission. Therefore sufferers have reason to come to Him in faith to receive His grace, and every tempted, mourning believer has a personal interest in Him because He looks with pitying tenderness and does not forsake them. Faith in Christ as personal Saviour brings into the light of the Sun of Righteousness, because He has made reconciliation for sin, and in Him are found peace and hope.

This restorative work stands in contrast to Satan's work of causing pain, ruin, wounds, and bondage. It is God's offer of mercy to fallen people, to those under Satan's power, and to those harmed by what unrighteous leaders distorted, for Christ came to save them and set right what was distorted. People are to cooperate with Him, and as His followers remain connected to Him they share in freeing those bound by sin with personal, compassionate help and bear good fruit. The fruit of Christ's comforting, freeing, and making righteous is trees of righteousness planted by the Lord, bringing glory to God.

God's Comforting Restoration

God appoints consolation for those who grieve in Zion, exchanging disgrace for honor, sorrow for joyful anointing, and despondency and heaviness for praise and gladness, so that the restored become righteous plantings of the Lord whose lives bring Him glory. This comforting, healing, liberating work belongs to the proclamation of good news to the meek, healing for the brokenhearted, liberty for captives, and comfort for all who mourn, and it is the gospel and health-reform work entrusted to God's people and to all who share in educational work. Christ Himself performs this restoration and extends it through His followers, so that grief is turned to joy and those who receive it stand as righteous people planted by the Lord.

He draws the sorrowing because He loves them, not to wound them but to comfort, keep, and save them. When the soul is consecrated, bows at the cross, trusts His love, and draws near, He draws near in return and pours gladness and rejoicing into the heart. His personal invitation speaks to the afflicted, heavy-laden, sad, and bowed down, giving rest to the weary, binding up the brokenhearted, lifting up the downcast, healing bitterness of spirit and the wounds and bruises made by Satan, gathering the broken in the arms of Jesus, bringing peace and consolation, and leading toward conversion and salvation. This tender, pitying love belongs to the final testimony given on the very borders of the eternal world, calling all to be ready because the Lord is at the door. To keep mourning, sighing, and complaining misrepresents Him and spreads gloom to others, while receiving His grace as oil for the lamp and putting on praise and cheer lets light burn in clear, steady rays to lighten and cheer the pathway of those weak in faith and hope.

The restoration includes full and free forgiveness and acceptance through the crucified and risen Lord. He blots out transgressions, remembers sins no more, takes away rebuke, removes sin, imparts His own righteousness, and clothes the pardoned with light, joy, and gladness. Those made holy and redeemed are established as His righteous plantings, with sorrow and heaviness replaced by joy and praise. Such a change gives reason and even duty to express hope in cheerful songs of praise and thanksgiving, to be cheerful yet sober and watchful, to reflect heaven and the beauty of holiness, to long to impart joy to others, and to carry heavenly brightness to wearied, perplexed, and suffering souls through works of mercy.

The promise is to be spoken personally to the sorrowing when human sympathy is too feeble for a breaking heart. So it is to be spoken to a frail, grieving wife left alone after losing a tender and loving husband on whom she leaned, directing her to look to the lifelong Best Friend whose love has been with her all her life.

The words in Isaiah 60-65 are to be heeded and accepted, with ceasing from complaint and evil, and then the Lord will show His power in convincing and converting souls. Comfort with the oil of joy comes after warning and reproof for backsliding and apostasy, when His people gratefully recognize and value the precious manifestations of His love.

Trees of Righteousness Described

To be trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, is to be placed under Christ's transforming grace and set in His vineyard within the circle of His special care and blessing, planted as a goodly vine by the wells of life to bring forth fruit by which He is glorified. It is God's purpose for Israel and the glorious possibilities before them, that they grow up to full maturity in Him and bring forth the fruits of the Spirit and the sweet graces and precious fruits of character, as seen in Joseph, whose good character would bless the world and glorify Him. Living, growing, fruit-bearing church members are identified with that image, and their sanctification is connected with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which Christ watches for and hungers to find. Those who bear evil fruit only, wild grapes, uselessness, and hindrance that misrepresents God, robs the world of blessing and cumbers the ground, are not His planting, and to lose heaven by such fruitlessness is to lose everything and bring judgment when God in His Son comes seeking fruit and finds none.

