Number 2. Righteousness
IN our last lesson from a Chinese character, you will remember that we spoke about SIN, and how it is like a fish net that catches us, and holds us fast until Another comes to save us. Today I want to tell you about the One Who has come to save us from the terrible net of sin into which we all had fallen. Yes, thanks be to God, One has come to do this for us, and in the very first chapter of the New Testament we read,
“Thou shalt call His name JESUS, for He shall save His people from their sins.”
That is just what we need, is it not? A Saviour! One come to save us from that awful net that holds us so fast.
Now, children, I want you to look very carefully at that big character at the top of our lesson. If you look you may see that it is made of two parts, and I have asked my Chinese teacher to write these two parts separately so that you may see them quite plainly. The top part is in the small circle and means “sheep” or “lamb;” if you look at it you can see that it has two horns, and four legs, and a tail, and that extra stroke in the middle is its body, I suppose. The bottom part of this character is in the small square below and means “me” or “I”. Now, can you guess what the whole big character in the middle means?
“Me” covered by a “Lamb?”
If you have a Chinese man who does your laundry, or there is one in the town where you live, you may ask him about it; he will probably tell you it is “ee”, but he will have a hard time telling you what it means, so I must try and make it plain for you. It means “RIGHTEOUSNESS,” but that is such a big long word, that I am afraid some of the little folks won’t understand it. There are different kinds of righteousness. There is your own righteousness; that is all the right things, the good things that you do, to try to get to heaven.
In China there are “Righteous Works Societies,” and the people in them do right, kind, good things to get to heaven. Those are our own righteousnesses. These are the things that we like other people to see when they look at us, the things that we like to keep on the outside, like our clothes, and we like to keep our bad things hidden away where people won’t see them, or covered up with our righteousness. Isn’t that the way it is? God talks about these righteousnesses of our own, and tells us that they are like clothes that we wear to cover us up, —but, O, He says that they are all like “filthy rags.” You don’t like to wear filthy rags, do you? You don’t even like to touch them, we burn them, that is all they are good for. Our own righteousnesses, the best things that we do, are exactly the same.
Our sins are like a fish net to catch us and take us to hell, and our righteousnesses are like filthy rags! What a terrible state we are in! What can we do?
Now look again at the big character in the middle at the top of the lesson. What do we see there? We see ourselves, “Me” below, with a “Lamb” above, covering me over, so to speak. Who does that Lamb speak of? I know well that most of you can tell me that it is the Lord Jesus, “the lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” What a beautiful lesson we may learn from this! Just what we need! The Lamb of God to take away my sins, to save me from that fish net in which I had become hopelessly caught, and the same Lamb of God to cover me all over, in place of those filthy rags of my own righteousness. How gladly will I throw away my filthy rags, to be covered by the Lamb of God, to be hidden in Him.
But look again at the big character, and you will see that nothing can touch “me” without first touching that “Lamb” above. And, O, dear children, as we think of how all the judgment of God for my sins was borne by that blessed Lamb, of how He has borne those stripes which I deserved so well, yes, of how all the waves and billows of the wrath of a holy God were all borne by Him, while I am safe in Him, while we think of all this, how our hearts. thank Him, and praise Him for it.
As we remember that righteousness is what covers us up, whether it be the filthy rags of our own righteousness, or the Lamb of God of God’s righteousness, we may see how beautifully this Chinese character tells us of a righteousness, not our own, but of Another, even the righteousness of God.
Dear children, have you this righteousness of God? Are you all covered by the Lamb of God? When God looks at you, does He see you all hidden in His own Beloved Son? That is what he offers to you. He says, “Now, the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ” is offered “unto all, and it is upon all them that believe.” Is it upon you?
“Clad in this robe, how bright I shine!
Angels possess not such a dress!
Angels have not a robe like mine,—
Jesus, the Lord’s my righteousness.”
ML 07/27/1924