Good Morning 12-09

"The LORD is our righteousness."
Jer. 33:16

Again we return to the Scriptures from Sunday. Let us see how they come together.

Martin Luther made a grand discovery. At one point he detested the phrase "the righteousness of God" Rom 1:17. It depicted for him a stern God making unrealistic demands and then punishing those who failed to meet them.

Luther looked at it in the light of: "The righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith." Reference to faith prompted memories of those warm moments when he prayed the psalms with humility and trust. This faith changed him.

He therefore experimented with the phrase by using "righteousness" to describe God's loving actions rather than to describe the austere (harsh or stern) actions of a tyrant. Some seventeenth century puritans translated it "the One who make righteous" into a "right-wiser" of all the wrongs we have committed. I was taught that "The LORD is our righteousness" means that this God is our "Rectifier" of all that has gone wrong.

If you remember Psalm 25 made the same point in other words. "Good and upright is the LORD" Furthermore, this LORD, or Sovereign Savior, is unswerving in accomplishing what is good, in reaching the right ends. V. 10. we see steadfast love and faithfulness.

The LORD whose Advent we celebrate is therefore the One who is the gracious and unrelenting Rectifier of all that has gone wrong.

The vain regrets of yesterday
Have vanished through God's pardoning grace;
the guilty fear has passed away,
And joy has come to take its place.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: The LORD will sustain us in our struggles to make right all that has gone awry because of the wrongs we have committed.