A good tree is known by good fruit, and profession without corresponding practice is worthless. When works and influence match profession, they bear fruit that brings glory to God, proving character by works rather than by profession and distinguishing those who do the will of the Father from those who only say Lord, Lord. Becoming such trees means a profession of faith matched by practice, doing good, practicing truth daily, obeying the commandments, following Christ's goodness, and showing goodness and faithfulness. Christians who do not display the fruits of the Spirit in words and actions cannot rightly be called trees of righteousness.

Such trees thrive only when spiritual moisture falls constantly on the soul, drawing supplies from Christ and growing up unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ with fresh, sweet, fragrant life, instead of remaining quarrelsome, overbearing, criticizing and denunciatory. Drawing nearer to God and to one another makes them fruitful, like trees watered by the river of life, and even in adverse circumstances they reach heavenward for nourishment from God and return what they receive in service that glorifies Him. Like the Scotch fir, which needs less soil for its roots than any other tree and finds enough nourishment in dry soil and among barren rocks to stay as green in winter as in summer and to tower above all other trees of the wood and reach highest toward heaven with the least earth about its roots, they live amid adverse circumstances yet constantly reach heavenward and draw nourishment from above, and like its fragrant boughs they impart grace for grace received, returning the hidden nourishment that comes from God in purest service. They are pruned, cultured, and straightened by the divine Gardener as they stand in their lot and place.

God brought Israel by mighty power out of Egypt into its own land with every spiritual advantage, fenced and tended with special care and blessing, to become righteous trees planted by the Lord that would bear fruit to His glory. The Father and the Son are one in love for them and in interest in their fruitfulness, sharing a loving interest in the chosen people and providing every means that the love of God can devise to make them fruitful, with increased opportunities and further care as with Joseph and the tended fig tree. They did not profit by their blessings but abused His mercy for more than a thousand years, bore wild grapes that cumbered the ground and misrepresented God, disappointing God, inviting His judgments, and determining their own destruction, which was shown in the withering curse on the fruitless fig tree when God in His Son sought fruit and found none.

Youthful apprentices are saplings to be trained into trees of the Lord's planting, and those in charge must study human nature to know how to deal with minds. Each youth has a different temperament and faces temptation, so all require careful, judicious, patient treatment and oft-repeated instruction rather than the wisdom and spiritual strength expected of experienced workers, and they must be carefully pruned and cultured according to varied needs, as in a garden church of trees and plants and flowers that do not all need the same treatment, so that the Lord who demands growth sees them mature in piety and Christian growth and bear fruit to His glory. In the great day of final accounting each person will appear either as a tree of the Lord's planting bearing much fruit to His glory, meaning a useful life, or as a worthless tree bearing nothing but leaves, meaning a fruitless life that leaves only a bad record. The kind of tree is decided in youth, for few characters change materially after twenty or twenty-five years old, when habits become fixed, impressions formed, and the future character of the man made.

The church is the Lord's garden, diligently cultivated under God as the divine Husbandman and great Gardener, and the trees of righteousness are those members whose lives are guided by the ennobling principles of truth and bring forth fruit unto eternal life. Only these trees of His planting will be acknowledged by the Lord, and their lives display the skill of the Gardener, reveal the difference between sin and righteousness and between sin and obedience, prove the infinite power of Christ's grace to transform human nature, and bring glory to God. They keep their minds occupied with truth alone and stand true and loyal to Him, giving themselves to Christ as His children and showing in words and deeds fruit that harmonizes with the purposes and work of the school, so that Christ can look upon the school with pleasure, in contrast to strange plants and noxious weeds produced when unsanctified worldly influences are allowed to rule in the heart.

Future Glory Promised

At the final deliverance the appointed consolation for mourners comes to its fullness, with sorrow replaced by joy and heaviness by praise. The pain and weeping of God's oppressed and afflicted people are ended, and those once afflicted and condemned stand before Him in honor. This complete restoration of beauty for ashes, joyful anointing for mourning, and praise for heaviness brings Him glory.

