Righteousness: March 2013
Table of Contents
Righteousness
Two things revealed in the gospel are the righteousness of God to faith and the wrath of God against unrighteousness. God maintains and displays His righteous character in both His acts of love and His acts of judgment. Christ in His work at the cross glorified God’s love in dying for us and glorified His righteousness in bearing our sins and being made sin for us. God further glorified His righteousness by raising from the dead and seating at His side the One who so glorified Him on earth. That work for God and the sinner is so great that God declares that He now sees any who accept in faith the Saviour and His work as being “in Christ,” and all who are “in Christ” before His holy eyes are seen as “righteous” forever. The righteous character of God will forever be on display by what we now are in Christ. God’s grace now reigns in giving the gift of eternal life, on the righteous foundation that sin has been dealt with in a righteous way in the death of Christ. We who have been made righteous by God through the work of Christ are now exhorted to live unto righteousness. We, a new creation in Christ Jesus, are called upon to display God’s character of righteousness in our daily lives.
God’s Righteousness Toward Sinners
The Word of God pronounces man a sinner and declares that between Jew and Gentile “there is no difference.” “There is none righteous, no, not one” is a sweeping statement; it makes no exception. I have sinned, you have sinned, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
The Word of God also declares that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” Put these two solemn truths together, and what do you see? All guilty, all condemned, all under God’s wrath, and every mouth closed. But, blessed be God, though man’s resources fail, His never fail. God’s resources are inexhaustible. Hear Him tell out His own blessed resources for the poor, lost sinner who is utterly destitute of righteousness: “But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:21-26).
Here we have the announcement of divine righteousness, manifested as His blessed answer to the precious blood-shedding of His own spotless Lamb. The Lamb was the provision of His love and sovereign grace, “for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” Through the sacrifice of this Lamb, God was perfectly glorified. His majesty and glory were vindicated, and the manifestation of His righteousness is the blessed answer to the delight He has found in that sacrifice.
What Is This Righteousness?
The Word of God clearly shows that it is a different order of righteousness from that which is by law-keeping. If it were righteousness of law, it would be man’s righteousness, for the law is the measure of human righteousness. But man has utterly failed as to righteousness, and thus something else was needed, and that is what we have here — God’s righteousness. It is another order of righteousness and contrasted with man’s, as Paul says, “Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:9). Here the contrast is plain. It is not accomplished by law-fulfilling at all. It is not on that principle. It is not a Superior coming and saying, I must have so and so, and the demand met. It is not something wrought out for God because it is due to Him. This is what would have been by law, but man failed in this test. What then is it? It is God’s consistency with His own nature and character in His dealings with others: first, with His own Son; second, with those who believe in Him. It is what God has done for man, not what man has done for God. It is God’s righteousness man-ward, not man’s righteousness God-ward. If man had been righteous toward God, would have been only what was due to God. But God’s righteousness toward a poor sinner who believes in Jesus is something entirely unmerited. It is not earned or deserved. Instead of righteousness, wrath was deserved. Wrath was revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. Man was ungodly and unrighteous, and so God’s wrath was upon him. But now, through grace, “the righteousness of God” takes the place of “the wrath of God” for all who believe in Jesus. How, then, is this? It is by God’s unmerited favor. “Being justified freely by His grace.” In God’s wondrous grace, the wrath which overhung the guilty sinner is replaced by righteousness in the case of every one who believes the gospel, and this is not the sinner’s righteousness, but God’s.
What Is the Basis
of This Righteousness?
We answer, the precious sacrifice of Christ. “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of Him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:24-26).
God acted in forbearance toward the Old Testament saints, passing over their sins. His righteousness in doing so was not then manifested. It is manifest now through the cross. The blood of Christ declares it. God has set forth Christ as a propitiatory or mercy-seat, presenting His blood as an object for faith, for this very purpose. God’s righteousness in passing over the sins of saints before the cross is no longer a dark question.
