The Lord Our Righteousness // The Amazing Names of God, Part 9

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

For a long time I wondered what this word 'righteousness' meant that Christians seem to bandy around all the time. The Righteousness of God. And what could it possibly have to do with the lives we lead here and now. Today, tomorrow – real life stuff. The Righteousness of God! Really?!

You know, the word "righteousness" isn't one that's used so much today. You may hear Christians banding it around. To tell you the truth, a decade and a half ago when I first became a Christian, I heard people use this word "righteousness" without ever really understanding it. So I started using it too but I still didn't understand it.

Righteousness I guess, kind of intuitively, it means someone who's good, someone who's righteous. Is that it? And then they talked about the righteousness of God and that has a whole bunch of different meanings too. Funny how words get used and misused without us ever really understanding them.

So what is it and why does it matter and what, if anything, does it have to do with you and me, here and now? Is this righteousness thing at all relevant in today's age? I mean most of us think to ourselves, "yeah, I'm not perfect but then I'm no axe murderer either, I'm no rapist either. Deep down I'm not such a bad person and so I must be pretty righteous. It's kind of a reasonable word to use for me isn't it?"

Who does it belong to? What does it mean? Who cares anyway? But what if I said that righteousness, righteousness has everything to do with you and me, here and now and how you and I will spend the rest of eternity? And what if this word 'righteousness' doesn't quite mean what we might think it means?

Over the last couple of weeks we've been looking at different names used of God throughout the Bible. And today we're going to take a look at yet another one because these different names that God uses for Himself in the Bible, they tell us a huge amount about who He is and who He wants to be to you and me in our day to day lives.

Today we're looking at the name Jehovah Tsidkenu which is not such a commonly used name for God. Most people have never even heard of it but what it means is the Lord, our righteousness. Now, straight off the bat this one seems pretty obscure and irrelevant, doesn't it?

Immanuel – God is with us. Jehovah Rapha – The God who heals. Jehovah Rohi – The Lord is my shepherd.

Yeah, they make a lot of sense, we can do something with those names. But this name, Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness, what's that got to do with today? Why should I even listen to these eight minutes or so on the radio? I mean how more obscure and irrelevant can this guy get?

If those were the thought running through your mind then I want to ask you to hold fire before you pass judgement because this name of God, the Lord our righteousness, is perhaps one of the most important ones of all.

Righteousness means this, someone who is morally right or justifiable. Someone who is virtuous and perfect and fine and genuine. So intuitively we can kind of figure out that, well it's an attribute of God. That's who God is. He is righteous. Righteousness is an attribute of God.

In part that's good news but in a large part that's kind of bad news. And it's bad news because you and I have fallen well and truly short in so many ways of Gods perfect righteousness and that's what He calls sin. You have it in your life, I have it in my life. We know that. So Gods righteous and we're not.

What does that mean? What are the consequences of our sin, our rebellion against God? Or our falling short of Gods glory? Romans chapter 6, verse 23:

The wages of sin is death.

That's an eternal death, an eternal separation from God, that place called hell. God's righteousness to you and me who fall short of His standard of perfection is actually bad news. So, let's go back to this name of God, Jehovah Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness.

Do you see that this name isn't bad news? In a huge sense it's fantastic news. The Lord is our righteousness. The first time this Hebrew name for God is used in the Old Testament is in Jeremiah chapter 23, beginning at verse 5:

The days are surely coming', says the Lord, 'when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live safely and this is the name by which he will be called, the Lord is our righteousness, Jehovah Tsidkenu.

Of course this is a prophecy about the coming of Jesus centuries before Jesus was ever born and it talks about God sending a saviour into the world and they will call Him the Lord is our righteousness. So Gods righteousness becomes our righteousness through Jesus.

Things are seriously looking up now because if Gods righteousness becomes my righteousness, well I no longer fall short. Let me read you that 'wages of sin is death' verse again, this time the whole verse if you please. Romans chapter 6, verse 23:

For the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

See through Jesus Gods righteousness becomes our righteousness. But how do we acquire the righteousness of God for ourselves, the right standing with God? Romans chapter 3, verse 22:

The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

So simply by believing in Jesus, believing that He is who He is, the Son of God, that He died on that cross to pay for my sin and yours, that He rose again to give us new life. By trusting our very lives into that truth, into His hands, we receive the righteousness of God. The Lord is our righteousness, Jehovah Tsidkenu.

We now have a right standing with God. That's why they call Jesus "our Saviour" because He saves us from an eternity, an absolute eternity without God. Now all that may seem a little bit dry but can I tell you, I'd been a Christian for years before anyone ever really explained that to me so that I could understand it.

I still make mistakes today. I still get angry or cranky sometimes. I still do things that fall short of the righteousness of God. Things that should land me in hell for eternity but here's the thing. I know that through Jesus, His Son, the Lord my God has become my righteousness.

And when I go to Him and I ask Him for His forgiveness I receive it. Not because I'm a great guy but because I've trusted my whole life, my whole eternity in Jesus and that's what He's done for me. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 21:

For our sake He made Him sin who knew no sin so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

In other words, when He was nailed on that cross, in Gods eyes, Jesus took on Himself my sin and yours. He never ever sinned but He took on our sins through this brutal punishment, He paid for our sin so that you and I could become the righteousness of God.

My friend, when you put your faith and trust and your life into Jesus hands you can stand before the throne of God as clean and pure as Jesus Himself because His righteousness has become our righteousness. That's the good news of Jesus Christ. There it is. An eternity with God because of who God is and what He did. Awesome!