The Day of Our Righteousness Is Coming :: Jeremiah 23:5-8
Grace and peace to you ...
The word for our meditation comes to us from our Old Testament reading in Jeremiah (23:5-8). Reading this book is challenging, to say the least. Most of his book is pure rebuke, but it is also filled with more declarations of Gospel than any other prophet. Jeremiah reminds you in no uncertain ways that the YHWH declares, You shall not have no other gods. You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or manservant, or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Please now turn to page 322, and join me in confessing our faithful doctrine on the Ten Commandments. What does God say about all these commandments? He says, I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments (Ex. 20:5–6).
What does this mean? God threatens to punish all who break these commandments. Therefore, we should fear His wrath and not do anything against them. But He promises grace and every blessing to all who keep these commandments. Therefore, we should also love and trust in Him and gladly do what He commands.
1.
We lament when things are really bad, when things are not going our way. You do it. I do it. The world does it. And the more idolatry and immorality we see around us, the more we lament about how bad things really are. We see people are living in it, embracing it, endorsing it. They even say their idolatry and immorality is good for us, that it will preserve us.
In the past 50 years, we have seen the sexual revolution of our culture turn our world upside down in this regard ... all to the detriment of marriage and family. Men are marrying men, women are marrying women, men are trying to be women, women are trying to be men ... and just as wickedly, Christians are looking the other way while their children embrace this immorality. Our nation is divided by abortion on demand. So we lament.
The despair we are experiencing is actually nothing new. It’s easy for us to forget that in many times and many places many people have experienced the exact same thing. We think it’s worse today, but it’s not. The people living in Judah at the beginning of the sixth century BC are a prime example. By all definitions, things really were that bad during the time in which the prophet Jeremiah lived. So he lamented, and he pleaded with the people to repent.
When it came to living as God’s people, the kingdom of Judah was just going through the motions. They were becoming more and more immoral and idolatrous ... not quite as bad as their brothers and sisters in the kingdom of Israel some 100 or 200 years earlier ... but they were just as sinful. They may not have sacrificed their children to the god called Molech like Israel, but Judah had a serious problem: They worshiped their temple life. They turned the temple into an idol. They thought the temple gave them a guarantee of safety, that it would prove they were faithful ... no matter what they did, no matter how they lived.
God will forgive me just because we are his people, they said to themselves.
Don’t bet on it. As YHWH would warn them through Jeremiah, Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear for deception, sacrifice to Baal, and follow after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are saved, only to go on doing all these abominations? (7:9).
2.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, listen to Jeremiah today and hear the call to repent. Pay attention to God’s good Law. Simply coming to the temple isn’t enough to save you. Simply hearing words of absolution isn’t enough to save you. Simply coming here doesn’t make you a good Christian. The temple itself is no protection for a people not living in the faith. Calling yourselves children of Abraham isn’t enough. Instead, listen to the lament of the prophet Jeremiah and his call to repent, that is to mourn your sin, and to believe the Gospel.
THE DAY IS COMING WHEN THE LORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS WILL BRING US UP FROM DEATH AND GIVE ETERNAL LIFE TO THE FAITHFUL
This is our theme from our Old Testament reading, which is all Gospel.
In the midst of all his laments and calls to repent, Jeremiah is giving us beautiful Gospel today. And we need to hear this and receive it. The Gospel gives us faith that saves. The Gospel points us to the true source of the forgiveness of sins.
As we enter Advent, we enter a season not only of repentance, we enter a season of comfort and hope, too. The Law alone won’t bring us to repentance. So YHWH calls us to have faith in the Gospel. Listen to Jeremiah, who refers to forgiveness more than any other prophet ...
Behold, the days are coming, declares YHWH, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he will reign as king and be prudent, and will 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: ‘YHWH [is] our righteousness.’
Put away any idea you may have that you can make yourself righteous, or that you have forgiveness just because. YHWH is our righteousness. Apart from him, we have no righteousness. Once again, YHWH has promised to bring safety to his people ... he promises to do justice. He promises us a king from the line of David who will reign with righteousness forever ... doing God’s justice ... fulfilling God’s will for his people. He will bring about a restoration of the people. He will do justice in such a dramatic way that it eclipses not only the Exodus from slavery in Egypt but the exile to the nations.
Behold, the days are coming, declares YHWH, when they will not say, ‘As the Lord who raised up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but ‘as the Lord lives who raised up and who brought out the seed of the house of Israel out of the north and from all the lands to which he had driven them.’ Then they will dwell on their own earth (vv 5-8).
3.
Our Lord Jesus is that king, the branch of righteousness from God’s own heart, who fulfills this promise, first given to the woman in the garden (Ge 3:15), and to all the patriarchs. In Jesus, God literally became incarnate, born in the flesh in Bethlehem, the city of David, a son of David. He is the Lord our righteousness. This is the king who knows fully the will of the Lord, because he is God. God does all things right through him. He is not only willing (Ps 40:6-8) but able. Jesus, who was born without sin and lived without sin ... He was righteous in every way. Because he is righteous ... He did and does what no one could ever do for you ... he took your sin from you so that God could execute justice upon him as promised, ensuring that your sin would die the death it deserved, death on a cross. God in the flesh died for you. He gave us justice by destroying the body of sin on a cross. All of God’s wrath for sin was poured out upon Jesus. This is why Paul reminds us again today through our baptisms that your sin died with Jesus on the cross so that just as he was raised from the dead, you too will walk in newness of life. Jesus our righteousness lives in you and you in him.
And because Jesus was in fact sinless himself, God in his righteousness, made all things right, raising Jesus from the dead, again just as he promised.
Do you see now how YHWH really is our righteousness? It is through Christ crucified and risen that all men are now saved, declared righteous. It is by God’s grace through the faith he gave you that makes you righteous, that is, free from sin, right in God’s eyes. In his means of grace, Christ unites himself to us, becoming one with us. He is our righteousness. He sanctifies you in baptism ... setting you apart in righteousness. He declares you innocent of sin, righteous, through absolution. And he creates unity between you and God and you and each other through the Lord’s Supper. Why? Because the Lord’s Supper delivers the forgiveness of sins. Without forgiveness there can be no unity with God or each other. This is good, right, and salutary that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to God.
4.
Behold, the days are coming ... and they are coming soon. YHWH our righteousness is the one hope of all mankind to fulfill this promise. Then we will dwell on our own soil ... a land of promise ... and milk and honey (v 8). And by faith in Him ... of what he has done in his creation, his redemption, and his sanctification ... we will all become partakers of his righteousness. He will lead us back to the paradise pictured in the Garden ... where the earth was pure and the seed was abundant. In our resurrection and in the renewal of creation God will make everything “very good” once again. Sin, temptation, suffering, and death will be remembered no more.
Behold, the days are coming. They are coming soon ... in Jesus’ name.