Matthew 3:13 - 17; Matthew 5:1 - 6; Matthew 28:19 - 20; 2 Timothy 2:22; Revelation 22:12, 13, 17

I wish to say a word, dear brethren, about righteousness and the pursuit of it. It is said of our great Leader that He "loved righteousness and hated lawlessness". It is the desire of God that we, each one of us, should take character from Him; that we should love righteousness and hate lawlessness. In actual fact lawlessness is going to be put away from God's universe. We await new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. There will not be there one feature of lawlessness which could ever intrude itself. It is helpful to contrast the two words, righteousness and lawlessness. Righteousness means that the law of God prevails and that no one questions it; and it is right that throughout the universe the law of God should prevail. And it is going to prevail without any question. We await that condition of things where the law of God will prevail to the ages of ages, and God has brought in the reign of grace to establish His law in our hearts now, that we might love righteousness and hate lawlessness. The putting of man under law never established law. It only showed man to be lawless, a sinner lost and undone. As Scripture says, "law came in in order that the offence might abound". It proved the sinfulness of man; it made sin exceeding sinful. That having been fully demonstrated, God brought in the reign of grace. Thank God, grace is now reigning. What lies behind the reign of grace is the love of God, His very nature, for God is love, and the law of God is the law of love. Even the law of Moses was the law of love, only it put things in a negative way because man was a sinner, but if you look at the provisions

of that law you will see that it only forbade what is incompatible with love. God is love and He will not have anything incompatible with love. And so the spirituality of the law of Moses lies in the two great commandments: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thine understanding, and with all thy strength;" and "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself". Hence Scripture says love is the whole law. So that when we say the law of God is going to prevail in the universe, in new heavens and a new earth, it means that love will prevail, God all in all, supreme in every heart, and relations between His creatures regulated by His law, what God is in Himself, love.

It is important to see that righteousness, faith and love go together. We are exhorted to pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace. Peace is the result of righteousness, faith and love, and these three things are inseparable. They are distinguished for us for our help, but you could not have one without the other. If love is the whole law, then I cannot be righteous if I do not love; and, without faith, no one has ever been righteous in this world since the beginning of time. It would be impossible, for "without faith it is impossible to please God". What we need first of all as sinners is the righteousness that God has in grace provided for us when we had none. This righteousness, the righteousness of God, is revealed in the gospel; for the gospel shows us how God has so wrought in love that He can righteously provide us as sinners with this perfect righteousness. But love has done it; thus love and righteousness are inseparable. God's Man is living to provide righteousness for men who have none; and in result Christ is our righteousness. He is made to us wisdom from God and righteousness. A marvellous thing is that as I look up to heaven I see the glorified Man at the right hand of God in whom God's glory shines,

and I perceive that He is my righteousness and my claim to be there. This is a most glorious thing to consider. I am nothing myself, but Christ is my righteousness, so I can be happy in the very presence of God's glory because the One in whom that glory shines is Himself my righteousness. I could not possibly have, nor could I wish to have, a better acceptance than I have in Christ. I can enter the Holy of Holies with boldness.

Now the gospel brings all this to us -- the free gift of righteousness. It refers to "Those who receive the abundance of grace and of the free gift of righteousness". But, you see, that has a profound effect on the heart of the one who does receive it. Once you really come to that you surrender your heart not only to Christ but to God who has done such wonderful things for you. And so in Romans 6 it says: "Yield yourselves to God as alive from among the dead, and your members instruments of righteousness to God". I do not now think of winning my way into God's favour; I could not do it; but, as being in God's favour and as having Christ as my righteousness and owning Him as my Lord, I yield my members "instruments of righteousness to God". I begin to love righteousness; I cannot tolerate anything else. I love righteousness and hate lawlessness, and though I find the law of sin in my members which operates against the law of my mind, and tends to hinder me all the time from doing what is right with my members, yet, in the chapter (Romans 7) where that is worked out, the writer says, "I delight in the law of God according to the inward man". Think of what grace has done for him! What has established, in his heart, that delight in God's law? Not being put under law; but the transcending reign of grace; the way God has dealt with him in grace. He says I delight in the law of God, I want to be in accord with that law of love and holiness; and

