God cannot do anything to make justification more perfect than it is. Any attempt of man to add to it, would be like trying to add light to the sun. Love brought Christ down, and righteousness raised Him up. The term, “the righteousness of God,” means that God is just in justifying by the faith of Christ, and has no reference to what He was under law here below. Christ suffered once, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. One part, consequently, of divine righteousness, is that Christ is raised up from the dead; another, that we who believe become the righteousness of God in Him. The “righteousness of God” is the obligation, as it were, to bless me in Christ if I look to Him for salvation. Doubtless Christ did fulfill all righteousness; it was indeed what He owed to God as an obedient, faithful man on the earth; but “the righteousness of God” is what He owed to Christ. When the idolatrous Gentiles were ready to acquit the Messiah, the Jews cried out so much the more, “Crucify him, crucify him.” And both joined therein to do the fatal deed. There was an end of the trial of man. Then, all being proved ungodly and unrighteous, a new kind of righteousness—even the righteousness of God, who justifies freely of His grace without law—comes into manifestation. He raises Christ up from the grave, after redemption. He does not set Him on the throne of David; that would be far too low an estimate of His work. But He sets Him as the glorified man on His own right hand in the heavenly places, and communicates to the joint-heirs the knowledge not only of free and full pardon through His blood, but of acceptance in the Beloved according to the power of His resurrection.