The LORD Our Righteousness
Jeremiah 23:5–6 (cf. Jer. 33:14–16)
As the history of God’s redemptive plan unfolds throughout the Scriptures, God reveals Himself to His people from one generation to another. He makes His nature and attributes known to man by exercising something that He wills. For instance, God revealed Himself to Abraham as “God Almighty” or “El Shaddai” which means that He is the all-sufficient, all-powerful One (Gen. 17:1). God was implying that in the midst of Abraham and Sarah’s impotence to bear a child, it was Him who would make it possible. When Moses had an encounter with God in the burning bush before he was sent to be Israel’s deliverer from Egypt, he asked the Lord,
“Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”
Exodus 3:13
To this question by Moses, God replied with an amazing statement about Himself:
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
Moreover God said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: ‘The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.’
Exodus 3:14–15
The LORD is His Name (Exo. 15:3) and this is His name forever, and this is His memorial to all generations. That is to say that God wants Himself to be remembered by His name, LORD.
YHWH
‘LORD’ is an english rendering of the so-called tetragrammaton which speaks of the name of God. It is from the Hebrew ‘YHWH’ which when rendered with vowels (Hebrew has no vowels) is ‘YAHWEH’. God revealed this name to Moses prior to the deliverance that He was about to exercise to redeem Israel from Egypt. Many label this name as God’s redemptive name and it is indeed.
Now, God wants Himself to be remembered by this name. Throughout the Scriptures we see different episodes in which the people of God made a memorial unto God after He has done something for them. For example, when Abraham was about to kill his son Isaac to be an offering, God stopped him and provided a ram. That ram was then offered instead of Isaac. Abraham then called the place where this event took place, the “LORD-WILL-PROVIDE” or in Hebrew, “Yahweh Jireh” (Gen. 22:14). When Joshua along with Moses and Aaron defeated the Amalekites, the Lord asked Moses to write what took place as a memorial that the Lord will make war against Amalek from generation to generation (Exo. 17:14). After this, Moses called the place where the event took place: the “LORD-IS-MY-BANNER” or “Yahweh Nissi”.
It appears that the LORD attaches a word to His name in order to specify what He has done. Whatever He does then is always attached to who He is. He loves because He is love. He saves because He is Savior. He exercises justice and righteousness for He is just and righteous.
During the time of the prophet Jeremiah, God promised Israel that the time would come that from the lineage of David, a Branch of Righteousness would spring forth. And this Branch will be called by this name:
“THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS”
“Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD,
“That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness;
A King shall reign and prosper,
And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
In His days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will dwell safely;
Now this is His name by which He will be called:
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Jeremiah 23:5–6
Before we understand why it is necessary that the Branch shall be called by that name, we have to realize the very problem which God has provided a solution for — the depravity of man.
The Depravity of Man
As we come across the words in the book of Jeremiah, we see how the Israelites have turned to their own way. Reading Jeremiah 2:5–8, the people of God went far from the Lord to pursue worthless things. They did not remember how the Lord delivered them from Egypt. They defiled the land in which the Lord brought them. The priests who were supposed to be reminding them of the law of God did not know the law themselves. The prophets prophesied falsely by Baal. They went to other things that do not profit. This is the Lord’s summary of what they did:
“You have played the whore with many lovers”
Jeremiah 3:1
The Israel became so idolatrous that they had utterly forgotten and forsaken the Lord their God. The reason for their gross conduct before the Lord is the nature and disposition of their hearts. The Lord said, “Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward (Jeremiah 7:24)”. In essence, the Israelites have turned to other gods. They practiced satanic rituals and worshiped pagan gods. All other men in the world are no different from Israel. All men are corrupt, inherently corrupt.
The Scripture teaches that there is none righteous, no, not one. There is none who seeks after God. All have become unprofitable and no one does good, not even one (Rom. 3:10–12). The sinfulness of man goes beyond his actions, it is his very nature. Man chooses to sin simply because he loves it and that being a sinner is his nature. Man is sinner not because he sins, man sins because he is a sinner. The heart of men is utterly corrupt to the core and every kind of sinful behavior springs from this corruption. The Lord Jesus addressed this:
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
Matthew 15:19
Furthermore, the sinfulness of man is indeed a problem because God is holy. God is completely other, transcendent, or in simple words, He is totally separate from sin and cannot have any participation with sin. Since He is holy, He cannot just take a sinner to Himself for it will compromise His holiness. In addition to that, man’s sinfulness is indeed a problem because God is just. His justice demands that the guilty be punished. And guess what, all of us are guilty before God (Rom. 3:19). He would be a terrible and unjust Judge if He would just let go of someone who has willfully rebelled against Him, blasphemed His name, and have broken His laws. Thus for a sinner, if left by himself, all that is left for him is God’s wrath. It is for this reason that men are by nature “children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3).