at the end of the chapter he says, "I myself with the mind serve the law of God". He resolves that whatever others may do, that is his position. The flesh can only serve the law of sin, but "I myself" serve the law of God; and he finds in chapter 8 that in the Spirit he has the power to carry it out, and the truth is that a Christian will never be happy unless he is carrying it out, because his inward desires, having been wrought upon by grace, make him delight in the law of God. In spite of his having peace with God and eternal security he is not fully happy until he learns that he has power in the Spirit to do what he wants to do; that is not only he delights in the law of God but is able to carry it out. So the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit. And that is the way -- so wonderful -- God has wrought to establish His law in the hearts of Christians now, and eventually it will be established to the ages of ages in a universe where there will not be a shred of lawlessness.

Well, now we come to the Scriptures I have read and we have this affecting word of Jesus: "for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness". It is very touching to think of Jesus coming here to do God's will. You may say to me 'Well, what is really man's righteousness, what is man's duty?' "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God". The latter phrase sets out the measure of man's duty. Man, it says, is God's image and glory; he was created in the image of God. When you think of a man's duty you may perhaps think of his duty to his wife and family, or his employer or his fellow-men, but these do not constitute the prime duty of man. The prime duty of man -- that is his highest responsibility -- flows from the fact that man is God's image and glory; and the measure of our sin is that we have come short of that. We have failed in our prime

responsibility; we have failed to express God, to be like God; and that bears on the present moment. If you set up a false image of God in your mind you will not express God. Unless Christ is enshrined in your heart -- and may He be enshrined in all our hearts! May we be helped to know Him better, Him that is from the beginning, who is the beginning, and "image of the invisible God" -- and unless He is filling our vision we shall not truly express God. And our duty as men and women is to express God in everything we say and do and feel. It is a false image of God that has led so many of our brethren astray. They think of God as a hard God; that is like the Galatians, going back to law. They think God is hard and so they are hard. For whatever image of God you form in your mind it will take form in you. On the one hand, if you think God is making all kinds of demands you will make demands. On the other hand if you think God is tolerant of evil and will go on in unending patience with the things that men allow, you are making a false image of God, such as the golden calf, as though that were a true representation of God, as though God would tolerate anything. Neither is true. "The Son of God has come that we should know him that is true", we should have the true image of God as seen in Jesus.

He says, "thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness". He had come here to express God in absolute perfection. I love to think of the gospels from that angle, that everything that Jesus said, everything He did, and every feeling that He expressed, was God in expression. So that if I see Him in the house of Matthew sitting at table with publicans and sinners, He was expressing God; He was fulfilling all righteousness. God had feelings of kindness and love to men, and it came into view in Jesus; "the kindness and love to man of our

Saviour God appeared". It is righteous, it is righteousness, to express that to men. Then, think of Him in the temple denouncing the Pharisees: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ... serpents, offspring of vipers, how should ye escape the judgment of hell?" They too were the feelings of God. It was God in expression; you can see it as you go through the gospels; God in expression in the One who is God's image. And that is true now; all that was expressed in Him here is now expressed in Him in radiant glory. But to bring that glory into expression in such a manner that men could find their home in it involved His death.

This gospel of Matthew records the severity of the sufferings of Christ, what He endured, what it meant to Him to fulfil all righteousness, to bring in the full and true expression of God -- sin having come in. It meant His death; it meant the atoning sufferings; it meant His bearing our sins in His body on the tree. It meant that He was made sin for us, God made Him who knew not sin to be sin for us; and in that scene of darkness, as our hymn says, 'God is light I also see' (Hymn 212). In that great work on the cross God shone out in love which is His nature, and in His attributes of holiness and righteousness in an absolute sense. In fact in that scene at Calvary we see all the radiance of God's glory come into display. And it is now all resplendent in the face of Jesus, the One who died there; Jesus suffered in that way; it became Him thus to fulfil all righteousness. If God was to be fully expressed and if there were to be results for God, then Jesus must identify Himself with us as He did in that baptism. There, where were the repentant remnant, He Himself came, to be baptised. John said, "I have need to be baptised of thee and comest thou to me?" But Jesus said, "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness". To bring in the true expression of God, to be truly the

