Jehovah Tsidkenu

This week we have been studying Jehovah Tsidkenu, The LORD our Righteousness.  On the surface, righteousness might not be a characteristic of God that you are hungering to study. It might seem…somewhat dry. But read on! Righteousness is foundational to our relationship with the LORD.  If this is something we understand, not just with our heads, but are truly living out in our lives, our relationship with God will be one of true freedom.

What I Learned In Class

Today Pastor Grace jumped into the passage in the Old Testament where God makes himself know as Jehovah Tsikenu.  Please read Jeremiah 23:1-8.  God is declaring judgment on the leaders of the Israelites who mistreated ‘His flock’. God then goes on, through the words of Jeremiah, to prophesy over Israel’s future.  He says, “The days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is right and just in the land. In His days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which He will be called: The LORD our Righteousness” (Jer. 23:5-6).

A question we might ask ourselves is ‘what exactly is righteousness?”.  Pastor Grace described righteousness as being morally right, blameless, guiltless, holy, innocent, just or sinless.  None of us would use these adjectives to describe ourselves yet each one of these words describes our LORD and all His actions.  Even in His judgment of Israel, God had a plan to restore them to Himself. He will always do what is right on our behalf because of His great love for us.  It says in Deut. 32:4, “He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He”.  

Look closely at the final words of Jeremiah’s prophecy in 23:6, “The LORD our Righteousness”.  Let’s delve into the homework lesson to learn the significance of this little word!

What I Learned In The Homework

Both the New and Old Testaments have much to say about our righteousness. Let scripture speak for itself: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6a). In Romans 3:11 it says, “There is no one righteous”.  Scripture goes on to say that we can’t even become righteous by following the Law, rather it makes us conscious of sin:  “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law, rather, through the law we become conscious of sin” (Romans 3:19).  Striving to achieve righteousness on our own, in the eyes of God, will always be a futile endeavor.

The good news is that God does not leave us without hope!!  “But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness, from God, comes through Jesus Christ to all who believe” (Romans 3:22-22).  It goes on to say in Romans 3:28, “For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law”.  

That brings us back to Jer. 23:6, “The LORD our Righteousness”.  By faith, Jesus is our righteousness.  This means that we have right standing with God because we believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. When God sees us, it is through Jesus and His righteousness. Many of us understand this in our heads but it doesn’t quite make it into our life experiences. We try to live up to a standard that we cannot possibly meet and walk away feeling condemned, like we will never measure up. The homework pointed out that this is something that Jesus actually condemned.  To better understand this, the homework brought us to Luke 18:9-14, “The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector”.

Before continuing, please take a few minutes to read this parable. It begins by telling us to whom Jesus was speaking: “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else,” (Luke 18:9).  The Pharisee proclaimed his goodness to God by detailing the ways he had upheld the law. He then contrasted his actions to those leading sinful, evil lives.  In the temple at the same time was a tax collector, one of the very people that the Pharisee was condemning.  The Scriptures tell us that “the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner’” (Luke 18:13).

As we have been studying the bible together, we have learned that the original language with which Scripture was written (Hebrew/Greek/Aramaic) could convey a slightly different meaning when translated into English. The word for ‘mercy’ in Luke 18:13 is one of those times.  The Greek word used most often for mercy is eleos. It means mercy, compassion, or active pity. In the homework we learned that the Greek word found in this verse (hilaskomai) is only translated into the English word for mercy in two other places. Hebrews 2:17 is one of these places: “For this reason He had to be made like His brothers in every way. In order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people”.

Looking back to Luke 18:13,   this means that the tax collector was not asking for mercy or compassion; what he really was asking for was something so much bigger. He was asking for a Savior!!! This humble man knew that he could not satisfy God with his own efforts. He knew he needed a Savior. Listen to what Scripture says about this man as he left the temple: “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).  We learned in the homework that being justified before God means that He has pardoned the sins of those who believe in Jesus and treats them as righteous (or not guilty) in the eyes of the law. 

To Wrap It All Up

There is something so important in this lesson, so foundational to our faith, that I want you to walk away with.  In the homework it stressed that there is nothing we can ever do to earn right standing with God. There is no amount of striving or self effort that can accomplish this. Our righteous comes through faith in Christ alone, by His grace. If we are not living this out in our lives we will never truly reflect that we are God’s.  Paraphrasing the words in the homework, righteousness is not something we do rather it is Whose we are.  Going back to the very beginning of this post, this is what it means when we read “The LORD our Righteousness”.

“For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him.  I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ.  For God’s way of making us right with Himself depends on faith.” (Phil. 3:8b-9)