Praising the Lord Our God - Part 2

[The LORD] loves righteousness and justice... ~ Psalm 33:5a

God "loves righteousness and justice." Righteousness and justice are two closely related moral attributes of God, akin to His holiness and wrath, whereby ‘He maintains Himself as the Holy One over against every violation of His holiness’ (Louis Berkhof, A Summary of Christian Doctrine, p.33). Our God delights in doing what is right and just because He is righteous and just.

As the Creator and Lord over all the earth, He governs the whole world with righteousness and justice. And how does He do that? Through His law which is the standard of His righteousness.

Essential to the notion of righteousness is conformity and obedience to the law of God. The world is full of wickedness and injustice because it rejects the law of God. Our society in general abhors the law of God. In its rebellion against the righteous rule of God the world is under judgment. That’s why Paul says, “the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness” (Rom.1:18).

Friends, God is holy. His holiness sets Him apart from us. He hates sin and evil and punishes them who do evil. Part of His punishment is to give sinners over to their own deceitful hearts, sinful passions and depraved minds. Yet in His righteousness He rewards those who do what is right.

But who among us do what is right always? Who among us obey the law of God perfectly? No one, except our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 3 does not only tell us that no one is righteous and no one does good. It also declares that God manifested His righteousness and justice in Jesus Christ. God presented Him as propitiation, that is, as an atoning sacrifice that satisfied God’s wrath against our sins.

Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Righteous One, is God’s perfect sacrifice for our sins. He perfectly obeyed the law of God and offered Himself in His death in our behalf.

So none of us can boast before God. All of us are guilty of disobeying His law. None of us is righteous. None of us does what is right. We deserve His wrath. But if by faith you and I accept the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, we are counted righteous. We are united with Him who was tempted in every way yet did not sin so that in Him we who believe become the ‘righteousness of God’ (2 Cor 5:21).

One Puritan pastor puts it this way: “It is our wisdom and our comfort; we care for no knowledge in the world but this: that man hath sinned and God hath suffered; that God hath made himself the sin of men, and that men are made the righteousness of God" (Thomas Hooker).” This is good news! This is the gospel!

So how do we magnify the righteousness of God? The best way is to believe that Christ is our righteousness…that in Him, by faith, God has declared us righteous… that we now stand in a right relationship with God, His law, and His justice…that through Christ we have peace with God and have obtained mercy. Look to Christ. Behold Him as your righteousness and God will not count your sin against you any longer.

We also magnify God’s righteousness by loving His law, His righteous law. When I say the law of God, I’m referring not only to all the laws and commands of God in the Bible but the whole written Word of God itself. Do you love reading and memorizing the word of God? Most of all, do you delight in obeying His Word? Obedience to God’s Word is another way to praise God in His righteousness.

Devoting your time in meditating in order to practice the Word is another way of conforming to God's righteousness. Joshua 1:8 says, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

The law of God is for our good. The Apostle John says, “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). When God justifies us, He also gives us the ability to love His Word and to keep His Word. By keeping His Word, we conform to His righteousness and that way we glorify God.

No matter how hard your situation is, God desires your obedience. When your faith is tested look to Christ as your only righteousness for in the light of it, you can endure, even rejoice, in your sufferings. Look to Him who endured all kinds of injustice and pain for your sake.

In all your trials and suffering, remember Him who suffered for you. But do not forget that in all your hardships, God still does what is right and good for you. In Christ, He turns your sorrows into joy, your mourning into dancing, your affliction into opportunity to grow in your faith and obedience. Suffering builds up good character and strengthens hope for God’s people. God alone makes good out of evil. He alone makes right from wrong. He alone does what is right and just. This is the righteous God of the Scripture.

Oh, how easily we accuse God of being unfair when adversity strikes us. Maybe someone very close to you keeps on hurting you. Maybe you have been cheated or abused by someone and it still bothers you. Before accusing God of being unfair or getting back at your perpetrator, remember Christ and the agony He has to go through in bearing the consequences of your sins.

