The Lamb Over Me...

"It is because if him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has became for us wisdom from God- that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption." (1 Corinthians 1:30)

Being a righteous man in the society's standard would already be a hard thing to do. Being a righteous man would most probably mean that you do not cheat in anything at all, you do not talk bad a bout a person, you are trustworthy, full of integrity and honour. Now,imagine being righteous in God's standard. Wow,that seems like an impossible feat to achieve. How can I claim to be righteous and dare to stand before God blameless?

Well,I've recently got to know this interesting fact from a friend's blog (thank you Clarence..^^) about the word "righteousness" in Chinese. Here is a picture of how it looks like. 

Now now,before all of you who can't read Chinese (this includes me) start scratching your heads in confusion, I'll explain to you all why this particular word is interesting. 

The word "righteousness" in Chinese consists of TWO individual words combined together. The upper part of the word is made up of the word "羊" which means "lamb/sheep" and the lower half of it is the word "我" which means "me". When the two individual words "lamb" and "me" are combined together, it forms the word "righteousness". And since the word "lamb" is above the word "me", I guess the phrase "the Lamb over me" is more than appropriate to describe righteousness. 

Before Jesus came, the people of God cleanse their sins yearly by going to the priest,bringing an offering of lamb,bull,goat,etc. What happens next is that the sins of the person who brought the offering will be transferred to the animal. What's left to be done is for the priest to kill the animal and offer it to God, and the person walks away blameless; righteous in the eyes of God. The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming- not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once and for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder for their sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. (Hebrews 10:1-4)


The imperfect offerings of animals did not take away their sins once and for all, but reminded the people of their sins and made them have a guilty conscience. When Jesus, the PERFECT sacrifice, came and died for us on the cross, we can finally be cleansed ONCE and FOR ALL. Being made RIGHTEOUS before God NOT because of what we've done, but because of what the Lamb has done. 


So,the next time I feel unworthy & ashamed of my sins, I just have to be reminded that I no longer need to feel guilty since the perfect sacrifice has come. Instead, I will remind myself that my righteousness comes from Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God. I just need to remember to bring my Lamb. Because the Lamb over me has done it perfectly once and for all on the cross that day. 


p/s:For those who may have a problem/doubt in the theological soundness of the phrase that I made about no longer needing to feel guilty, it's okay. Feel free to respond & I might even post another post explaining the reason for it. Be blessed. Remember, RIGHTEOUSNESS is the result of the Lamb over us.