Thursday, October 18, 2007

Righteousness and Peace

"And the work of righteousness shall be peace..." Isaiah 32:17

To be "righteous" means to be "in the right," so to speak. Now, the "right" here is not speaking of legal grounds, as when four people pull up to a stop sign and wonder who has the "right" of way. "Right" in the sense of "righteous" is speaking of moral grounds. Moral and legal are not the same thing; something can be legal and yet be immoral (e.g., abortion). To be "righteous" means to be standing in accordance with what is moral; or, to be more redundant, to b e"righteous" means to be in the state of righteousness.
Now, Christ is not only revealed as our righteousness (I Corinthians 1:30), but also as "Melchisedec," which is translated two ways: "King of Righteousness," and "King of Peace" (Hebrews 7:2). Taken in the light of Isaiah 32:17, these two translations make perfect sense: righteousness and peace are inseparable--you can hardly have one without the other.
This connection is vital in our understanding of salvation: if Christ has been made our righteousness (not that He gave it, but that He is it), that that means we have some kind of peace as well. What kind of peace, you ask? Peace with God (Romans 5:1).
This peace is vital to our salvation. In "The Weight of Glory," Lewis spoke of an innate need we have as humans to feel right with our Maker, to know that we are approved in His eyes. Thanks to sin, we can never be approved on our own. Christ came and became the righteousness we needed in order to be approved, and now we can have peace with God.

"My Soul longs to be
All my Maker made it to be.
Through Christ, all that God is,
I Am. I am approved,
For He Himself is my approval,
The Only Approval..."

-Jon Vowell

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