image of God in the universe, this involved that Jesus must identify Himself with us as He did with that remnant, and must do so, in going into death as taking up our case. But there is response secured by such grace. We thankfully recognise that we are become identified with Him in the likeness of His death -- that is baptism -- so that we now give no more place to our old man who was crucified with Him. That is the initial response that grace begets in our hearts, the grace that took Him into death. And then as we sang in our hymn

'Sent forth from Thee, Thy words to speak, Anointed to fulfil Thy will'. (Hymn 204)

Jesus was unique, of course, because in the volume of the book it was written of Him, "To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight, and thy law is within my heart". (Psalm 40:8) God's purpose centred in Him. He came on a mission and, for Him, all righteousness involved the accomplishment of what He came to do. He came that there might be those redeemed by Him who would be baptised by the Holy Spirit and with fire. He came that the one body might be formed on this earth. He came in order that God might have a dwelling place -- His cry in His atoning sufferings: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" is from the Psalm where He prophetically goes on to say: "And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel". Jesus came and wrought redemption that Jew and Gentile might be brought together, baptised by the Spirit, into one body and that thus God might have His house down here, a habitation of God in the Spirit, that God might have praises.

Thus Christ's mission was unique. But then I want to apply this to us and to show what our obligations are in love and in further response to grace. A verse that is especially on my mind in that connection is the verse we ended with in chapter 5: "Blessed they

who hunger and thirst after righteousness", and I trust the word tonight will help each one of us to hunger and thirst after righteousness. It really means in one sense that this matter is consuming the whole of one's being; and the Lord says blessed are such. Well, as I remarked, the Lord uttered those words "in the volume of the book it is written of me", referring to the holy obligations that rested on Him, as having come to do God's will. But then He came and made that sacrifice supreme that there might be formed on this earth the one body, that there might be here a habitation of God in the Spirit, and this itself involves obligations so far as we are concerned. You see, we are apt to limit righteousness as regards ourselves to our obligations to our fellowmen, to be upright in our family and business relations; but our obligations as Christians, subjects of divine grace, are far greater than that. If the Lord Jesus having come to do the holy will of God delivered Himself up in death that there might be here the one body and God's habitation in the Spirit, we having part, through grace, in these supremely great results, it is incumbent on us to hold this ground. If we love righteousness, and hunger and thirst after it, all this would lead us to recognise the prime obligations that lie upon us to answer and hold to these great and blessed truths.

Righteousness puts God first, and His claims; thus we treasure what is precious to Him, and do not let go what has cost Christ so much to bring about. So do not let us, dear brethren, in any way surrender these precious truths. We form part of that one body, as baptised in the power of one Spirit, and of God's habitation, so how can we compromise with sectarianism in any way? No sect has the Christian altar. We can truly say "We have an altar". That is not a sectarian altar. It stands related to the house of God, what He has established here. If we allow,

or compromise with, sectarianism we are not carrying out our obligations relative to the house of God. As we saw this afternoon (Exodus 27) it involves that we stand on a base of copper; we are in communion with the altar and we fulfil our responsibilities as belonging to the house of God. Each one of us is to do it; not to look first as to what our neighbour is doing; but every one of us should be set this way, loving righteousness, which in this connection means that we move in accord with the glorious truths of the one body, and the one house of God, to be regulated by divine principles, the one law of God. There are not two laws, there is one, and it involves our holy obligations in righteousness. If this is done with a full heart as hungering and thirsting after righteousness, we need not fear for the lesser obligations, or that our other obligations of life will be jeopardised; they will not. The Christian who stands for these transcending obligations is enabled by the same Spirit to carry out every obligation of life, according to God.