You may attempt to work out your way to God. But if you have any understanding of how sinful you are, that you have a debt that you can never pay, you will surely back off from this idea. You have to understand that all our righteousness before God are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). You may attempt to obey the law but you will just end up condemned as well. The righteousness that God requires is an absolute righteousness. It is the righteousness that can never be attained by man. It is the righteousness that only God can provide. Thus, left to himself, man can never be right with God. And so, God must act first, or else we are forever lost.
The New Covenant
In spite of Israel’s rebellion against God, He still made a promise to them. This is a promise that is also directed towards all the elect of God. The LORD said to Jeremiah,
“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah —
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:31–32
God promises of a new covenant to the house of Israel. This covenant is wholly according to the His sovereign will. The LORD said, “I will”. This is important to understand for this is key to understanding that salvation is of the LORD alone. The LORD explicitly said that this new covenant is NOT according to the old covenant which is the covenant of law. There is even something more wonderful and profound in this new covenant:
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
Jeremiah 31:33–34
The LORD promises that His people will have His law written on their heart. This law is essentially the law of Christ which is love (Gal. 6:2). The LORD desires to make Himself known, to reveal Himself to His people. For this reason, He also promises that those who will receive His forgiveness will all know Him. This is a wonderful promise because no other privilege is greater than knowing the LORD. It is knowing Him that is the very point or essence of eternal life (John 17:3).
While it is true that God made a new covenant with His people and that this covenant cannot be broken, it is still necessary that God would make a way, a just and righteous way of dealing with His people’s sins. This is where the Lord Jesus Christ comes into the whole picture of God’s amazing plan of redemption.
The Branch
The promised Branch was declared by God to His people. He even repeated this promise to them:
“Behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD,
“That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness;
A King shall reign and prosper,
And execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
In His days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will dwell safely;
Now this is His name by which He will be called:
THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Jeremiah 23:5–6
Before we go to the name by which the Branch will be called, we have to understand who this Branch is. We have to let the Scripture speak to us about this Branch.
A thorough survey of the word of God makes us to conclude that the promised Branch is the Lord Jesus Christ. This Branch of righteousness would spring forth from David. The Branch was also spoken of by the prophets of old:
There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,
And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
Isaiah 11:1‘Hear, O Joshua, the high priest,
You and your companions who sit before you,
For they are a wondrous sign;
For behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.
Zechariah 3:8Then speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, saying:
“Behold, the Man whose name is the BRANCH!
From His place He shall branch out,
And He shall build the temple of the LORD;
Zechariah 6:12
The prophesied Branch was fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that the Branch would come from David and we see the New Testament begins with the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ:
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham:
Matthew 1:1
Paul, in his salutation in his epistle to the Romans, said,
Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh,
Romans 1:1–3
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself said to John in the Book of Revelation that He is an Offspring of David, that is, according to to the flesh:
“I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
Revelation 22:16
In other words, the promised Branch is actually the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, it was prophesied that Jesus will be called by this name: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS or “Yahweh Tsidkenu”. How come that He would be called by that name? What did He do that He would be called by that name?
The LORD our RIGHTEOUSNESS
The Lord Jesus Christ did not only die for our sins. He also lived for our righteousness. We have to understand that Christ came not merely to be an example for us but more importantly to be our substitute. This means that not only He died for our sins, He also lived the perfect sinless life that we could never live. He also fulfilled the law on our behalf. It was intended by the Father that His Son would be born under the law (Gal. 4:4). Jesus knew this that is why He said, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill (Matthew 5:17)”. He actively obeyed the law for us. Indeed,
what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh…
Romans 8:3
The Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the law for righteousness on our behalf. For this reason He “is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans 10:4).” Christ is not only the end of the law for righteousness in the sense that He fulfilled the law. Christ being the end of the law means that the law (and the prophets) is all about Him, that is, it points to Him. Christ Himself is the very righteousness of God that is witnessed by the law and the prophets (Rom. 3:21). In other words, the law is not really intended for men to be kept in order for them to be righteous. This is because God knew already that man is a sinner before He even gave the law to Moses. The law then is intended for Christ to be fulfilled on our behalf.
What do you suppose the greatest commandment? Jesus answered this question:
“Teacher, which [is] the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, "[ 'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’]”
Matthew 22:36-37
The great commandment of the law about loving God with one’s entire being is fulfilled by Christ. There was never a single second of His life that He didn’t love the law with all of His being. That’s the depth of His fulfilling of the law.
