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Updated: June 6, 2025
In the margin it is said to be like the mountain of God; to wit, called Mount Zion, or that Moriah on which the temple was built, and upon which it stood; all other bottoms are fickle, all other righteousnesses are so feeble, short, narrow, yea, so full of imperfections; for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, Christ did for us in the similitude of sinful- flesh.
Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant, and his supplications, and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord's sake. O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by thy name: for we do not present our supplications before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.
From whence I began to reason with myself thus: If ALL my righteousnesses are filthy rags; if, by the deeds of the law, NO man can be justified; and if, when we have done ALL, we are yet unprofitable, then it is but a folly to think of Heaven by the law.
Jonah also says, chap. 2, 8: They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy, i.e., all confidence is vain, except confidence in mercy; mercy delivers us; our own merits, our own efforts, do not. Accordingly, Daniel also prays, 9, 18 sq.: For we do not present our supplications before Thee for our righteousnesses but for Thy great mercies.
God's word hath told us, that the best of our righteousnesses are not better than filthy rags.
'But we are all as an unclean thing, said Isaiah, 'and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. 'I am the chief of sinners, said the apostle. 'Hold your peace; I am a devil and not a man, said Philip Neri to his sons. 'I am a sinner, and worse than the chief of sinners, yea, a guilty devil, said Samuel Rutherford.
When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it. Again, when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right;
'Oh that Thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down . . . But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. Thousands in Israel found in these terrible words a door of hope, a sense of fellowship, and a call to trust and thanksgiving.
For the word employed here, 'shm, signifies a victim for transgression; which signified in the Law that a certain Victim was to come to make satisfaction for our sins and reconcile God in order that men might know that God wishes to be reconciled to us, not on account of our own righteousnesses, but on account of the merits of another, namely, of Christ.
It is a picture of mere self-righteousness. His judgment was wrong from the root; he knew neither his own heart nor God's law. Pharisee as he was, he might have learned from the prophet Isaiah the true state of the case, "We are all as an unclean thing; and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."
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