The garments of praise belong to the time after the battle has been fought and the victory won, when God's will is done on earth as it is done in heaven. Then the nations of the saved own no other law than the law of heaven, living as a happy, united family clothed with praise and thanksgiving. That clothing is the robe of Christ's righteousness, worn in continual praise to God. The new earth is bathed in light and gladness with no more sin and no more death, while the morning stars sing together and the sons of God shout for joy and God and Christ proclaim that sin and death are ended. In that joy of Zion restored, heaviness is gone and beauty, gladness, and freedom remain.

In God's kingdom the garments of heaviness are exchanged for the wedding garment. Those who have fought the good fight of faith share the Redeemer's glory. They await and witness the King's coronation in the New Jerusalem, where there is no sadness but joy and praise instead of this life's sorrow.

The promise is future glory for Zion, for Jerusalem the holy city, and for the servants of the Lord. It comes with the call to awake, put on strength and beautiful garments, shake off dust, arise and be loosed from captive bands, with no unclean entering. Afflicted Zion will be rebuilt with fair colors and precious stones, her children taught of the Lord with great peace. She will be established in righteousness far from oppression and terror, with no weapon formed against her prospering and every accusing tongue condemned, as the heritage of the servants of the Lord whose righteousness is of the Lord.

Followers Share the Work

Christ's work of comforting mourners in Zion, exchanging grief and heaviness for joy and praise so they become trees of righteousness planted by the Lord for His glory, is also the work of His followers. It is the work of the Lord's shepherds and of gospel workers, to be done by faith in His lines as physicians of souls educated in Christ's school. It means to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of God, to comfort all that mourn, to preach deliverance to captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to bind up the brokenhearted and proclaim liberty to captives and opening of the prison to the bound. Though black clouds roll over the world and ignorance, superstition, darkness and strong masterful unbelief meet every step of advance, faith soars above to see light beyond and the bow of promise encircling the throne, and believers reflect that light with pen and voice, praising God before the world. This freeing of those bound by sin through personal compassionate help is done as workers remain connected to Him and bear good fruit.

This shared restorative work of bringing good news, healing, liberty and comfort is part of the light given for health reform which God's people are to carry out. It is to be carried out by all who take part in educational work, with all connected with the school to be trees of the Lord's planting, giving themselves to Christ as His children and showing in lives fruit harmonizing with the purposes and work of the school, their words and deeds witnessing the difference between sin and obedience and revealing the transforming power of grace so Christ can look upon the school with pleasure. It includes the work now to be done on earth by those who see the Sabbath trodden down, to give the Sabbath of the fourth commandment the exalted position it deserves. It includes establishing churches and schools with room to grow when spread beyond one center, and establishing sanitariums as agencies of God's own planting to bring rich and poor the bread of heaven, educate in spiritual and physical habits, and restore body and soul.

Gospel workers must do the same blessed spiritual medical missionary work in Christ's lines, dealing skillfully with souls for whom Christ died, binding up, healing and restoring the erring with tenderness and love. They are to go to them privately with counsel and restoration instead of censure, condemnation, harsh words, evil-surmising and reproach, and this requires thorough conversion and restoration and the office work of the Holy Spirit to give quick discernment for sensitive minds so that stone hearts become flesh and workers no longer counteract Christ's work. The authorized work of binding up, comforting and freeing the oppressed has been strangely neglected while men do a work God has not authorized. That unauthorized work is manufacturing commandments that restrict freedom, binding heavy burdens grievous to be borne, mingling human traditions and maxims with God's commandments and exalting them above God's Word, pronouncing judgment on fellow workers because their work does not match human ideas, and sitting in the judgment seat to control fellow men and bring talent under human jurisdiction.

The comfort is for all who mourn or seek relief, not only the favored, and reaches the poor, distressed and less advantaged without waiting to be urged, with workers actively searching out people in need. Christ's care reaches the poor and distressed, not only the socially favored, and His followers show His spirit by using their greater gifts to serve and lift those with fewer advantages. Spiritually barren unworked fields are to become filled with fruitful trees of righteousness through the knowledge of God and His Word, when people treat means as a loan of the Lord's goods and put it into circulation freely, unselfishly and cheerfully in willing servitude and obedience to prepare the way to work those fields, consecrating to His service the gifts entrusted for time and eternity. The Lord's work is the planting of a people in many places, so that His work and message bear fruit throughout the world and bring glory to Him.