Jesus lived a sinless life. Taking on the form of a bondservant, He was not exempted to temptations. The Scripture tells us that He was tempted in all points yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). He committed no sin nor was deceit found in His mouth (1 Pet. 2:22, cf, Isa. 53:9). In Him is no sin (1 John 3:5). When it comes to His mind or to His thought life, He knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21). The sinless life of the Lord Jesus Christ was lived from His birth to His death. He was obedient to the point of death, even the death at the cross (Phil. 2:8). The sinlessness of Christ is important because He would not be a fitting sacrifice at the cross if He had sinned and the righteousness that is necessary to be imputed to the sinners would not be achieved if He had sinned.
Since Christ was sinless, He should not have been punished. We are the ones, the guilty ones, who are deserving of punishment. And yet we know that He was punished at the cross. Why is that? The righteousness that He would impute to His people is ready but it was still necessary for Him to pay the price for the sins of that same people. What happened is what we call the Great Exchange:
For He [God the Father] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
2 Corinthians 5:21
In order for us to become the righteousness of God, Christ was needed to be sin for us. “For He [God the Father] made Him [Christ] who knew no sin to be sin for us”’. Jesus was made to be sin for us but it does not mean that He became sinful in His nature. Jesus was crucified at the cross not because He was guilty on His own but because our sins were laid upon Him. He became guilty by the imputation of our sins:
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the LORD has laid on Him [Christ] the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6
Since Jesus bore the sins of many, He also received the penalty that was due to our sins. He took the full weight of God’s wrath upon Himself. He became the propitiation, that is, a sacrifice the removes wrath, in order to appease the wrath of God. On account of sin, God condemned sin in the flesh of His Son
(Romans 8:3), Christ received the punishment that we deserve in order to satisfy the justice of God. The goal of all this is for us to become the righteousness of God in Him. So, our sins were imputed on Him, His righteousness was imputed on us — this is the Great Exchange. Essentially, since Christ lived and died as our substitute, the righteous requirement of the law is already fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:4).
If you would go back to man’s radical depravity, we realize that the righteousness that we need in order to be reconciled to the holy God cannot be found in us. It is totally outside of us. We cannot attain it. We cannot buy our way to it. Our self-righteousness is never enough to be right with God. We can only be saved when we trust what Christ has done for us — that He lived and died on our behalf. He lived the sinless life, fulfilling the law for us. He died the substitutionary death at the cross in our place. Indeed for this reason, we are now in Christ who became our righteousness.
But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God — and righteousness and sanctification and redemption —
1 Corinthians 1:30
Christ is our righteousness! He is the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS! The prophecy concerning Him as the Branch is already fulfilled. By this name: the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, we shall call Him. We remember what He has done when we look to Him as our only righteousness and to this hope in Him, we hold.
Now, the righteousness of God that is in Christ is a gift that is to be received by faith (Rom. 5:17). This righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel from faith to faith (Rom. 1:17). It simply means that it is by faith alone in Christ alone that this righteousness is received. It is not achieved but can only be received by faith. While it is true that true saving faith produces the fruit of good works, our works cannot add any more value to what Christ has done for us. The sins that we have committed can never subtract from this righteousness but the truly saved ones will surely be sanctified by God.
This is the good news. This is the gospel that we believe and proclaim. This is the message that says that salvation is a divine accomplishment and never based on human works. We have the tendency to boast that is why we have to remember that we are saved by grace alone, that apart from Jesus Christ, that without His works, we are nothing. Being in Christ, we ought to remind ourselves always that the only good in us is Jesus Christ. Always remember that the only works that can justify you are the works of Christ. The only good in us is Christ.
If the time will come that doubt would enter your mind, remember this truth. Remember the thief who was crucified along with Jesus at Calvary so that you will be reminded that salvation is never by works:
Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”
And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:42–43
This criminal just knew Jesus the moment they were hanged at the cross. He might have heard about Him but he did not hear His sermons and teachings. He did not know the Bible. He did not know justification by faith. He did know anything about the Second Coming. He wasn’t baptized. The man had no church membership. He did not have disciples. He did have any ministry. His conversion occurred while he was bleeding to death. But when he trusted Christ, when he believed in Him, the Lord Himself assured Him that at that very same day he would enter Heaven. I am confident that when I meet this man in heaven and asked him why he is there, he would surely answer me:
“The Man on the middle cross said I can come.”
Christ alone is our righteousness. He is the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Indeed, when we get to heaven we bring nothing except that righteousness that Christ has clothed us with. To conclude this message, let me share with you a beautiful portion of the hymn called “Before the throne of God above”:
Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the Just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.
Soli Deo Gloria!
