Alright, behold the days come,
saith the Lord. that I will raise up unto David
a righteous branch and a king shall reign and prosper and shall
execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days, Judah
shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is his
name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. Therefore, behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, the Lord liveth,
which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of
Egypt, but the Lord liveth, which brought up and which led the
seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from
all countries whither I have driven them, and they shall dwell
in their own land." Now look again, the Lord, our righteousness. Now, a couple of verses from
Paul out of his Corinthian epistles in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians
1 and verse 30, who unto us is made righteousness, wisdom, sanctification,
and redemption. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He was made sin. that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. So, I begin by saying that the
greatest spiritual need of any sinner in the world is a saving
righteousness. Without it, they will perish. If they have no saving righteousness,
they will perish. For nothing can be substituted
in its place. There is no acceptable alternative
for the righteousness of God in the justification and the
saving of a sinner. And the reason why guilty sinners
need a saving righteousness is because 1 Corinthians chapter
6 and verse 9, the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom
of God And the word here, unrighteousness, is some 11 times in the New Testament
scripture. And in each place, it is either
translated unrighteous or unjust. That the unrighteous or the unjust
shall not inherit the kingdom of God. and the extended meaning
is wicked and by implication treacherous. The meaning is that
unrighteous person shall not in any wise inherit or enter
in to the kingdom of God. They shall not go into eternal
life or into the kingdom of God. They shall not see, they shall
not enter, and they shall not partake of that blessed righteousness
in that kingdom. Now what's more, to add to that
the fact that there is according to the scripture none that are
righteous. There are none that are righteous
in themselves. In Paul's Roman epistle chapter
3 and verse 10 where he quotes there from the Psalms chapter
14 and chapter 53, there is none righteous, no, not one. Not so much as even one of the
sons of Adam are righteous in themselves. And this not only
is true, of the pagan and the gentile, but also of the Jew,
as Paul showed. That Romans 3 and 9, they're
all under sin. And the best way to sum up what
Paul is declaring is to assert that there are none that are
righteous, And to add for emphasis, he said, no, not one is righteous
in the sight of God. One commentator expressed it
this way. Righteousness is the criterion
by which sin is judged, and the absence of righteousness means
the presence of sin and of guilt, to which we might add, The absence
of righteousness means guilt and condemnation, for one that
is unrighteous is condemned and under the condemnation. And then
the problem is this. Tell people that they must have
a righteousness in order that they might be accepted by God,
and what will they do? They will drag in their own self-righteousness
and offer that as their righteousness in the sight of God and expect
God to accept their goodness and their keeping of the golden
rule, their trusting in themselves, that they are righteous as acceptable
in the sight of God in their stead. So they repeat the sin
of the Jew. It's in Romans 10 and verse 3. Being ignorant of the righteousness
of God, they have gone about to establish their own righteousness
and have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Now, we see the source of their
error, what sent them off course. And it's this, ignorance of the
righteousness of God. Not just that they don't know
about it, but they do not know that it is the only righteousness
that will suffice them in the sight of God. So being blind
to the true, saving, justifying righteousness of God that God
has both provided and has approved of, and it is revealed in the
gospel of our blessed Lord, that comes through Christ and it is
called the righteousness of faith in the scripture. Isaiah chapter
64 verse 6, a rather famous and a well-known verse. We are all
as an unclean thing and our righteousnesses, plural, are as filthy rags and
the wind has taken us away. This was those confessing when
they were in a state of captivity. Coming to that passage in Jeremiah
chapter 23, particularly the last half of verse 6, and this
is his name whereby he shall be called the Lord our Righteous
Name. Now, let's get our contextual
bearings here as to the context of this passage of the scripture. In this chapter, the prophet
carries two great subjects unto them. Number one, there is a
promise of restoration, gathering again the scattered flock of
Israel, blessing them by means of one that is called a righteous
branch, called a king, and called the Lord our righteousness. And in verse 7 and verse 8, he
speaks of a great work that is to be wrought among them that
will actually overshadow in their minds that great deliverance
out of the land of Egypt. And that was a great one indeed. That is Paul writes in 2 Corinthians
chapter 7 and verse 11 that the glory of the law is so eclipsed
by the glory of the gospel that it makes the law as if it had
no gospel. We might think of a candle lit
at night, but then the noonday sun and the candle almost loses
its brightness altogether. Even so, the prophet said, the
great deliverance promised here in Jeremiah chapter 3 of the
Egyptian deliverance would be all but forgotten, for it was
the hallmark of the work of God in them, delivering them out
of the land of Egypt. But the second subject that the
prophet carries in this chapter, the prophet condemns the behavior
of both the civil leaders, in verse 1 through 4, and the so-called
spiritual leaders, in verse 8, verse 9, and verse following. Both sorts of their leaders,
their civic and their spiritual, were corrupt and they led the
people in a way that was not good and led them astray and
led them into and under the judgment of God and scattered them even
into captivity from which they groaned and moaned and only God
was able to deliver them. Look at the one mentioned in
verse 5 and in verse 6, the wonderful person. And who might this be? We asked. He is called a righteous
branch from the lineage of King David. Here in Isaiah 11 and
1 through 5, there shall come forth a rod, a stem, as in Isaiah
53 and 1, a shoot out of a dry ground. He shall be of Jesse.