Remember that He was without sin but because of your sins and my sins, He was forsaken by many, hated, scorned and bruised by those who wished him dead. But He endured them all so that you and I will be forgiven. He suffered so that you and I would sin no more. He was afflicted so that you and I would stop hurting each other and would start building up one another in the faith.

We can glorify God even in the most painful situation of our lives when we recognize our suffering and count it with joy that God regards us worthy to share in the suffering of His Son. God knows what is right for us and He does what is right for us, even allowing us to go through difficult circumstances.

The “Perfections” of Scripture and Their Implications in Hermeneutics

In the history of Bible interpretation, it was the Protestant Reformers who championed four perfections or attributes of the Scripture as they defended themselves against the accusations of Roman Catholic authorities and as they declared the teachings of the Holy Scripture over and against the excesses of Rome and some of the Protestant sects. These perfections also serve as important guides for us modern interpreters in understanding the message of the Holy Scripture.

The first perfection of Scripture is its authority. By this we mean to say that the Holy Scripture is the supreme and ultimate authority in matters of faith and conduct. While we recognize other authorities and standards such as the church council or assembly, creeds and confessions of the church, church leaders, and others, these are subordinate to the Scripture’s authority. Ultimately our recognition of the authority of Scripture is founded on the Lordship of Christ, who attests to the authority of the Scripture (Matt. 5:17-19), and the authority of God, who is the divine author of the Holy Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21). This tells us that the faithful interpreter of the Bible must submit himself to the Lord as he interprets God’s Word.

Consequently, we interpret Scripture with great care and humility, submitting to its commands and precepts, believing its claims and promises, utterly depending on the Holy Spirit’s illumination and enabling in understanding and applying everything that it says. We have no right therefore to twist, modify or undermine its teachings and instructions in order to suit our own personal, cultural, theological or denominational preferences and convictions which are not Scriptural. Nor do we have the freedom to interpret (or reinterpret) Scripture in such a way as to justify our unscriptural beliefs and wrongdoings or minimize our culpability. That is not only an irresponsible handling of the text of Scripture but that is also an irreverent way of interpreting the Bible.

For example, since Scripture clearly teaches that God will inflict “vengeance on those who do not know [Him] and on those who do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ” (2 Thess. 1:8), we as Bible interpreters and teachers do not have the right to diminish the truth of eternal punishment in order to make the gospel appealing to the unbelieving ears. In interpreting any Biblical passage, the authority of Scripture must guide us in seeing and learning what it really says, not what we want to see and hear from the text.

The second perfection of Scripture pertains to its necessity. The necessity of Scripture “refers to its indispensable service as the God-ordained instrument for the communication of the knowledge of God and of ourselves. Only by means of the Scriptures do we come to know clearly and fully those things which are necessary for us to know in this life, to God’s glory and for our salvation” (From a handout in Theological Foundations class at Mid-America Reformed Seminary; cf. Belgic Confession, Article II). There are things of and about God and about ourselves which could not have been known to us if the Bible was not written.

In acknowledging the necessity of the Scripture we are saying that without God’s divine act of revealing Himself more clearly and more fully through the written Word, our knowledge of Him and of ourselves is limited, even defective because of our sin (Rom. 1:18-23). Though “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1), God deemed it necessary to make Himself known to man through the writings of the prophets, like Moses (Ex. 17:14; 34:1, 27) or Jeremiah (Jer. 30:2), the apostles, like John (John 20:31; 1 John 1:4), and other men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:19-21).

This then tells us that in reading and studying the Scripture, by faith and through the enabling of the Spirit, we are engaging ourselves in the pursuit of gaining a better and more reliable knowledge of God, of Jesus Christ, of ourselves and the way we should live as God’s people (Jos. 1:8; Psa. 19:7-14; Ps. 119; Luke 24:27; John 5:39; 2 Tim. 3:15). The necessity of Scripture then gives us the motive and the goal in interpreting the Bible, to know and gratefully thank and worship God for revealing Himself in such a special way. Only the Scripture gives us godly wisdom, which is closely connected to the idea of the fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:7; 9:10; Ps. 119:33-34). Thus in interpreting Scripture we have to bear in mind that the whole written Word has its own overall purpose, while recognizing the unique individual purpose of each writer and the times and audiences they were writing (e.g. Luke 1:1-4; John 20:31).