That is what is in the Lord's mind for each one of us; so the Lord finishes this gospel by saying, "teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you". I quoted the scripture as to the Lord Himself "in the volume of the book it is written of me" (Psalm 40:7) -- the book of God's purpose I suppose -- and He came, and carried through all that was written of Him. And now what is written for us? "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you". Have you got the Lord's commandments? "He that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves me". The Lord is not laying it upon you as a condition of salvation; He has saved you; He has died for you; He represents you in the presence of God; He secures your place up there. Now, He says, "If you love me keep my commandments". It is the

only proof of love, in fact it is the only proof that you know Him. "Hereby we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments". You tell me you know the Lord; I would say to you what are you doing then? How can you prove it? The only way you can prove it is by keeping His commandments. Well, you say, I love all Christians and therefore I must compromise in order to help them. What does the Scripture say? "Hereby know we that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments". (1 John 5:2). You are not going by Scripture, you see. If you go by Scripture you will see that the only proof of love, the only proof that you love Christ, is that you keep His commandments; the only proof that you know Him is to keep His commandments; the only proof that you love the children of God, is that you keep His commandments.

Why not prove these things? "His commandments are not grievous". The believer loves the idea of it, he loves righteousness, and as I say, our supreme duty is to express God, and His mind and will, which means expressing Christ, and surely it is a pleasure to express Christ. I would like to express Christ to every Christian on earth, but I will not help him if I go in a bye-way that he is treading. But I can express Christ to him, I can skew the love of Christ to him; I cannot walk in his path, I would not help him if I did, and I would not help myself, and I would not be doing my duty to God; but I can shew the love of Christ to him. And it is the same to men generally, it is my duty as a Christian to represent God, to shew the kindness and love of our Saviour God to men, not to come down to their level in any way, but to glorify God in shewing His kindness and love to men. Let us do it more; let us be more kind and loving to men, and shew the kindness and love of our Saviour God to them;

let us be more and more loving to our fellow-Christians, but let us keep our feet in the way of righteousness, let us observe all things whatsoever the Lord has commanded us; do not sacrifice that, do not compromise that, to do so would not help anyone.

What has the Lord commanded us? I feel how little I know, how little I have taken account of the things the Lord has commanded us. Take the Sermon on the Mount as it is termed; we read a little of it, we ought to know it off by heart more; it sets forth His commandments for every-day life; we need to have them, and keep them. And as you go through this gospel how much of this teaching, for instance as to the assembly -- "my assembly" the Lord says in chapter 16 -- are you cherishing it? That is what I have spoken of as the one body, the one house; is it your main concern? As to assembly administration in chapter 18, have we yet imbibed the real spirit of it? And then, think of His commandments as communicated through His apostles! Think of the first chapter of 1 Corinthians. Have you grasped the main point in each chapter of that epistle, for instance, as to the Lord's commandments? Go through the epistle chapter by chapter; do not pick out certain ones and say 'yes, that is the Lord's commandment;' get the whole thing -- "all things whatsoever I have commanded you". All His commandments are delightful; chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians is delightful, as to the word of the cross; chapter 2 is delightful, as to the necessity for the Spirit; chapter 3 is delightful that we are temple of God and we are therefore holy; let no one boast in men, and so on; chapter 4 is delightful as telling us not to be puffed up, one against another; chapter 5 is delightful, to keep the passover and celebrate the feast of unleavened bread; chapter 6 is delightful, that our bodies are temple of Holy Spirit, and members of Christ.

All these things are delightful and we are so ignorant of them; if we had them in our hearts we would be more likely to keep them, day by day, and that is the way of righteousness. It is not merely the righteousness of the man of the world, what an upright man of the world, as we speak, would do in fulfilling his obligations to his fellow-men, but it is keeping the good deposit entrusted, it is walking in accord with the things that the Lord has established at the cost of His life, and His unfathomable sufferings on the cross. Holding to the truth of the one body, holding to the truth of the house of God; how can we compromise with sectarianism? How can we compromise the truth with the idea of the independence of local meetings when there is only one body, and one house, and one set of principles? This means that every local company should be governed by the very same thing, because there are not two things. This is what righteousness means.