He shall be a branch. and shall grow out of the root
of Jesse. And his power and his glory are
described in a wonderful way. Zechariah 3a, Zechariah 6 and
12 are on the branch as Zechariah speaks about that. He is called
or he is a king. He will reign. He will reign
in power. He will execute judgment. upon
the earth in his great appearance. And this is the name whereby
he is called the Lord our Righteousness. Now this is both his name and
his relationship unto his people. Who can this be but Messiah,
the Son of God, the Incarnate One, the Christ, the Holy One
of God sent into the world. Now, let's note, if we might,
an alternative reading in the margin of Jeremiah chapter 3. The Lord, our righteousness,
is given in the margin as Jehovah-righteousness. And this word righteousness is
a very common and frequent one in the Old Testament. It comes
from a word that means to be right, or to be upright, or to
be just. That which is altogether just
and upright is righteousness. So here it is not only called
by the name righteousness, but Jehovah our righteousness in
the place of our filthy and putrid self-righteousness. I like the footnotes in the New
King James Version of the Geneva Bible that names such as Jehovah
righteousness, or not just for labels or designation, but are
designations of the character of that one, the Lord our righteousness. Like Matthew 1 and verse 23. His name shall be called Immanuel,
which interpreted is God with us. Call him Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sin. Call him righteousness, For He
is our righteousness. Spurgeon said it. He is with
us as God to save us. The incarnation of Jesus is our
salvation. And His righteousness is our
righteousness. So, as He is called by that name,
Jehovah, our righteousness. Because, as John Gill said, He
is the author of the righteousness of his people, and only he is
so. None else is or could be. And here's what John Gill wrote
on Jeremiah chapter 23 and verse 6, and I quote, the father appointed
and sent Christ to work it out. He approved it. He accepted it. when wrought out and imputes
it unto his people, in quote, the words of Gil. He is it, he
worked it out, and that righteousness is imputed unto his people. Now when we come over into the
New Testament scripture and the verse in 1 Corinthians 1 and
verse 30. that by God's purpose and design,
Christ is made. He has become to the elect wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. And this is said
in relation to verse 26 to verse 29 of 1 Corinthians chapter 1,
that there is no ground of boasting unto them that are called. for
they had nothing to commend them to God. Not a thing in us commended
us to God in the day of the work of grace. As Calvin noted here
on 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul would have them pay attention
to that divine procedure which the Lord had followed in calling
them, or as he tells them at Colossae, you are complete in
him. Colossae 2, Colossians 2 and
verse 10. In Christ you're complete. You
have need of nothing. No addition and no subtraction. For Christ is our fullness and
our completion. He is all things to the elect. All things that they have need
of to bring them into heaven and the kingdom of God. He is
our provider of righteousness. Now they had their spiritual
existence and their standing in the Lord Jesus Christ. By the purpose of God, by an
act of God, they came to be in Christ Jesus who is our righteousness. And in due time, he called them
into his everlasting fellowship. And then Paul lists a very rich
dowry that we have in this Christ, such as the men of the world
do glory in their wisdom and in their learning. But Christ
is the sum of all wisdom, particularly that spiritual wisdom. He has
made unto us wisdom. And people are prone to trust
in, and people are prone to boast in their wisdom and then in their
putrid self-righteousness. But in Christ Jesus is ours. He has made unto us righteousness
and completely justifies us before Almighty God. He is the Lord
our righteousness, literally Jehovah our righteousness, provided
and donated unto us. Let's catch the thought here
that Christ is by God or of God, been made has become our righteousness
who became unto us righteousness now get it he is unto us righteousness
this is a saving righteousness which completely justified from
all sin and all condemnation. By it, the elect in Him are reckoned
righteous, so that there is no condemnation to them which are
in Jesus Christ." Romans 8 and verse 1. By that special divine
purpose and arrangement, Christ is made unto us righteousness
And that righteousness is put to our account. Call it imputation,
for the scripture does. Let's switch our focus, therefore,
to another passage from the Apostle Paul. And that would be in 2
Corinthians, the fifth chapter, where we have a very great and
grand passage in that place. It explains the ground upon which
Paul exercised the ministry of reconciliation unto God and how
it could be that God could not impute their trespasses unto
them. in verse 19, or in Psalm 32 and
verse 2, blessed is the man unto whom God does not impute iniquity. Blessed is that man unto whom
God does not reckon or count their iniquity. And says Paul
in Romans chapter 4 and verse 6, David described the blessedness
of the man under whom God imputes righteousness without works. So there is first a non-imputation
of sin and then the imputation of righteousness unto the elect,
