If you consider that God is righteous,
you also know that everyone who acts in righteousness
is begotten by him.
We are made righteous when we are born (or begotten) again in baptism. But this event, which was for most of us in the past that we were too young to remember, is meant to have an ongoing impact in our daily lives. We were begotten by God and now we ought to live as his children. The upshot to this is that righteousness is not merely some abstract legal standard for which we must strive by our own efforts. It is built in to the supernatural reality of the new creations in Christ that we have become. Righteousness is, as it were, in our DNA.
See what love the Father has bestowed on us
that we may be called the children of God.
Yet so we are.
If we pause long enough on this point to be thankful for it, and not simply skim past and pay lip service to the idea that we are God's children, it has the power to transform us. When we really realize who we are and have become that identity can begin to define and shape our lives. We can shed the masks of falsity that lawlessness and sin have made us adopt and begin to live lives of authenticity rooted in our identity as beloved sons and daughters of God. As we do so we will come to resemble him. We will draw nearer to the honoring command to be perfect as our Father is perfect, not by our efforts as slaves or servants, but as our inheritance as sons and daughters.
Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is.
The gift of divine life, being made partakers of the divine nature, is ultimately a gift. The culmination of this gift is the beatific vision itself, wherein we see God as he is. This vision is not something we can attain by our efforts as it infinitely surpasses all of our skills and abilities. But it is something for which we can and ought prepare.
Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure,
as he is pure.
Preparing our hearts to see the vision we desire of God himself means becoming, as Jesus taught in the sermon on the mount, pure of heart. We must first get free from lawlessness that so tarnishes our hearts that we can't see spiritual realities. And even after that we need our hearts to be more and more purified from disordered attachments to this world. Even good things desired in excess prevent us from turning our gaze toward the true light, and can in fact conceal that light.
You know that he was revealed to take away sins,
and in him there is no sin.
No one who remains in him sins;
no one who sins has seen him or known him.
The preparation for the vision that will make us like God and allow us to see him as he is does in fact involve effort on our part. But it is still primarily the work of Jesus himself who was revealed to take away sins. It is he himself who cleanses our hearts and purifies us. If we struggle (and who doesn't?) with lawlessness and sin he can help us. If the lens of our hearts is still opaque with worldly concerns he can shine upon us so brightly as to purify us. On this day when we celebrate the Most Holy Name of Jesus we can recognize that this need not be complicated. Instead of despair, and before, during, and after our own efforts, we can simply call upon that Name. It contains the power and the presence we need and desire.
Jesus himself came to earth in order to baptize us in the Holy Spirit. He gave to us as a gift that which was his by nature, the Spirit of Sonship. This Holy Spirit is the fire that burns within us, consuming the dross, and leaving only, in the end, the pure and radiant vision of God himself.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
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