And then there is the word to Timothy. Paul says "pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace" (2 Timothy 2:22). As I said, the first three things go together; you cannot pursue one without the other; pursuing righteousness, faith, love then we shall have peace -- but it says, "with those". Now as we were saying this afternoon, we might have to stand alone, but we would never be alone in our spirits, any more than John was in Patmos. John did not isolate himself in his spirit; we never isolate ourselves from the brotherhood or the priesthood. Peter writes to the saints scattered abroad in their two's and three's in the Gentile cities, but he speaks of the brotherhood and the priesthood and we are never to isolate ourselves in our thoughts or affections from any of the saints. But, so far as lies in us, we are to find some we can walk with, for the command is "pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those". This would

save us from thinking that everything is individual, or becoming individualists; we do not want to do that. We have our personal links with the Lord, and are to be prepared if needs be to stand alone, but to be on the lookout for those with whom we can walk. Those who are pursuing the same course; those who are hungering and thirsting for the same thing.

We can never say that we have achieved righteousness; the Lord could, of course, in absolute perfection. He came to fulfil all righteousness, marvellous thing! -- but we are pursuing it; and you know, if we pursue it as hungering and thirsting for it we would do so with great reality. A hungering and thirsting man pursues food and drink, and will die if he does not get it; and, mind you, righteousness is the way to life; and if you get led away from the paths of righteousness you will lose your life spiritually. I am not saying that you will be eternally lost, but that righteousness is the way to life; grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life, and in order that we might have eternal life as a gift Jesus had to maintain righteousness at the Cross -- at all cost to Himself to uphold God's righteousness an our behalf. There was no other way to life, and when it comes to the practical working out and enjoyment of things there is no other way to life, save the way of righteousness. Wisdom says "I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment: that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasuries;" that is the way. "Whoso findeth me", she says, "findeth life". So we need to be such as hunger and thirst after righteousness. I want to arouse such a hunger and thirst in our souls. Righteousness is something that we are to pursue every day, and it involves holding fast to the truth that has been committed to us, letting nothing go, as governed by the Word

of God and the Law of God, in response to divine grace, and in the power of the Spirit.

Well, now you see, in Revelation the Lord says, "Behold, I come quickly". There is not much time for us to adjust ourselves; we all need it no doubt, but there is not much time to get right and to get thoroughly on to this path of righteousness. "Behold, I come quickly, and my reward with me, to render to every one as his work shall be". The Lord is going to judge us according, I am sure, to these standards that I have sought to put out. We shall have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ; "my reward is with me" He says. And what does Paul say? "Henceforth the crown of righteousness is laid up for me, which the Lord, the righteous Judge will render to me in that day". (2 Timothy 4:8). We have to stand before the righteous judge, and do not let us forget it, He is a righteous Judge -- I am thinking of this question of righteousness -- and Paul could say that he would receive at the hand of the righteous judge the crown of righteousness. "My reward with me" the Lord says, "to render to every one as his work shall be". (Revelation 22:12).

Now what is the Lord going to say to you and to me? You see, you have had the light of the one body, you have had the light of the house of God; and what have you done with it? How far have you stood like those pillars on the bases of copper? How far have you stood as not being ashamed of the testimony of our Lord? How far have you really gone forth to Him without the camp, leaving the whole system of man-made religion behind? I would not touch anything man-made; I belong to the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not men. I want nothing man-made. "Far from the camp" it says. Well, the Lord is going to judge us in relation to these things. Thank God the one who will judge you, is the One who, from the standpoint of divine

grace, is your righteousness; so you will never come into condemnation even if you have failed in these things; you will not have to bear the penalty. The judge bore that at the cross, He has borne our sins as Christians as well as our sins before we were converted. At the cross the Lord took upon Himself the whole question of our iniquity; nevertheless, it is a solemn matter to consider that we are to stand before Him, and especially in the light of the way He presents Himself. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end". We have to stand before Him in His ineffable majesty, not exactly at that moment in His character as the Lover of the Church, but in the awe-inspiring majesty of One who could say, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last". How shall we stand in His presence? "Behold, I come quickly and my reward with me, to render to every one as his work shall be".