and that without merit. without regard to our work or
our character or our being. So here is 2 Corinthians 5 and
verse 21. For he hath made him to be sin
for us who knew no sin. Now, not us that knew no sin,
but him that knew no sin. For he hath made him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. Now here's the great wonder and
the great mystery of the Gospel, that God should, number one,
lay a mass of sin, and I mean a mass of sin, upon one who himself
is holy and without any sin of his own. that a perfectly righteous
and upright one should be made sin and should bear the curse
of the law. in that great death upon the
cross, that thou should make the iniquity of us all to light
upon him, Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 6. And not only that, not
only lay them upon him, but punish him in his own body on the tree
for the sin and iniquity of others. And the second great wonder is
much like it, and that is that God should reckon a vile sinner
such as we to be righteous in his sight, that he should put
righteousness to the account of a son or a daughter of Adam
like we were without any merit or work, and that we should be
reckoned righteous and have a righteous standing in the sight of God."
But this is what Paul tells us in this famous text here, these
two things. And what's more, Paul tells us
that the first is in order unto the second. The first, making
him to be sin for us, is in order to the second that we might be
made the righteousness of God in him. And it was necessary,
and it was so, that our Lord was made sin in order, or to
that specific end, that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. Now we're very careful at this
verse in order that we may recognize that when Paul said Jesus was
made sin for us that he neither became a sinner himself nor did
he become sinful himself and that he was not made sin by an
infusion of sin but by the imputation of the sin of the elect unto
Christ. Foreshadowed when Aaron in Leviticus
16 and verse 21 lay his hand upon the head of the scapegoat
in Israel, putting them upon the head of the goat figuratively,
and sent that goat away into the wilderness by the hand of
a fit man never to be returned unto him again. Verse 22, and
the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land
not inhabited. Leviticus 16 and verse 22, as
Aaron pushed down upon the head of that goat and confessed over
him the sin of Israel, and they were carried away into a land
not inhabited. This is the sort of language
that John the Baptist used to speak about or unto the Lord. In John 1 and verse 29, Behold
the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And the
margin, has it, bears away the sin of the world. That old scapegoat
bore those sins upon him as he was taken away. God made them
to light upon the sinless, spotless Lamb, and He, that is Christ,
1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 24, bore our sin in His own body
on the tree that we, having been dead in sin, should live unto
righteousness. He takes our sin and gives us
his righteousness. He has made sin, we are made
righteous. Thomas Manton, a famous Puritan,
said in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 21. There are two words here,
he said, that must be noted and they must be explained and they
must be understood in order to get the right sense out of the
words. And the words are sin and made. He was made sin and that we might
be made the righteousness of God, sin and made. Thomas Manton wrote, and John
Gill agreed, that's two pretty good minds, he did not become
sinful or a sinner, but that the father imputed the sin of
the elect upon him. That's as a surety. He was the
surety of the people of God, and so God looked to him for
the payment of their debt. And the word made, as we recently
saw, refers to God ordaining or appointing Christ to bear
the sin of many. And it is a result of that arrangement
that the elect are made righteous before God. Here Paul again in
Romans 5 and 19. As by the disobedience of one,
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. The many made sinners was not
by an infusion of depravity, but having sinned themselves,
having been sinners and unrighteous. Even so, the many that are made
righteous is not their practical godliness, at least not in this
particular place, for their righteousness is the result of, quote, the
obedience of one, unquote. Nor is this righteousness synonymous
with their personal sanctification in the practice of the Christian
life. May I read it again? Romans 5,
19. By the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. And that one, of course, is not
us, but is the Lord Jesus Christ. I like the way that John Murray
uses the word, the word constituted. He was constituted sin. We were
constituted righteous in the sight of God, synonymous there
with the word made. And so by the obedience of one,
that one being the Lord Jesus Christ, shall many be constituted
righteous. in the sight of God Almighty,
the judge of all of the earth. And again, 2 Corinthians 5 and
verse 21, made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. None could be declared just or
be justified unless they also are constituted righteous. have a notable righteousness
of God's approval imputed unto them. Justification, just like
condemnation, is a forensic act on the part of God, he declares
as the great judge. that it is so, is not based upon
personal behavior, but upon legal amputation. And as a result of
