Psalm 36 - God’s Righteousness
David is proclaiming all these great characteristics of God – His love, His faithfulness – and he goes on in verse 6 of Psalm 36 to say: “Your righteousness is like the highest mountains”.
God's Moral Perfection
Jesus, in John 17:25, calls God “Righteous Father”. This is clearly a part of God’s character that is very important. The Hebrew word that our English Old Testaments translate as “righteous” implies a moral perfection. So, saying God is righteous is saying that He is perfect in every moral dimension – that there is no part of him that is flawed or bad or evil.
Think about how this contrasts with the lives of the sinful that we spoke of last week. We all battle with sin – and we fight off temptations that come our way. God doesn’t, because He is above the devil’s temptations. He is so great and mighty and righteous that no sinful temptations can even come near Him.
Jesus' Righteous Example
And yet, this great God, in the form of Jesus, took on human flesh and became one of us, and Scripture says that Jesus was tempted in all the same ways we are. We see this in his famous temptation by Satan in the desert. Jesus comes to earth and, in His human flesh, gets slammed with temptations like every other human; yet He remains righteous! He never sins! When he finally dies on the cross it is as a perfectly righteous and pure, unblemished sacrifice!
I think we need to remember just how amazing our God is. So often we try to minimize this – to bring Him to our level and make Him a buddy. Of course, He is our friend, but He is still righteous and holy.
Righteousness Through Faith
This should cause us to be so worshipful of Him. When we think of God in His righteousness, it should make us explode in praise as we consider how much greater than us He is.
And here’s some wonderful news. We too may be called righteous, instead of being stuck in the sin we spoke of last week. The New Testament teaches over and over that the righteousness of God is credited freely to those who believe. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5:21 – “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” This means that Jesus’ death on the cross was a kind of a transaction – he took on the sins of the world, and anybody who believes in Him and trusts in Him as Saviour is counted as righteous, simply by their faith. God forgives their sins and washes them clean, because of their faith.
Worship God for His righteousness, every day. And know that with your faith in Him, God transfers His righteousness to you, because Jesus took your sin away on the cross.