There is much involved in that word, "I am the Alpha and the Omega"; it is stated three times in the Revelation. I think it is the Lord's way of speaking of the title that He is given in the first of John, "the Word became flesh". He says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega", covering the whole alphabet. He is not only the expression of God as to the greatest things, but the expression of everything that was in God's mind in regard to man. All God's mind and will has come into expression in the Lord Jesus and in connection with what He has established on the earth at the present time in testimony, and what He will establish in heavenly glory in a day to come. The first reference is in chapter 1:8 where it says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, he who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty". All God's mind and will has come into expression in Jesus and He presents himself there as the one who is able to bring it to pass. Men may

express their thoughts, but have no power to bring them to pass. "The Alpha and the Omega" has brought into expression all that God has in mind, but He has the power to bring it all to pass. He is the Almighty, and One who is, and who was, and who is to come. Then He uses the same expression on the throne in chapter 21: 5, "And he that sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new". His bondman is getting a view of all things completed, that everything that has come into expression in Christ as to God's mind and will is done, and John gets a vision of the whole thing complete. He says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end".

Now in chapter 22 the Lord brings it to bear on us and our responsibility relative to what has come into expression, "I come quickly and my reward with me, to give to every one as his work shall be". That is how our works will be estimated, how they stand relative to what has come into expression as to God Himself, and as to His mind and will, in the One who is the Alpha and the Omega -- the full expression. Well, the Lord would encourage us in the light of all this, encourage us in His grace to pursue righteousness as those who hunger and thirst after it. We shall have all the help He will give and all the help of the Spirit in doing this, and holding fast to everything that has been apprehended as having come into expression in that blessed Person. We are to give up nothing. It is unrighteousness to give up anything that has come into expression in the One who is "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end". He is the pattern of everything in the mind of God.

I just read the last verse to challenge our hearts, that in the light of this, the responsible setting, we can even then join in the cry, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come". Can we welcome the Lord's

coming with the responsible aspect in our minds as well as the aspect of, "I Jesus", the Eternal Lover of the assembly, whose love never changes even though we fail. "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things to you in the assemblies". But how can we with a full heart respond to Him as "I Jesus" -- that final personal appeal -- if we are not honestly pursuing righteousness, loving it, and hungering and thirsting after it, in the light of this earlier presentation in verse 13? Can we honestly say, "Come, Lord Jesus" if we have misgivings about standing before Him as "The Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end"? He says, "My reward with me, to render to every one as his work shall be". How will my work stand in that day? What will He say to me? I have no doubt that He will have many things to say by way of rebuke -- and that, love's rebuke, and that is always very hard to bear. The more you love a person and know his love, the harder it is to feel that you have failed him, that he trusted things to you; and, as men say, you let him down. And so the Lord would appeal to us in the greatness of His Person; He would appeal to us in the affections of His heart, "I Jesus", and He would have that appeal come to us as those that are prepared to face, and have faced already in principle, the judgment seat, so that we can really say, "Come, Lord Jesus". I do not believe that any one could say it honestly as from an unreserved heart, "Come, Lord Jesus" if they have cause for misgiving as to the course they are on from the standpoint of righteousness. Paul had no excuses; he said, "Henceforth the crown of righteousness is laid up for me which the Lord, the righteous judge, will render to me in that day". He had not a single misgiving. I could not say that of myself alas, but still I feel that the Lord would encourage us at this time to be on sure ground with Him so that we

may without any reserve whatever say, as John says at the very end of this book, as an individual -- it is not now the Bride (he is one of the Bride of course) -- in the final word, "Amen; come, Lord Jesus". There was not a shadow of reserve or hesitation in John's heart, and that is how the Lord would have us be. But we cannot be thus except as taking character from Him in our measure, as loving righteousness and hating lawlessness, pursuing righteousness especially in these matters which are so dear to His heart, and which He suffered so much to effect. May the Lord help us for His Name's sake!