“His Righteousness, His Integrity”

"His Righteousness, His Integrity"

       

    "Judge me, o Lord, according to My righteousness, and according to Mine integrity that is in Me" (Psalm 7:8).

    Sometimes in his Psalms, King David fades from view, making way for a pre-incarnation appearance in the Scriptures of His holy descendant, the Lord Jesus Christ.  This is clearly the case in the above plea for judgment based on the supplicant's righteousness and integrity.  David could not possibly withstand God's examination based on his own spiritual and moral merits.  As his son Solomon confessed, "Who can say, I have made my heart clean?" (Proverbs 20:9).  Only the Lord Jesus could affirm His own righteousness, integrity, and cleanness.  "Jesus… was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:14-15).  All others need not apply.

    Acceptance with God involves either accomplished righteousness or imputed righteousness.  Again, only the Lord Jesus achieved the former by living a life "without blemish and without spot" (I Peter 1:19).  Our hope for being just with God lies in our being justified by Him (Romans 5:1).  This required the sacrificial death of the Lamb of God who bore our sins in order that we might bear His righteousness.  "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).  Such grace and mercy alone makes possible our acceptance since accomplished righteousness requires pristine spiritual and moral perfection.  David could never have survived the judgment of God based on his own righteousness and integrity, nor can we.  Thus, the Psalm above contains the Son of David's affirmation, making possible our right standing with God as a "free gift" imputed to our account by His grace as received by faith (Romans 5:16).

    We do well to fall before the Lord Jesus in grateful and awed appreciation for the life He lived of continual challenge and continual overcoming.  Had He ever distrusted or disobeyed His Father, He would have been required to die for His own sins rather than ours.  This never happened, praise His holy name, and we may therefore "come boldly to the throne of grace" with complete confidence in our access based upon the merits not of ourselves, but of Christ.  His righteousness, integrity, and cleanness enrobes the trusting heart, and paves our way to God.  No other possibility exists of establishing and maintaining our acceptance, nor do we need any other.

"Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us… righteousness."

(I Corinthians 1:30)

"He hath made us accepted in the Beloved."

(Ephesians 1:6)

Weekly Memory Verse

   For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish."

(Psalm 1:6)