J.A. Matteson
Is blessing by the LORD a response to our righteousness, or is our righteousness the result of His blessing? "For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O LORD, You surround him with favor as with a shield" (Ps. 5:12). Woe to the man who convinces himself of the former, for he will go down to the pit with the wicked. Man is completely void of righteousness and the LORD's justice requires death. Man's thoughts are impure, his lips utter deceit, his hand is quick to condemn the weak, and all day long his meditations are continually evil. Who then may be accounted righteous before the LORD? It is he to whom the hand of the LORD is extended, the man who has received the LORD's favor, to whom mercy has risen in his heart as the light of the dawn. Surely that man is blessed, for the LORD in His good pleasure has chosen to redeem him, not according to his righteousness, but in spite of his lack of it. He gives the man a new heart, a heart of flesh and not of stone, a heart the fears the LORD and is attentive to His voice. Blessed is this man for he has received the imputed righteousness of Christ by grace through faith.
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