The Paths of Righteousness (Part 2)
Psalm 23:3, “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness”.
Oh how precious is the promise of this blessed phrase! What peace and joy and solace we have in the wisdom of our Great Shepherd! Oh the rest that we find when we realize that He has chosen the way which we must take, and when we realize that we may follow Him all the way, knowing that “He leadeth me in the paths”! But there is more! You see, God not only shows us that these “paths” are PROVIDENTIALLY DETERMINED PATHS, but He also reveals that these are SPIRITUALLY DISTINCTIVE PATHS. Notice that they are called “the paths OF RIGHTEOUSNESS”! But why are they so? What is this “righteousness” to which He refers?
I believe that there may be two possibilities to consider in this phrase. First of all, it may be that these “paths of righteousness” are identified as such because of “Who” is leading us! You will note that the Hebrew word for “righteousness” that is used here is transliterated (tsedeq); and it is a word used for rightness or justice in all things ethical, judicial, professional, or even verbal. Perhaps it is used in this particular context to refer to the righteous judgments and the just purposes of our God in His leadings, for as we have already seen, that is indeed a great and comforting truth revealed to us in this statement. Therefore, the “paths of righteousness” may refer to the “paths” themselves being right, because they are determined by God.
However, with that being said, I personally believe that the second possibility is most likely the true and ultimate reason for these “paths” being called “the paths of righteousness”. You see, I believe that the primary interpretation of this phrase rests not upon “Who” is leading us, though that is most certainly an important thing. I believe that in this particular phrase, the psalmist’s words concern “Why” our Lord leads us in these “paths”! In other words, this phrase illustrates that God’s leadings are to accomplish the divine goal of working His righteousness in our lives!
In the Bible, we see that the righteousness of God defined and understood in Him! Apart from God, there is no righteousness. Psalm 145:17 says, “The Lord IS RIGHTEOUS IN ALL HIS WAYS, and holy IN ALL HIS WORKS.” Notice that the psalmist says that God “is righteous”. This means that righteousness is a part of the Divine nature. Thus, it is revealed, understood, and defined in God Himself. However, though God alone is righteous, we also see that God’s Word reveals that His design and desire is to display that righteousness in and through His people.
But there is a problem that must be addressed, and that is that there is not a one of us that is inherently right and just! Romans 3:10 says, “There is NONE RIGHTEOUS, no, NOT ONE”. Ecclesiastes 7:20 puts it this way, “For there is NOT A JUST MAN UPON EARTH, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” No man can claim to be good! Not one of us can profess that we are just! We are “conceived” in sin, and we are “shapen in iniquity” (Psalm 51:5)! Because we are conceived in sin, we are sinners by nature, and because we are sinners by nature, we are born sinning against God! Psalm 58:3 says, “The wicked are estranged from the womb: THEY GO ASTRAY AS SOON AS THEY BE BORN, speaking lies.” Think about it friend! Not one of us has ever been taught how to sin. We were given no instruction concerning how to lie, hate, cheat or steal. Instead, we were born with a natural instinct and bent to do such things, because we are wicked creatures!
But the problem is even worse! You see, Scripture not only reveals that man is wicked and has nothing righteous within him by nature, but it further reveals our plight, in that we cannot make ourselves righteous by attempting to perform “righteous works”. In fact, Isaiah 64:6 declares, “But we all are as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags”. In other words, every attempt of man to be righteous apart from God is “filthy”!
Consider how Job stated this truth in Job 14:4, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.” Remember the words that Paul spoke to Titus in Titus 3:5, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us”. In other words, mankind can neither be righteous of ourselves, nor can we become righteous by our works! This is why Ephesians 2:8 says, “…and that NOT OF YOURSELVES”; and it is why Ephesians 2:9 says that salvation is “NOT OF WORKS”! So then, this leads us to an important question, how does God work His righteousness into our lives?
In order to wrap our arms around this truth, we must remember that in Scripture there are two different facets of righteousness as it relates to man: one is POSITIONAL, and the other is PRACTICAL. These are not exclusive doctrines, but rather, they are inextricably linked together. The one cannot be realized without the other! You see, there can be no practical righteousness until and unless we have first received the positional righteousness that is offered in Christ. So let’s start at the starting gate; let’s begin at the beginning. If we ever hope to understand the practical, we must first lay hold of the concept of the positional.
When we speak of positional righteousness we are speaking of the believer’s standing before God in Christ through the work of salvation. You see, it is through the shed blood of God’s Son and His finished work upon the cross and His bodily resurrection three days later that a man can be able to stand before God the Father as a just, holy, and righteous man. This is what the Bible calls “justification” (Romans 4:25 & Romans 5:16-18). This justifying work of God is accomplished by what we would call IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS! In other words, the righteousness of God must be “imputed” to man by faith in the finished cross-work of Christ!
But what exactly does it mean to have righteousness “imputed”? I believe we can answer this question through the story of Abraham's faith. James 2:23 says, “Abraham BELIEVED God, and it was IMPUTED unto him for righteousness”. Notice the word “imputed” is used in this text. Then in Galatians 3:6 it translates this way, “Even as Abraham BELIEVED God, and it was ACCOUNTED to him for righteousness.” The two key words “imputed” and “accounted” translate from the same Greek word. When we put the two texts together we see that to impute means to place to one’s account. In other words, when an individual, by faith, believes or trusts the finished work of Christ upon the cross for their salvation, God imputes the righteousness of Christ to their account!
This is what Romans 4:5 is speaking of when it says, “But to him that WORKETH NOT, but BELIEVETH ON HIM that justifieth the ungodly, HIS FAITH IS COUNTED FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.” Romans 3:22 assures us that “the righteousness of God” is available “unto all”, and that it is placed “upon all them that believe” and who have been saved “by faith of Jesus Christ”. This is the exact point of the hymn-writer, John W. Peterson, when he wrote,
Born of the Spirit with life from above
Into God’s family divine;
Justified fully through Calvary’s love,
O, WHAT A STANDING IS MINE!
That is the very essence of imputed righteousness; that God can take a vile and wretched sinner, and, through justification, He can change his standing to that of a righteous man!
However, this work of imputing righteousness to the account of unrighteous men is only made possible through the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. This is why 2 Corinthians 5:21 declares, “For he (God the Father) hath made him (God the Son) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; THAT WE MIGHT BE MADE THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM.” There is nothing I can do to accomplish such a thing! I owed a debt to God that I could not pay, and all my attempts to do so were “as filthy rags”! But praise be to God, for He “sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10)! This simply means that Christ made the payment in full and satisfied my debt to God! Because of his finished work, “Surely, shall one say, IN THE LORD I HAVE RIGHTEOUSNESS and strength” (Isaiah 45:24)!
Thank God for His imputed righteousness, for apart from this truth, mankind would have no hope of gaining an entrance into God’s Heaven! We are told in 1 Corinthians 6:9, “Know ye not that the unrighteous, shall not inherit the kingdom of God?” Yet God the Father made a way through the great exchange, by giving His Son to take our place! Praise His dear name that “Christ also hath ONCE suffered for sins, THE JUST FOR THE UNJUST, THAT HE MIGHT BRING US TO GOD” (1 Peter 3:18)! Thank God that I can cry with the hymn-writer of old:
My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device or creed;
I trust the ever Living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.
Enough for me that Jesus saves,
This ends my fear and doubt;
A sinful soul I come to him,
He’ll never cast me out.
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
IT IS ENOUGH THAT JESUS DIED,
AND THAT HE DIED FOR ME!
No comments:
Post a Comment