the union between Christ and the elect that Romans 5 and verse
18 By the righteousness of one came upon men unto the justification
of life. And the margin in the King James
has it, by one righteousness. The NIV has it, the result of
one act of righteousness. was justification that brings
life. So as some call it, justification
is a constitutive act on the part of God, and it has its basis
in that solidary, eternal, vital union between Christ and the
elect so that the elect are then placed in the category of righteous
by reason of number one their union unto the Lord Jesus Christ
and number two by reason of his obedience unto the death of the
cross bearing their sin and the curse of the law on that cross. Our righteousness is the Lord,
Jeremiah 23 and 6. He is our Advocate, 1 John 2
and verse 1. And who is He? Jesus Christ the
Righteous. He is our Advocate, the Righteous
One. who is a propitiation for our
sin. And remember that his righteousness
was not attained by practicing righteous acts or being obedient,
nor is his, the Lord's, righteousness an imputed righteousness. For he is righteous as to his
being and to his character. The Lord our righteousness. His righteousness is inherent
in him as to his everlasting being. The same as that of God
the Father. And yet, we understand that it
is not the essential Righteous, nor the attribute of righteousness
that is meant here, but it is that righteousness of the law,
that righteousness that justifies, that is imputed because of Christ. Now, that does not mean that
we are little gods. We are not little Jesuses. Therefore, what is imputed is
not the essential holiness that dwells in the divine nature of
the Eternal Sun, this is an impossibility, but it is that righteousness
that is performed by the incarnate God-man in our behalf, in his
humiliation upon the earth. And according to the Puritan
Thomas Goodwin, this is twofold, eh? As man, as the God-man, he
lived not only without sin, not any sin in him whatsoever, but
also in perfect obedience to the law and the precept of God,
keeping its every precept, in nothing. transgressing or offending
God, pleasing the Father in all things, being obedient to every
command that he had received of the Father for his incarnation. But then B, though he knew no
sin, was perfectly innocent. He had no sin, yet was he made
sin for others. and underwent, I'll say it again,
the curse of the law. And so he made full and perfect
satisfaction to the justice of God Almighty. As a result, Romans
8 and verse 4, the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those
who are in Christ Jesus. They stand free of condemnation
of the law. Yea, Christ fulfilled the righteousness
of the law in behalf of his people. The law received its full and
its just due from him in both ways. First, in his keeping it
and two, in his bearing the curse. that dwells upon those that are
transgressors. Paul says in Romans 1, 16 and
17, the great introduction or subject of the Roman epistle
is there, that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation
because therein is the righteousness of God revealed. The saving righteousness
of God is revealed in the gospel as it is declared. Not the personal
attribute of God's righteousness, but a righteousness that is made
manifest with saving effect toward and upon and in the elect. For this is no doubt the one
that Daniel chapter 9 and verse 24, that will finish transgression,
that will make an end of sin, make reconciliation for iniquity,
and bring in everlasting righteousness. The Lord our righteousness. Now two things about this righteousness
in closing. Number one, like Paul, in Philippians
3 and verse 9. We may, yea we must, fling away
our own righteousness and regard it as a filthy garment and disown
it, and like Paul, count it as dung or garbage or refuge or
trash. For the righteousness of Christ
is our need and our desire. And then number two, One may
rest their never-dying soul. One may cast their immortal soul
upon the righteousness that Christ provides. One may trust in that
until and through their dying day, repudiating all self-righteousness
or all goodness. are all merit that we might once
have claimed, and one may safely and faithfully die clothed with
that imputed righteousness from Jesus Christ. It will not only
avail in this life, It will avail in the hour of death. And this
righteousness can save the vilest sinner to the uttermost. It can
take away, it can cover, it can justify the vilest sinner that
God loves and calls from all of their sin and give them a
place among them that are sanctified and an inheritance in heaven
that fadeth not away. Our great need is righteousness
and that need has been met in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that
righteousness is imputed. It's put to our account. It's
reckoned to our account just like it was Abraham in Genesis
15, 6 and all of Romans chapter 4. And I'll just close with another
reminder of this. This is because of the suretyship
of our Lord. You ever been a surety? You ever
needed one to get credit in this world? A surety is one who agrees
to pay your debt or mine upon our default. And that's what
a surety is. That's what Jesus was, the surety
of the new covenant, Hebrew 722. And like Judah of old, who answered for Benjamin, his
little brother. The Lord answers for all of his
little brothers as the surety having paid our debt in full. Thank God for that. By that we
are made righteous.