SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

In our verses today, the Lord continues to make a distinction between false servants and those that fear His name. Psalm 19 verse 6 tells us that nothing is hid from the heat of the sun. That can be good or bad. The same sun that provides pleasant warmth, a guiding light and dynamic energy for the process of life can also scorch the earth bringing drought and death. The wicked will experience the burning of the sun, ‘the day .. . shall burn them up’, Mal 4. 1. The righteous, however, will experience the healing powers of the sun, v. 2.

The Son of God, the Lord, is likened to the sun. There is a sense in which those who fear the Lord have experienced His powers now. In the Lord Jesus, ‘the light of the world’, the darkness of Satan’s world with its deceit has been dispelled. We have come to see the folly of it all and now have some understanding of the truth and glory of God. As the sun covers the whole earth so the believer in Christ is covered wholly with a robe of righteousness before God, Isa. 61.10; Rom. 3. 22. Also, the warm fellowship with the Lord and His people can be the experience of the true Christian: ‘But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another’, 1 John 1. 7. And the life-giving power of Christ’s Spirit, enabling the believer to overcome sin and live a life of righteousness and peace is spiritual health, life at its highest level, Gal. 5. 22, 23.

Yet there is a future day when ‘the Sun of righteousness’ shall arise and shine on the earth. As the rising of the sun changes the earth from night to day so will the Lord. As darkness is removed so will the wicked be removed, Mal. 4. 3. Then righteousness and justice will cover the earth from north to south and east to west. As Psalm 85 verse 11 promises, ‘Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven’. As a garden blossoms when in the sun, so this earth will flourish when the Lord Jesus Christ reigns. It will be producing truth: the love of God, the ways of God and equity and justice for all, Ps. 98. 9. The sun is essential for physical life on earth. The ‘Sun of righteousness’ is essential for spiritual life.