The Daily Word of Righteousness

God Upholds His Servant, #4

And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness [righteous acts] of saints. (Revelation 19:8)

Every soldier in the army of Christ is clothed in the righteous conduct of the saints. There can be no victories for Israel when there is sin in the camp. The Old Testament narratives assure us of that.

We cannot work the works of Christ apart from righteousness: first, imputed only; and then created in us through means of the Word of God, the body and blood of Christ, and the resurrection Life of the Holy Spirit of God.

"I . . . will hold thine hand." If we take a child into a dangerous situation we do not allow him or her to hold our hand. We hold the child's hand. So it is that God lovingly but firmly shakes loose our grasp on Him and in its place substitutes His grasp on us.

"And will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles [nations]." The entire program is of God. We do not save the world. God calls us, holds our hand, and gives us for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations.

The Servant of the Lord—Head and Body— is the covenant God has made with the nations of the earth. God creates His holy law, His Word, in our hearts and minds. We become the personification, the expression, of God's Word. Christ is the Word of God made flesh. We are the flesh being created the Word of God.

As we become an increasingly pure expression of the law of God the nations of the earth begin to have a light, a picture of God they can behold. If the nations respond joyfully to the expression of God's Person, ways, and will they see in us, they will be accepted of God. This is the manner in which the Servant of the Lord is becoming a "covenant of the people."

We saints are the light of the world. But it not only is what we say that is the light, it also is what we are and do. It is Christ who is the Light of the nations, and it is as Christ is created in us that we become a covenant of the people.

For two thousand years the Christian churches have been attempting to teach the world of the will of God. But what the world sees, in many instances, is the self-seeking and sin of religious people. The world is waiting to behold Christ.

Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. (II Corinthians 3:3)

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (II Corinthians 4:6)

To be continued.