{"id":5543,"date":"2014-07-15T00:05:48","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T07:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5543"},"modified":"2014-07-14T21:58:13","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T04:58:13","slug":"righteousness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/07\/15\/righteousness\/","title":{"rendered":"Righteousness"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>These are the last words <br \/>\nof David the son of Jesse. <br \/>\nThe God of Jacob chose David <br \/>\nand made him a great king. <br \/>\nThe Mighty God of Israel <br \/>\nloved him.  <br \/>\nWhen God told him to speak, <br \/>\nDavid said: <br \/>\nThe Spirit of the LORD <br \/>\nhas told me what to say. <br \/>\nOur Mighty Rock,  <br \/>\nthe God of Jacob, told me, <br \/>\n\u201cA ruler who obeys God <br \/>\nand does right <br \/>\nis like the sunrise <br \/>\non a cloudless day, <br \/>\nor like rain that sparkles <br \/>\non the grass.\u201d  <br \/>\nI have ruled this way, <br \/>\nand God will never break <br \/>\nhis promise to me. <br \/>\nGod\u2019s promise is complete <br \/>\nand unchanging; <br \/>\nhe will always help me <br \/>\nand give me what I hope for. <br \/>\nBut evil people are pulled up <br \/>\nlike thornbushes. <br \/>\nThey are not dug up by hand, <br \/>\nbut with a sharp spear <br \/>\nand are burned on the spot.  (2 Samuel 23:1-7)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>God doesn\u2019t love us because we\u2019re good.  David was good at killing Philistines, but he was not good at raising his children: Amnon raped his sister Tamar; Absalom killed Amnon.  Then Absalom rebelled against David, precipitated a civil war, and both he and many Israelites on both sides of the issue died in battle.  David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then saw to it that her husband was killed in battle.  Just before he died, like a mob boss, he told his son, Solomon\u2014the crown prince born to the woman he had committed adultery with\u2014to settle accounts\u2014old grudges\u2014with everyone who had wronged him.  But the end of his life, David looked back on it all and said that he had been a king who obeyed God and did what was right.<\/p>\n<p>How can we reconcile David\u2019s life with his claim to righteousness?  By remembering that all human righteousness is nothing but filthy rags and that salvation is by grace: the consequence of Jesus\u2019 death on the cross.  David did not need to fear the wrath of God because God\u2019s wrath had been\u2014or in David\u2019s case\u2014would be directed at the ultimate sacrifice.  David was forgiven and declared righteous by God.  That\u2019s how David could know he was a good man: his goodness was in Jesus, not in himself.  It\u2019s the same way we know we\u2019re righteous today.<\/p>\n<div class='kindleWidget kindleLight' ><img src=\"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/plugins\/send-to-kindle\/media\/white-15.png\" \/><span>Send to Kindle<\/span><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These are the last words of David the son of Jesse. The God of Jacob chose David and made him a great king. The Mighty God of Israel loved him. When God told him to speak, David said: The Spirit &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/07\/15\/righteousness\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5543"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5543"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5544,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5543\/revisions\/5544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}