Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Bible Doctrine Series-Jehovah-Tsidkenu

Jehovah-Tsidkenu—“the Lord our righteousness’ (Jeremiah 23:6). The Hebrew word Tsidkenu means “righteousness, or rightness.” Jehovah-tsidkenu is given in Jeremiah 23:5-6 “’Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, ‘When I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord our righteousness,’” Throughout the Bible we see the provision of a just God for the sins of mankind. God did not save Noah because he was sinless. Noah and his family were delivered because he refused to walk in the wickedness of the world; instead he walked with God. Can two walk together except they be agreed? There is no particular goodness noted in Abram when the Lord called him from his country and relatives to a new land to make him a great nation, to bless him, or to become his God. It was not until he was promised an offspring of his own and believed God that the Lord accounted his faith as righteousness. This has been the way of the Lord down through the ages—without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6); whatever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14; 23). Our righteous God who establishes truth has proclaimed that the Lord Jesus is our righteousness; apart from Him we can do nothing. The New Testament shows us that eternal life is the free gift of God given through the Lord Jesus (Romans 6:23). The only response He asks is our exercise of faith to what we have heard from the word of Christ. Jehovah-tsidkenu is the Lord our righteousness. God expects us to live out the righteousness we have been given at salvation; it must take root in our souls and bodies. Paul sums it up nicely in Romans 6:11-13 “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." Dr. Ken Copley is available for counseling, conferences, and local church meetings.

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