“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. “ —Mat. 5:6
From our perspective there are two kinds of righteousness. For the purpose of this discussion I will call the one “imputed righteousness,” and the other “imparted righteousness.” The first is righteousness “credited to our account’ when we trust Christ for salvation. It has nothing to do with conduct, but is a gift from God. The latter is behavioral or “practical” righteousness, and is the outgrowth of our faith relationship with God. While it seems to me that it is the latter the Savior is referring to in the Beatitudes, the fact is that an appetite for God is foundational to both.
“Hunger and thirst” suggests a passion for righteousness. It is something more than a passing desire. When one is truly hungry and thirsty, he can never put it out of his mind. It dominates his mind continually and drives him to seek satisfaction. Such a passion is initiated by a conviction of sin that makes the sinner aware of his want of righteousness, his spiritual emptiness of what it takes to enjoy the favor of God. Prior to that conviction, if there is any concern for righteousness it is manifested in the pursuit of self righteousness—until the Holy Spirit makes it evident that “…we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away [Isa. 64:6].” It is that consciousness that alone will drive the soul in quest of a righteousness that qualifies for heaven. It is found in Christ alone Who, when we repent of sin and sins and trust Him for salvation, becomes our righteousness before a holy God and makes us by His grace fit to stand secure before His throne. This is imputed righteousness; it is not inherently ours, but is credited to us by faith. “Dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before [His] throne,” the poet expressed it.
However, the blessedness described in our text for today has to do with a passion for practical righteousness flowing out of our conversion experience. This “hunger and thirst” ought to characterize every believer who receives Christ as Savior. That yearning is illustrated in the Old Testament, e.g. in Psalm 63:1-3. “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.” After all, a proper hunger and thirst for righteousness is a hunger and thirst for God Himself. The grace cannot be separated from the Giver and, as Spurgeon put it, “The heart that is fitted for communion is a hungering and thirsting heart.”
When we come to Christ for salvation the Holy Spirit comes to reside within us, and He has one supreme objective: to create in us likeness to Christ. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren [Rom. 8:29].” And the apostle John observes, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure [I John 3:1-3].”
Scripture seems to assume that every true believer will have a passionate appetite to become righteous in the practical sense; real world righteousness, likeness to Christ. Sadly, that is not always the case. The tempter lures us with the “junk food” of this present evil world and we fill our lives with “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life,” resulting in leanness of the soul. Before the watching world the sad consequence is an anemic Christianity that lacks both power and purity, and upon which God bestows no blessing.
May reflection on this declaration by the Lord Jesus stir within us a renewed appetite for holiness of heart and life until we can echo sincerely the apostle Paul who said “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith… [Phil. 3:7-9. See the whole passage, v. 7-15] It is that kind of appetite that will be “filled”—with “all the fulness of God.”
A superficial faith may take your soul to heaven, but only this
“hunger and thirst after righteousness” will bring heaven to your soul.
For His glory and our good,
"Pastor" Frasier
No comments:
Post a Comment