Jeremiah 23:5-6 Behold, the days come, said the LORD, that I will raise to David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper… So could none speak, save God. If man would condense his words, he says too little, or he says it obscurely or untruly. The characteristic of this Divine saying, is, that in the two Hebrew words it contains a summary of the whole supernatural relation of God to man under the Gospel, and of man to God. It contains the whole hidden life of the Christian: it is the substance of sacraments: the unseen spring of self-sacrificing holy action; the fountain of his inward peace; the surest contentment of his soul; the enkindling of burning zeal; the soul of devotion, the fervour of love. It matters little, as to the great outline of the prophecy, whether He, through whom this was to be wrought, is here declared to be "the Lord our Righteousness" or whether "the Lord our Righteousness" were simply a title given to designate His character, that this would be His characteristic, His watchword, the centre of His teaching, His life, His being; this the "end of His toils and tears"; this "the passion of His heart"; this He should labour to bring about, that the Almighty God should be our righteousness. In contrast to the evil shepherds, who, misleading the people, had encouraged them in their sins, and so had brought God's judgments upon them, He was to do away God's judgments, and outwardly to restore them to His favour; but He was also inwardly to remove the cause of that disfavour, their unrighteousness, and to he their righteousness. The change was to be, not without man, but within. It was to be an inward closeness of relation of God to man, and of man to his God. The words presupposed all the teaching of the law, orally or through ritual, as to sin. "Create in me a new heart, O God, and make anew a stayed spirit within me. Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me." It was the universal cry of our fallen nature; the deepest trace of that original righteousness, wherewith God endowed Adam, as soon as He created him. But, though felt more or less, weakly or mightily, disguised or clearly or corruptly, the belief that it could, that it would, be satisfied, was given, where alone it could be given, among the people to whom God revealed Himself, by those whom He sent to promise what He alone could fulfil. This union Jeremiah spoke of under those two words, "the Lord our Righteousness." As unrighteous, we could not be united with Him. God s aweful holiness and man's sinfulness are incompatibles. "Your sins have been abidingly severing between you and your God," was expressed in act by the whole Hebrew ritual. The truth ever lived before their eyes; it was enforced by the prophets; it was chanted in the Psalms; it was confessed in their prayers. But there was a Deliverer yet to come, a deliverance larger, wider, deeper, more inward, than any before, which should stretch out and encompass the human race, through One despised and rejected by those who were despised of all. He Himself was personally to restore our race, personally to be "our righteousness." And has it not been? Is it not? This was the faith of the barbarous nations from the first, written "not with pen and ink, but by the Spirit of God upon the hearts." This was the hope and strength of martyrs; this was the virtue of the continent; this was the victory of the young; this, the triumph over the world's seductions; this, the peace with God and the full contentment of the soul, "the Lord our Righteousness." "In Christ Jesus," the Holy Ghost saith, "we are chosen"; "in Christ Jesus we are called to eternal glory"; "in Him we have redemption"; "in Christ Jesus we are created," "are a new creation" "in Christ Jesus we are alive unto God"; "in Christ Jesus we are accepted"; "in Him we are justified"; "in Him we are sanctified"; "in Him we are accepted"; "in Christ Jesus we are of God"; "in Christ, it is the will of God that we should be perfected"; "in Christ Jesus, those who are His, have fallen asleep"; "in Christ Jesus they shall be made alive." This supernatural life antedated our use of reason. Antedating, then, the use of reason, His first act, in our Christian land, is to unite the soul to Himself. As we are really sons of man by physical birth, so are we as really and as actually "sons of God" by spiritual birth; sons of man, by being born of man; sons of God, by being members of Him, who is the Son of God. Blessed they who so remain, in whom the hidden life in Christ unfolds with the life of sense and reason. But if this has not been so, if the soul have gone away from God "into a far country," forgetting Him, squandering in pleasures of sense the gift of God, can such an one be the object of the love of God, can to such an one Jesus be "the Lord our Righteousness"? God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost long to communicate Themselves to the creature, which they made for Themselves. They long anew to sanctify him, anew to make him that wherein They may take pleasure; to fit him, by the renewed gift of righteousness, for Their gracious engracing Presence; to make the soul, which has been the abode and sport of devils, the dwelling-place of the Trinity. And whether He works this in those who know no more, by creating in the soul a penitent sorrow, for love of their God, that they had so offended God, or whether He teach the soul, over and above, that He gives superabundant grace through an ordinance of His own appointing, and that He has still "left power with His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and turn to Him," no sooner is His work accomplished, sooner has his .Saviour absolved him through His own words, pronounced at His command by his creature s lips, than the dark catalogue of sins is blotted out by the precious blood, the soul is again transfigured with light; it is not forgiven only, it is arrayed anew with the righteousness of Christ. Yet there is a higher closer union still, on which Jesus Himself dwelt with greater fulness and greater complacency of love towards us; which, in different words, He presented again and again; which, when contradicted or misapprehended, He dwelt on the more; which He seems in His love to have been loath to cease to speak of, that mystery whereby He is, above all, our righteousness, because He, who is righteousness itself, comes to "dwell in us, that we may dwell in Him; to be one with us, that we may be one with Him." In other sacraments He gives us grace; in this, Himself. By no less condescension could He satisfy His love towards us. They are His own words, "he that eateth Me." (E. B. Pusey, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. |
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