God brought this name to the Hebrew people during a particularly low moment in their collective life. The Jewish people were on a downward spiral of rebellion and idolatry. The ten kingdoms of the north had been judged for these same sins some 100 years earlier when they were taken into captivity by the Assyrians. Now the southern kingdom, known as Judah, was continuing in the downward slide of sin. The Babylonians were laying siege at the door of Jerusalem, taking its inhabitants captive and burning and looting the city.
In the midst of this dire situation, even as the people and land were decimated, Jeremiah brought a bright ray of hope. Jeremiah 23:5-6, Behold the days are coming declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch; and he will reign as king and act wisely and 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, the Lord our Righteousness. Jehovah Tsidkenu.
God promised that he would not forget the Jewish people, despite what they were experiencing in the here and now. A day is coming when a righteous ruler will take power and the hearts of the people of Judah will be changed.
I believe this promise, like so many others in the Bible, has a two-fold fulfillment. It was fulfilled in the first coming of Christ at the cross and it will be fulfilled at the second coming of Christ at His return. Today I want to look at its first fulfillment, we will save our discussion for how this will be fulfilled at the second coming for another day.
On the cross Jesus was the perfect sacrifice, he was straight, without sin, righteous. He was the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. When we turn to him in faith, his shed blood takes away our sin and he clothes us with his righteousness. He made him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God. II Corinthians 5:21. Jesus didn’t have to do this, Hebrews 12 tells us that he despised the shame of the cross. We sometimes underestimate how the Lord felt about the horrors of the cross. He despised it. But he endured the cross for the joy of seeing you and me reconciled to God. He went through the cross because of his love for you and me.
Think of a straight ruler, perfect and right. That is the Lord Jesus. Then lay any one of us next to this straight ruler and every single one of us falls short of his perfection. Isaiah said it this way, “There is none righteous, no not one. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every on to his own way.” Isaiah 54:6 . Paul said it this way, “We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23. Some of us are more snarled and twisted, some of us look fairly straight to the casual observer; but we have all fallen short. He alone is straight, he is true, he is perfectly right. He alone is Jehovah Tsidkenu.
I remember having a conversation with a friend a while back. Somehow we starting talking about the end times and the signs of the Lord’s return. She said, “You make me want to be good so that I can go to heaven.” I think what she said was so important because it sums up what most people believe about how we get to heaven. The prevailing thought is we have to be good enough, or do enough good works to outweigh our bad works so that God will accept us.
I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that according to the Bible we can never be good enough to make ourselves acceptable to God. He measures us against perfection, against Jesus who is perfectly right, straight and righteous. Every one of us, no matter how many good works we have done, will not measure up to Jesus.
Some of us may think, “Well, I haven’t robbed a bank!” implying, well, I am not that bad. Another bit of bad news, God doesn’t grade on a curve. He is not comparing us to one another, he is comparing us to Jesus. His standard is righteous perfection.
The good news is He knew that we would never be able to measure up so He did what we could not do, Jehovah Tsidkenu, God is our righteousness. When we make the divine exchange, giving him our sins and receiving his righteousness, he has us covered. Now when the Father looks down on our sin, He sees the sinless perfection of the Son, Jehovah Tsidkenu. This is huge! This is how much the triune God loves you.
Have you made this divine transaction with Jesus? Have you given him your sins and received his white robes of righteousness? There is a beautiful description in the book of Revelation of the saints during the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and make them white in the blood of the lamb. Revelation 7:14. I love that imagery, you take a garment that is filthy dirty, plunge it into scarlet blood, and it comes out white as snow. That is what happens when we make Jesus our Jehovah Tsidkenu.