Humble consecrated workers who serve with self-denial and trust in God, even when they lack education or worldly advantages, are trees of the Lord's planting, and their fruit, not their learning or opportunities, shows their worth. Consecrated men and women, families and lay members who bring truth to spiritually barren, neglected, difficult and objectionable desert places, relying on God and working patiently and self-sacrificingly, become fruitful, touch many hearts, bring change in morals, do much good, help people turn to God, and build up the church. Their efforts help bring people to salvation and bear fruit like the apostles, and through the Spirit they share in the Saviour's joy and will receive a rich reward. In the last days those with Christ's mind go without the camp bearing reproach as good soldiers, laboring even without Conference support except where necessary, and even after death their scattered seed multiplies to God's glory. It is the privilege of those who have received great blessings and pardon for sin to be such trees, shedding forth comfort and blessing, partaking of Christ's self-denial and self-sacrifice, and with earnest purpose leading those in ways of sin into paths of righteousness by teaching them to give up selfishness and sin and accept the lovely attributes of the divine nature, a calling requiring heart searching and confession amid abounding evil growing more prevalent and more lightly regarded.

Children can become trees of righteousness when parents bring Christ into the home and cherish His attributes. Bringing Christ in gives discernment between good and evil and enables parents to help children bear the fruit of the Spirit, and the influence of this home training goes with children into the schoolroom, so that when godly parents and godly teachers work in harmony children's hearts are prepared to take deep interest in God's work in the church, and the graces cultivated in the home carried into the church glorify God by this planting of the Lord. Every member of the church is called to do service for Christ under the precious influence of the Holy Spirit, as a plant of the Lord reflecting the healing rays of the Sun of Righteousness to every other soul, whose example and godly conversation has a reviving influence upon other plants of the Lord. As this is done and the standard of truth is lifted, God's church increases in power and influence, with churches built in many places as memorials where God's people assemble to worship Him, so that witnesses bear living testimony to the world.

Daily Life in Praise

To be made trees of righteousness for divine glory is to make that glory the purpose of daily life, so that facial expression, words, tone of voice, and business dealings all display faith and integrity and convince the world of loyalty to God. It is to live in the liberty of sons of God, in Christlike lives full of praise that bless others, rather than in undue hardship and suffering. God is not pleased to have His people live like a band of mourners sitting in sackcloth and ashes, but to have them recognize Him as Helper and cooperate with Him in doing His will. Receiving the garment of joy and gladness in place of heaviness makes them strong to help those in need, ministering as instrumentalities to souls fainting for the bread of life, speaking words of hope and cheer that revive and comfort the weary and distressed. Keeping in the current of life from Christ, they kindle life in other souls and rouse those who are sluggish and spiritually dead to healthy, happy action.

All mourning, sighing, and complaining misrepresents Jesus, gathering gloom about the soul only to spread it to others. Christ has power to keep His people and to heal all bitterness of spirit they have suffered, giving the garment of joy and gladness in place of bitterness and mourning. Receiving His grace as oil for the lamp and putting on praise and cheer lets the light burn in clear, steady rays to lighten and cheer the pathway of others who are weak in faith and hope.

Receiving Christ as the sin-pardoning Saviour takes the garments of heaviness and mourning off the soul and clothes it with joy, gladness, garments of light, and full joy. He takes away sin and imparts His own righteousness, filling the heart with joy. This gives Christians both the right and the duty to sing songs of rejoicing, praise, and thanksgiving, to be cheerful while remaining sober and watchful, to reflect heaven and the beauty of holiness in character, to long to impart their joy to others, and to carry heavenly brightness to wearied, perplexed, and suffering souls through works of mercy and medical missionary work. The garment of praise is set against the garment of heaviness, so doubts and lack of confidence in one another are to be put off, and speech and action are to encourage and express what is good.