God’s concern for us, His sheep, is manifest by a promise of restoration. Unfaithful leaders had led the people into what would become their captivity.
When this happened there was a tendency on the part of the people of God to blame Him. They needed to be reminded that God is always righteous in what He does, whether with the ungodly or with His own.
God had made promises before. He was not going to renege on those promises. Neither was He going to fulfill them without first dealing righteously with His unrighteous and unfaithful people. God cannot condone sin, even in those He loves.
Today, in our world, God is often called unrighteous for what He allows to happen in individual lives as well as to the world at large. But in a coming day we will know better. Then every knee shall bow and every tongue declare, “The Lord is righteous.” And for those who know Him through faith, the confession will be more personal as declared by Jeremiah 23:6: “And this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord our righteousness’ (Jehova-tsidkenu)”.
In 1 Corinthians 1:30 Paul points out that believers are “in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness.” In the light of Jesus Christ’s righteousness both Peter and Paul agree on this: “Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous,” and “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift” – Jehovah-tsidkenu!
