Names of God: YHVH, part 13. The righteousness of God is a gift; Rom 3:21-26.

Title: Names of God: YHVH, part 13. The righteousness of God is a gift; ROM 3:21-26.

 

 

ROM 3:21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,

 

Righteousness could never be found by man or earned by man. In both testaments, righteousness could only be had as a gift from God.

 

ISA 52:1 Awake, awake,

Clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion;

Clothe yourself in your beautiful garments,

O Jerusalem, the holy city.

For the uncircumcised and the unclean

Will no more come into you.

 

ISA 52:2 Shake yourself from the dust, rise up,

O captive Jerusalem;

Loose yourself from the chains around your neck,

O captive daughter of Zion.

 

Jerusalem is pictured lying upon the ground stupefied with the wrath of God, and exhausted with grief. The Assyrians and the Babylonians have captured her and destroyed her cities.

 

ISA 52:3 For thus says the Lord, "You were sold for nothing and you will be redeemed without money."

 

ISA 52:4 For thus says the Lord God, "My people went down at the first into Egypt to reside there, then the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.

 

Jacob went to Egypt to simply sojourn there and eventually Israel ended up in slavery. We might put this under the category that life is unfair, yet certainly with Israel, God is in complete control as He is with every believer. God allows the sun and the rain to be upon the righteous and the unrighteous. God allowed their slavery in Egypt for a greater purpose. Assyria oppressed and enslaved Israel without cause. God allowed them to take a weak Israeli nation and they did so out of nothing more than greed and lust for power. God did have a purpose in it since Israel had been boldfaced in her worship of idols.

 

ISA 52:5 "Now therefore, what do I have here," declares the Lord, "seeing that My people have been taken away without cause?" Again the Lord declares, "Those who rule over them howl, and My name is continually blasphemed all day long.

 

Any who have repented of idol worship while in captivity must think as those who were left back in Jerusalem amongst the rubble. Had Jehovah abandoned them? Had they finally gone far enough as a nation that God would destroy His covenant to Abraham?

 

But then He speaks out.

 

God speaks out and says to those left behind in a smoldering Jerusalem and to those in captivity who hear their oppressors howl and blaspheme God's name: "Look to the mountains. Here I am!"

 

ISA 52:6 "Therefore My people shall know My name; therefore in that day I am the one who is speaking, 'Here I am.'"

 

ISA 52:7 How lovely on the mountains

Are the feet of him who brings good news,

Who announces peace

And brings good news of happiness,

Who announces salvation,

And says to Zion, "Your God reigns!"

 

ISA 52:8 Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices,

They shout joyfully together;

For they will see with their own eyes

When the Lord restores Zion.

 

ISA 52:9 Break forth, shout joyfully together,

You waste places of Jerusalem;

For the Lord has comforted His people,

He has redeemed Jerusalem.

 

ISA 52:10 The Lord has bared His holy arm

In the sight of all the nations,

That all the ends of the earth may see

The salvation of our God.

 

The watchmen are pictured as seeing a messenger on the mountains bring good news. Good news = Gospel. His feet are beautiful because they carry the man to bring the gospel to their ears.

 

As vv. 1-2 stated, their shameful prostration and degradation will now come to an end. Israel is to rise up and put on her might, which has long been broken down, and had altogether disappeared, but which can and must be constantly renewed, because it rests upon the foundation of an inviolable promise, a promise which cannot be broken.

 

The captivity of Israel is a picture of the captivity of the soul in sin and death. Only God could redeem her and only God can redeem any man.

 

Picture the people, dismayed at a destroyed Jerusalem and captivity, who then here the watchmen shout that a messenger is coming over the mountains with news, good news, the best news, God has not forgotten you, and He will never forget you. He flies to you with the good news: You will be redeemed.

 

Paul used this passage when calling for the evangelization of the Jews in and around Rome.

 

ROM 10:14 How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

 

ROM 10:15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things!"

 

ROM 3:21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,

 

How, then, does the law itself witness to the righteousness of God apart from law? The answer is that when the law was given the lamb was also given.

 

At the same time God gave the provisions of the law which expressed the righteousness of God, God provided an altar and a substitute where the blood could flow and men could see that salvation was not in the attempted keeping of the law's demands, but in reliance upon the provision of the substitute which God had Himself ordained and provided.

 

As soon as any Jew sinned, at least a Jew who understood that he was under the law, he would think of death. He may be somewhere where offering the proper sacrifice wasn't possible, but he knew that soon he would have to, and so immediately he thought of death. But would he have thought of his own death? He would have thought of a substitute death. There was nothing else to do but to offer the animal to an innocent death. There was not another law or command to keep in a sort of penance for the first iniquity. The only solution is that blood must flow; blood not his own.

 

But the animal offerings did not atone for sin.

 

HEB 10:5 Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says,

"Sacrifice and offering Thou hast not desired,

But a body Thou hast prepared for Me;

 

HEB 10:6 In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast taken no pleasure.

 

HEB 10:7 "Then I said, 'Behold, I have come   

(In the roll of the book it is written of Me)

To do Thy will,O God.'"

 

HEB 10:8 After saying above, "Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast not desired, nor hast Thou taken pleasure in them" (which are offered according to the Law),

 

HEB 10:9 then He said, "Behold, I have come to do Thy will." He takes away the first in order to establish the second.

 

HEB 10:10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

 

HEB 10:11 And every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;

 

HEB 10:12 but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God,

 

HEB 10:13 waiting from that time onward until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.

 

HEB 10:14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

 

ROM 3:21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,

 

The law demanded two witnesses to any fact.

 

Christ stated that two more witnesses testified of Him during His incarnation, the Father and the miracles that He performed, and especially three miracles: the healing of the Jewish leper, casting a demon out of a mute, and the healing of the man born blind.

 

ROM 3:22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;

 

There is no distinction in God. The same righteousness and justice judges the one who rejects Christ and justifies and sanctifies the one who believes in Him.

 

One of the great lies in the world is that people believe that they are good people. By a human standard they believe that they are not in need of a Savior because by their own nature they are good. Another great lie is that a God of love will not fully judge and condemn a person who has rejected Christ. These lies have led to more deaths than all other things combined.

 

ROM 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

 

We could spend much time speaking of the glory of God and how it compares to the glory of man, but that is not our subject.

 

Coming across a definition of man’s glory by Shakespeare, I can’t help but share it with you.

 

Glory is like a circle in the water,

Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself

Till, by broad spreading it disperse to naught. [Shakespeare]

 

Yet man believes that the spreading circle is good enough.

 

The glory of God is the revealed attributes of God in their fullness. None of us were born into this world with any ability to comprehend them, never mind praise them. We all fell short.

 

This is a key aspect of the gospel. All men need the Savior. All have fallen short, all have gone astray, there are none who understand, none who do good, all have sinned and Christ has died for them all (ROM 3:10-18). "But now…"

 

Moses asked God to show him His glory. Goodness, graciousness, and compassion were revealed, but then God immediately said that he could not see His face. Moses came up short of the full glory of God. Moses was allowed to see a shadow or an outline of the glory of God. You and I have received a clear and fully focused reality and fullness of God’s glory.

 

One of the words that meant glory was the Anglo-Saxon word “worth”. Glory would be the full worth of God. It was used of God in a term of His worthship, but being hard to pronounce, the word evolved into worship.

 

The worship (worthship) of YHVH is to recognize the fullness of His attributes. If you do, you must praise them.