Jehovah Tsidkenu
Jeremiah 23:5-6, Jeremiah 33:15-16, Isaiah 61:10, 1 Peter 3:18
Jehovah Tsidkenu. Let me guess… you just read over that a couple of times trying to figure out how to pronounce it. Or maybe like me you googled “how to pronounce Tsidkenu.” This tricky Hebrew word means The Lord our righteousness and it appears twice in the Bible (Jeremiah 23:5-6, Jeremiah 33:15-16).
Let’s first talk about what righteousness means. Righteousness is being upright and morally correct or justified. Ultimately it is an attribute that only God obtains. Jeremiah prophecies that there will be a day when a King will reign that is the righteousness of the world. Jeremiah calls this descendant of David a righteous Branch. He declares that God’s people will be saved. The Israelites were waiting for the Messiah. The righteous Branch.
God’s word tells us that we cannot reach righteousness on our own. Romans 3:10 says, “none is righteous, no, not one” and verse 23 says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” So we know that no matter how much we pray, give to the homeless, call our grandma, smile at strangers, wash out roommates dishes, or whatever you deem as making you a good person, we will never be good enough. Isaiah 64:6 talks about how we are unclean and “all our righteous deeds are like polluted garment.” We will never be fully righteous, because we are not Jesus.
Because of our unrighteousness we are unworthy of being in the presence of our holy God. Throughout the Bible we read about God’s people going up to a mountain, going into a tent or into a temple to speak to God our Father. Sacrifices of clean male baby lambs were made to cover their unrighteousness until the ultimate sacrifice came to the world. Jesus became the sacrificed lamb to cover our unrighteousness. He became the mediator between us and God giving us access to a relationship with our Father (1 Peter 3:18). And God did this for us; for His great love for us. “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus is fully God and fully man and walked this earth some 2000 years ago. He was tempted like us throughout His 33 years of life, yet He never sinned. He is righteous. The Lord our righteousness.
So through Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection we are given righteousness. We can receive this righteousness through faith (Philippians 3:9, Ephesians 2:8). And we can rest assured that if we confess our sins God is faithful to forgive them (1 John 1:9) and cover us with the Lord our Righteous who is Jesus (Isaiah 61:10).
There is only one way to access a relationship with God our Father and that is through the Lord our Righteousness, Jesus Christ our Savior. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). It is only through Jesus that we receive righteousness. Acts 4:12 says, “and there is salvation no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” So church, may we look to Jesus for our righteousness and not our own good deeds. Would we “seek first the kingdom go God and His righteousness” and praise Jesus for being the Lord our righteousness (Matthew 6:33). Jehovah Tsidkenu.
