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Jeremiah 23:5–6
“In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness’” (v. 6).
In seeking to understand the Lord’s attribute of righteousness or justice, we have seen the importance of retribution. On a fundamental level, God’s being righteous means that He is just, that He always punishes and rewards according to what is deserved (e.g., see Ex. 21:23–25). How does God make the evaluation here to determine what a person, nation, church, or group deserves? As we have also seen, the measure of right and wrong is His own character. There can be no standard above Him to which He answers because He is the Lord, and there is no other (Isa. 45:5).
Because God must be the highest standard, the final measure of what is good, true, and beautiful, and because He is unchangeably consistent to Himself (Mal. 3:6; 2 Tim. 2:13), the law that He gives to His creatures is a reflection of His character. In other words, His moral law is based on His own nature. Furthermore, when we are talking about righteousness and justice, we are invariably speaking about legal matters. So we understand that divine righteousness operates in both a moral or ethical sense and a legal sense. When we put all that together, we understand that our righteousness before God depends on our having met the legal standard that is based on His own character. For us to be fully righteous in the sight of God, we have to be perfect keepers of His law (Matt. 5:48).
This puts us in a terrible predicament, because no sinner has kept or can keep God’s law perfectly, so none of us in ourselves can be declared righteous in the heavenly courtroom. Without righteousness, we are under the wrath of the Lord. Thanks be to God, however, that He has graciously provided a way for us to be reckoned righteous based not on our own law-keeping but on the righteousness of another. We refer, of course, to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Branch from David described in today’s passage who saves His people and bears the name “The Lord is our righteousness.” He has the name “Lord” because He is God incarnate, and the righteousness that He gives us through faith in Him alone is His righteous record of perfect obedience to God’s law that He secured by keeping this law according to His human nature. John Calvin comments that Christ’s righteousness “is ours, because Christ is righteous not for himself, but possesses a righteousness which he communicates to us.”
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The incarnation tells us that the Son of God lived a truly human life to secure for us the perfect righteousness that reflects God’s own divine character. We are declared righteous based on this righteousness of Christ put on our accounts when we trust in Jesus alone for salvation. We can never be too grateful for God’s providing a righteousness for us when we could not attain it ourselves.
For further study
- Isaiah 62:1–5
- 1 Corinthians 1:30
The bible in a year
- 2 Kings 14–16
- John 6:1–21
- 2 Kings 17–22
- John 6:22–71