The writer speaks of the blessedness of the righteous as
against the trouble of the unrighteous.
What is righteousness? Jesus
raised the bar on righteousness in His teaching and His life. The Pharisees thought they knew the
definition and worked hard at living up to that standard but Jesus said that if
your righteousness does not exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees you will
not enter the kingdom of heaven. Only
Jesus could live up to that standard and by faith we are accounted as righteous
but does that mean we are the righteousness of God in reality. We have positional righteousness, we are
clothed with Christ in the eyes of God and He sees that righteousness and
passes over us in judgment but we are also to commit our lives to the pursuit
of righteousness. We are to confess our
sins and to make every effort to overcome sin in our lives with the help of the
Holy Spirit. We are not passive in our sanctification,
it is not something done to us as is justification.
The Pharisees essentially argue that Jesus is a great
deceiver, that what He does is by the power of satan, whom they call Beelzebul,
the prince of demons. Of course His
power is complete over these lesser demons, and it all is done to deceive the
people to believe He is Messiah. If they
truly believe that, why are they not fearful?
Jesus, however, says this is no joking matter, in fact it is the single
most serious thing they will ever say.
If you attribute the power of God to satan, you have committed the worst
blasphemy imaginable.
Righteousness, Paul says, is found in Jesus alone. Paul was a Pharisee, pursuing righteousness
as he understood it according to their interpretation of the law. He didn’t recognize true righteousness when
it was revealed in and by Jesus because he was the foremost of sinners. What he found was grace, mercy and
forgiveness through faith in Jesus’ righteousness. That does not mean, however, that righteousness
no longer has content or context in his life, sin is still sin and those who
practice sin as a settled matter are unrighteous, outside the covenant
community. Our righteousness is in
Christ Jesus but our lives bear testimony to His abiding in us and vice versa.
Unresting, unhasting,
and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might;
Thy justice, like mountains, high soaring above
Thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.
Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might;
Thy justice, like mountains, high soaring above
Thy clouds, which are fountains of goodness and love.
No comments:
Post a Comment