Jeremiah 23:6 - Homiletics

The new name.

(See also Jeremiah 33:16 .) God's people are to have a new name. In the epistle to the Church at Pergamos, every one "that overcometh" is assured that he will receive "a white stone, and in the stone a new name written" ( Revelation 2:17 ). This is suggestive, not only of a change of character, but of a change of reputation. The redeemed will no longer be thought of in connection with the old associations of their sin and shame. These will be forgotten, and a new name given to them, describing their holier character and happier condition. Consider the significance of this new name—"The Lord our Righteousness."

I. GOD IS THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF HIS PEOPLE .

1. He justifies his people in the face of their maligners by proving the rightness of their cause. For this, like David, they may appeal to him ( Psalms 35:23 , Psalms 35:24 ).

2. God's righteousness is the ideal of righteousness for his people. True righteousness is that which is after God's mind. Men have their notions of right, which are often perverted by passion and prejudice. But the redeemed have a vision of a higher law and a purer type of goodness. God is righteousness to them. He is the Good, the only true Good ( Mark 10:18 ).

3. God is the Source of righteousness to his people. None can make himself righteous; righteousness is an inspiration. This idea is suggested by Plato in the 'Meno,' where he represents Socrates as saying, "To sum up our inquiry—the result seems to be, if we are at all right in our view, that virtue is neither natural nor acquired, but an instinct given by God to the virtuous;" and again, "Then, Meno, the conclusion is that virtue comes to the virtuous by the gift of God." How singularly near is this to St. Paul's teaching about the righteousness of God without the Law ( Romans 3:21-26 )!

II. RIGHTEOUSNESS IS COEXTENSIVE WITH SALVATION . When the people are saved, they receive the new name. We are not delivered on account of our righteousness, but in our sin and need and ill desert. Nevertheless, salvation brings righteousness, includes the gift of righteousness—is, indeed, essentially a restoration of righteousness, a deliverance from sin to a state of holiness. The two ideas may be separated in thought; they cannot be separated in experience. It would be unjust and unholy for God to deliver a man from the penalties of his sin while he remained in the practice of it. But when deliverance comes, no part of it is more full of joy and blessedness to the redeemed, and none reflects more glory on the Redeemer than the salvation from the power of sin and the creation of a new nature of holiness.

III. THE DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS IS CONFERRED THROUGH CHRIST . The giving of the new name follows the advent of the Messiah and the exercise of his kingly rule. Here we are carried beyond the vague and apparently casual Platonic notion of the inspiration of virtue to the definite Christian doctrine of righteousness through Christ.

1. Christ secures redemption for us by his life work and his sacrificial death, and with this comes righteousness.

2. Christ is the incarnation of the Divine righteousness, and breathes that into us by his vital contact with his people.

3. Christ rules in righteousness over a people whom he teaches to follow and obey him with righteousness. Therefore, if we crave the honor and the blessedness of the new name, let us yield our souls in trust and obedience to the claims and grace of Christ.