CW 573 – Jesus, Your Blood and Righteousness
When we are going somewhere important, we want to dress appropriately. A suit or dress for homecoming. A tuxedo or gown for a wedding.
God is our King. He invites us to something eternally important. He invites us to the wedding feast of his Son. We need to wear the proper clothes to be in our King’s presence. In the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus tells a parable about a wedding (Matthew 22:1-14). In his story, the King has a man thrown out of the feast for not wearing the proper wedding clothes (Matthew 22:12).
By his grace, God provides us with his Son’s righteousness as “our glorious dress” as our hymn for this week says.
Verse one: Jesus, your blood and righteousness my beauty are, my glorious dress; mid flaming worlds, in these arrayed, with joy shall I lift up my head.
By nature, we are not dressed appropriately to be in our God and King’s presence. Isaiah 64:6 states that “All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth.” Even our best attempts at righteousness – being right with God – are tainted by sinful motives (Romans 8:7-11).
How gracious then, that our God and King provides us with the proper clothing to wear to his own feast. St. Paul assures us that “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
Verse two: Bold shall I stand in that great day; who can a word against me say? Fully absolved through these I am from sin and fear, from guilt and shame.
St. Paul writes in Romans 8:33-34: “Who will bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies! Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus, who died and, more than that, was raised to life, is the one who is at God’s right hand and who is also interceding for us!” Satan and his allies will continually attempt to accuse of sin. But all those accusations are silenced by Christ’s absolution.
Verse three: Lord, I believe your precious blood, which at the very throne of God pleads for the captives’ liberty, was also shed in love for me.
Our sin has trapped us in a prison of lies, shame, and guilt. It damns us to a dungeon in hell. Yet Jesus’ precious blood has freed us from our captivity. Isaiah speaks in prophecy of the work of the coming Christ: “He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for those who are bound” (Isaiah 61:1).
Verse four: Lord, I believe, were sinners more than sands upon the ocean shore, you have for all a ransom paid, for all a full atonement made.
We are so sinful that we could not begin to count our many and varied sins. They are more numerous than “sands upon the ocean shore.” Yet Jesus paid the ransom price for all these sand-like sins. He keeps no record of our sins but replaces sin with his divine forgiveness. The psalmist asks a great question, “If you, LORD, kept a record of guilt, O Lord, who could stand?” Then he receives an awesome answer, “But with you there is pardon, so you are feared” (Psalm 130:3, 4).
Verse five: When from the dust of death I rise to claim my mansion in the skies, this then shall be my only plea: Jesus has lived and died for me.
Our sins cause us to die and our bodies to decay and eventually return to dust. “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). Yet because Jesus lived, died, rose, and reigns, now those who live and believe in him as the King’s Son and their Savior, they will die, rise, and reign with Christ in his heavenly mansions he has prepared for his believers. Jesus assures his believers, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that you may also be where I am” (John 14:2, 3).
Verse six: Jesus, be worshiped endlessly! Your boundless mercy has for me, for me and all your hands have made, an everlasting ransom paid.
“Jesus, Your Blood and Righteousness” is one of more than 2000 hymns written by Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Zinzendorf originally wrote this hymn in 1739 during or shortly after his return from visiting a Moravian mission on the island of St. Thomas in the West Indies. Our hymnal has six English stanzas. Zinzendorf’s original German version had 33 stanzas! Whew!
Perhaps when we are wearing our wedding clothes purchased for us by Christ’s blood and righteousness, and we are enjoying the King’s eternal feast, we’ll sing those 33 German verses to our King and Christ. We’ll have plenty of time because Jesus will be worshiped endlessly.
Questions:
Why is it important to spiritually put on Jesus’ beauty and glorious dress every morning?
How does it feel to be forgiven and free?
How can you live confidently today and every day knowing that you have a home in God’s mansion waiting for you?