Seek First The Kingdom - Part 10

(1) Creating Shalom Out of Chaos
(2) The Fall Brought Chaos Back Into Creation
(3) The Kingdom: God’s Plan to Restore Peace to the World
(4) Jesus Was Sent for This Purpose
(5) What is the Kingdom?
(6) Patterns of the Kingdom in Scripture
- The Garden of Eden
- The Wilderness
- The Promised Land
- The Kingdom of Solomon
- The Days of the Apostles
(7) The Life and Ministry of Jesus
(8) Attributes of the Kingdom
- Prosperity and Joy
- Peace
- Righteousness (Part - 10)
- Holiness
- Knowledge of the LORD
(9) The Millenium Kingdom
(10) The Believer’s Responsibility to Progress the Kingdom

ATTRIBUTES OF THE KINGDOM: Righteousness

"’Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; And He will reign as king and act wisely And do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell securely; And this is His name by which He will be called, 'The LORD our righteousness.'

Therefore behold, the days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when they will no longer say, 'As the LORD lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt,' but, 'As the LORD lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them.' Then they will live on their own soil.’" (Jer 23:5-8)

The prophets looked forward to a time when the nation of Israel will dwell in safety with the “David a righteous Branch…(who) will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land.” Both Paul (Rom 14:17-18) and Isaiah (Isa 60:17) identified righteousness as one of the characteristics of the kingdom. The standard of righteousness in the kingdom is high, “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven,” (Matt 5:20).

In scripture, Noah is the first person who is called “a righteous man, blameless in his time,” (Gen 6:9). The passage provides a parallelism that defines righteousness as, “blameless in his time.” Abraham is accredited with righteousness based on what he did, “He believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness,” (Gen 15:5). The LORD through Moses further defined righteousness as being derived from obedience to the commandments of the LORD. Moses told the nation of Israel, “It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the LORD our God, just as He commanded us.” (Deut 6:25).

Righteousness is shown by the actions an individual performs.  Those actions must proceed from a sincere heart to produce righteousness.

“That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works.” (Rom 9:30-32)

Actions flowing from sincere hearts testify of the kingdom to the world around us. In the words of Paul, “The kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power,” (1 Cor 4:20). Words alone are insufficient; the kingdom is demonstrated by the collective actions of kingdom people. For this reason, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven,” (Matt 7:21).

What is “the will of My Father” and what is the standard of kingdom people?   In a righteous kingdom, the life of the king should be the pattern for his subjects living within the kingdom. So what is the standard by which the king of Israel lives and reigns in righteousness, (2 Sam 8:15)? The words of Moses tell us,

“When he (the king) sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of the law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It shall be with him and he shall read it all the day of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statues, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, to the right or the left, so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.” (Deut 17:18-20).

As the saying goes, “The President is not above the law.” Neither is the king.

The standard for righteous living in the kingdom for God’s people is the Law. In the words of Paul, “The Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good,” (Rom 7:13). This principle throughout scripture will be forever difficult for many believers to accept because we have been taught from the cradle that “Christians are not under the Law.” While the Gentiles where held to a lower standard than the Jews at the counsel of the elders in Acts chapter 15, scripture foresees the world moving in a direction toward greater obedience to the words spoken by Moses. Isaiah foretold of a future time, referred to as “the last days,” when,

“The mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.’ For the law will go forth from Zion And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He will judge between the nations, And will render decisions for many peoples; And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, And never again will they learn war. Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.” (Isa 2:2-5)

This passage from Isaiah is a picture of the kingdom, a time when “they will hammer their swords into plowshares…And never again will they learn war.” During His reign, the Messiah as King, will both “teach us concerning His ways” and “judge between the nations.” The standard of teaching and judging will be the “the law (which shall) go forth from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.” This parallelism identifies the “word of the LORD” as the “the law.” If the entire world is moving toward a future time of obedience to the Law, it would be prudent for believers to study, understand, and begin to practice the commandments while we still reside in the age of grace. Even today, the Law remains “holy and righteous and good.” It is the weakness of the flesh that fails to keep the Law, as Paul has written, “What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh,” (Rom 8:3). The “flesh” was the first century rabbinical answer to why people are unable to do the good God calls us to perform.

Moses referred to our present condition in the flesh as the “uncircumcised heart,” but promised a future time when, “The LORD your God will circumcise your heart…to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live,” (Deut 30:6).

Ezekiel also foretold of this future time when, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statues, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” (Ezek 36:26-27)

The promise of Ezekiel is that God will remove our disobedient heart of stone and give us an obedient heart of flesh. The process began with the giving of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Shavuot). The gift of the Spirit in the present age is not simply as a guarantee of our future resurrection, but He is given as a helper to enable the believer to overcome the evil inclination and “walk in My statutes…and …observe My ordinances,” i.e., obedience to the Law.

When believers walk in the statutes and observe the ordinances, “It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the LORD our God, just as He commanded us.” (Deut 6:25). In the words of Paul, “the man who practices the righteousness which is based on the law shall live by that righteousness,” (Rom 10:5). As the subjects of the kingdom become righteous (Isa 60:21), they bring the kingdom into fullness on the earth.

(to be continued - Scott)