#DailyDevotion Jesus Is YHWY Who Is Our Righteousness
Jeremiah 23:6b-8Why will he be called “The LORD Our Righteousness?” Well yesterday we went over all the things he did to be our righteousness, to declare us righteous and to make us righteous but today I’d like to look at the word LORD. Now I’m sure you know when you see LORD written in all capital letters in the Old Testament what we have here is the personal dine name of the God of Israel namely YHWH. Now you see Jesus actual is the LORD, i.e. YHWY our righteousness.
Why will he be called “The LORD Our Righteousness?” Well yesterday we went over all the things he did to be our righteousness, to declare us righteous and to make us righteous but today I’d like to look at the word LORD. Now I’m sure you know when you see LORD written in all capital letters in the Old Testament what we have here is the personal dine name of the God of Israel namely YHWH. Now you see Jesus actual is the LORD, i.e. YHWY our righteousness.
When the angel announced to Mary she was going to have a son, he told her in Luke 1, 32“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High God. And the Lord will give Him the throne of His ancestor David. 33He will be King over the people of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will never end.” And again he said, 35“The Holy Spirit will come over you and a power of the Most High God will overshadow you. And for that reason the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.” Now to be the Son of God is not to be something less than God as some modern heretics teach people. It is to equate him with God the Father.
What is more St. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 12, 3“no one is able to say, ‘Jesus is the Lord’, except by the Holy Spirit.” Now many heretics most certainly say Jesus is Lord all the time. But when they say that they don’t mean Jesus is LORD i.e. YHWY. But that is exactly what St. Paul is saying. Jesus is the LORD of the Old Testament. It is only by the Holy Spirit we can confess Jesus is YHWY, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who delivered the Israelites by Moses’ hand from the Egyptians, led them through the wilderness, brought them into the Promised Land and was their God.
Now it is this Jesus who is the LORD-Our-Righteousness who God’s people, i.e. all true believers in Christ, “As the LORD Jesus Christ lives (and he is alive at the right hand of God the Father) who brought up Israel’s descendants and had them come from the northern country and all the countries where I had driven them. And they will live in their own country.’” Who are Israel’s descendants but all who believe in Jesus. All of Israel who believed in the promise of the coming Messiah, the seed of the woman and Abraham’s blessed seed, the seed of David and all who believe Jesus is that Messiah who are joined to the spiritual Israel in baptism, will be gathered from the four corners of the earth and and from east to west into the Promised Land of the New Heavens and the New Earth.
So put your faith in Jesus Christ the LORD. Be baptized into his name. Be repentant of your sins and seek to do good. You have a promise, Jesus is your righteousness before God the Father. He gives it to you freely. It is made yours when you believe it. You will be gathered then with all of Israel when he returns at his second advent.
Heavenly Father, grant that we may have faith in your son Jesus Christ, the LORD Our Righteousness, and through faith in his name be gathered into your kingdom on the Last Day. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.