Third, it is also said that the Scripture is plain and clear for anyone who earnestly seek to know God, His gift of salvation in and through Christ, and His will for us. This perfection is called the clarity or perspicuity of Scripture. Louis Berkhof contends that

“In opposition to Rome, [the Reformers] further defended the clearness of the Bible. They did not deny that it contains mysteries too deep for human understanding, but simply contended that the knowledge necessary unto salvation, though not equally clear on every page of the Bible, is yet conveyed in a manner so simple that anyone earnestly seeking salvation can easily gather this knowledge for himself, and need not depend on the interpretation of the Church or the priesthood” (Summary of Christian Doctrine, p. 20).

As Bible interpreters we must then be careful not to complicate simple commands as “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” or “Honor your father and your mother.” These commandments are simple and need not be allegorized. The same thing applies to the narrative and the truth it portrays.

However, we also recognize that there are different literary genres in the Bible and therefore different literary approaches are required to make sense of the different Scriptural texts (like narrative, prophetic, apocalyptic, parable, etc.). Likewise there are difficult passages in the Scripture that are not easy to understand and this is where the principle that says “Scripture interprets Scripture” or that idea that states “the clearer parts of the Scripture must shed light to the difficult part” applies. The unity of Scripture is also important here. We should not forget that there is one God the Holy Spirit who is behind all the 66 books of the Bible. Literary and historical contexts are also important in this regard. A faithful Bible interpreter cannot afford to disregard the literary structure as well as the environment or background of the author and his audience in trying to understand the meaning of the text.

Responsible Bible interpretation then acknowledges the simplicity of the message of the Scripture, particularly on God’s work of salvation in Christ, while recognizing that there are things that God did not reveal to us (Deut. 29:29). This should move us then to be diligent in studying and understanding the word of God, not giving up when we seem to face dead end.

The sufficiency of Scripture is its fourth perfection. By this “we mean to refer to its adequacy and completeness to regulate, found and confirm the church’s faith and practice. The Bible alone is sufficient to equip the man of God for every good work. It does not require the addition of extra-Scriptural tradition or revelation to provide for the need of God’s people” (From a handout in Theological Foundations Class at Mid-America Reformed Seminary). Again the Reformers vigorously “defended the sufficiency of Scripture, and thereby denied the need of the tradition of the Roman Catholics and of the inner light of the Anabaptists” (Louis Berkhof, Summary of Christian Doctrine, p.20).

Similar to its clarity or perspicuity, the sufficiency of Scripture gives us the assurance that Scripture is our sure foundation and guide in knowing the truth and walking according to the truth. Guided by and dependent upon the Holy Spirit, the faithful Bible interpreters need not look anywhere to find certainty and security in the faith other than what the Spirit has already revealed in the written Word of God. Everything that we need to make us wise unto salvation has been provided by God in the pages of the Sacred Writings.

Thus in keeping with the Scripture’s sufficiency, our hermeneutical approach should be characterized by confidence, not doubting whether or not the Scripture misleads us or confuses us on matters of faith and doctrine. When confronted by two seemingly opposing or contradicting ideas, the interpreter should be convinced that the Scripture contains within itself a way to clarify ambiguity.

These perfections give us reason all the more to love the written Word, to guard its message and to rejoice in the fact that when we are confused we can turn to the Scripture and there find God speaking to us and assuring us that His Word “is a lamp to [our] feet and a light to [our] path” (Psalm 119:105) and can keep our way pure (Psalm 119:9). Thus Paul can confidently say to Timothy,

“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which is able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:14-16).