Holiness and Righteousness

October 26, 2022

Luke 1:75 – “to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”

The verses leading up to today’s verse is the story of the prediction of two births by the angel Gabriel. Despite being quite old, Elizabeth and the priest Zechariah have had their son, who now needs named. Zechariah at first doubted the message of having a son and was stricken mute. Elizabeth then names her child “John”, and then when asked, Zechariah writes down the name “John” as his son’s name, and immediately he is able to speak again. Then Zechariah prophesies about the powerful ministry of his son and sings a song that intertwines references to the Old Testament about God’s promises. 

Until Jesus came, the people of God lived in fear of Him. They understood God’s righteous, unchanging standards and they knew they didn’t meet those standards. Only the high priests served God in the Temple.  The people had to obey the laws, they were slaves to the law, but did not have a personal relationship with God. Since they could not go to God, He came to them, and us, through His son.  He became like us so that we could become like Him through faith, and now, we can enjoy fellowship with Him, whenever we want.

God transformed us from weakness and slavery to deliverance from sin. He transformed our affections to “serve Him without fear.” In the Old Testament, Israel served Him because of their fear. But we serve Him with love, we serve Him with worship and praise.  We serve Him without fear.