Monday, April 6, 2009

OFFSPRING: Christ Our Righteousness


QUOTE
“Just as loving children try to imitate the example of their beloved father, all moral human behavior is the attempt to imitate the Father in heaven, to fulfill his image and likeness in our lives by His grace. This truth binds the non-Christian as well as the Christian. Where we Christians have an advantage, through no deserving of our own, is that we have received God’s grace in Jesus Christ to become redeemed sinners. By our redemption we receive the benefits of Christ’s perfect obedience to His Father: grace to follow in His love, and forgiveness of our sins when we repent of our failure to love as well as we should.” (An Outline Of An Anglican Life- Louis Tarsitano)

COMMENTARY
Tarsitano insists that Christ is our righteousness, because we have no righteousness of our own. According to God the Father, in Christ we are accounted righteous. If this were not enough of a gift, Christ is pleased to give us give us a love for what he loves. By that love, we begin to do some of the things that he loves, we begin to do right. This good does not originate with us, but amazingly enough, Christ is pleased to produce good through us. Christ our righteousness.

2 comments:

  1. Jeremiah 23:5 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.
    6: In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
    This verse, usually a proof text for showing Jehovah Witness' a scriptural basis for the Lord Jesus Christ's divinity, comes to mind when reading Father Carlos Miranda's post.
    Much has been written concerning the so called "Names of God", that are found in the Bible from both Judaic and Christian sources.
    Take them as you may, the fact is that the "name of God" in Jer. 23:6 -identified with the Messianic Branch of Righteousness in the previous verse-, written in bold capital letters in the Authorized Version, could be said to be the Highest, Holiest, most Sacred name of God to the Hebrew, and later Jewish scribes whose task it was to copy the text from scroll to scroll. Practiced still to this day, the scribe stops his work when it comes time to write, transliterated here in our alphabet, YHWH TSID CHANU, translated in the English as THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. He ritually washes, finds a separate quill pen and ink used only for this task, writes it in the scroll, ritually washes again, and goes back to the more common quill and ink.
    Meaning this; The holiest name of God was reserved for his Messiah. Another Man of God put it this way.
    God would achieve Righteousness in the flesh.
    I Cor 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
    This verse is commonly used as a proscription against the physical abuse of one's body. But a more uncommon use of this verse is to point out the obvious. If Christ dwells in me, then THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, dwells in me.

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