The blood of Christ declares it. But this is not all. God is — not now passing over sins, but — justifying sinners who believe the gospel. How is He righteous in doing so? It is through the blood of Christ. Through the blood of His own spotless Lamb, He is just in justifying him who believes. His righteousness in justifying is thus declared. The blood of Christ is the basis of all God’s dealings in grace with sinners, and through that blood, His dealings in grace are declared righteous. God has found an adequate motive in the blood of Christ for showing grace to sinners and justifying those who believe, and He is righteous in doing this, in virtue of the blood. The display of His righteousness in justification is His blessed answer to the blood-shedding of Christ.
How Does God Treat Sinners?
God is justifying sinners, not righteous people. And if God is justifying sinners, it cannot be on the ground of their works. Their works have only been sin, and for this very reason they need justification. God’s motive in doing so, then, must be found in something altogether outside of the sinner. It is found in Christ and His blood. How is this? It is because Christ has perfectly glorified God as to the very thing by which the sinner dishonored Him, and on account of which he needed justification. This He has done through the shedding of His blood on the cross. The Lord Jesus Christ has glorified God in every way in the very world where He has been dishonored. He gave Himself an offering for sin, gave Himself freely, and drank the cup of judgment to the dregs, leaving not one drop for us to drink.
Things New and Old, 33:74
What Is the Righteousness of God?
“The righteousness of God” embraces the entire display of God’s ways in Christ. If we are to compare things which are all perfect in their place, one of the least ways was His accomplishment of the law here below, for the law was not intended to express fully and absolutely God’s nature and character. It stated, if we may so say, the lowest terms on which man could live before Him. It was the demand of what God required, even from a sinful Israelite, if he pretended to obey God, whereas, though the Lord Jesus was made under the law and submitted in His grace to all its claims, He went much farther, even in His living obedience, and infinitely beyond it in His death. To the righteous, the righteousness of the law proclaims life for his portion, and to the unrighteous it proclaims death. But God’s righteousness goes immeasurably deeper as well as higher. It is a justifying righteousness, not a condemning one, as that of the law must be to the sinner who has it not. Hence the Lord Himself established the sanctions of the law in the most solemn way by suffering unto death under its curse: He bore the penalty of the ungodly, of which substitution the law knew nothing, and so to die is grace. There was no mitigation, much less annulling of the law’s authority.
Divine righteousness provided One who could and would settle the whole question for the sinner with God. Nor is this all, for God raised Christ from the dead. He was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification. He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; in short, His moral being, His purposes, His truth, His love, His relationship, His glory was at stake in the grave of Christ. But God raised Him up and set Him at His own right hand in heaven, as a part of His divine righteousness. No seat, no reward inferior to that, could suit the One who had vindicated God in all His majesty, holiness, grace and truth, who had, so to speak, enabled God to carry out His precious design of justifying the ungodly, Himself just all the while.
To him who has faith, it is no longer a question of the law or of legal righteousness, which rested on the responsibility of man, but Christ having gone down into death in atonement and thus glorified God to the uttermost, the ground is changed, and it becomes a question of God’s righteousness. If man has been proved by the law to have brought forth wrongs, and only wrongs, God must have His rights, the very first of which is raising up Christ from the dead and giving Him glory. Hence the Holy Spirit is said in John 16 to convince the world of righteousness, and this, not because Christ fulfilled that which we violated, but because He is gone to the Father and is seen no more till He returns in judgment. It is not righteousness on earth, but its heavenly course and character, in the ascension of Christ, which is here spoken of.
In 2 Corinthians 5, it is in Christ glorified in heaven that we are made, or become, divine righteousness. It is plain, then, that the phrase, though no doubt embracing what Christians mean when they speak of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, is a far larger and more glorious thing. It includes not only that which glorified God on earth in living obedience, but the death of the cross, which if it met the deepest need of the sinner, broke the power of Satan in his last stronghold and laid the immutable foundation for God’s grace to reign through righteousness.
In Romans 1:17, God’s righteousness is said to be revealed in the gospel in contrast with man’s righteousness claimed in the law, and being revealed, it is “from faith,” not from law-works — that is, it is a revelation on the principle of faith, not a work to be rendered on the ground of human responsibility. Therefore it is to “faith.” He that believes gets the blessing. In Romans 3:21-22, it is formally contrasted with anything under the law, though the law and the prophets witnessed respecting it. It is ‘’God’s righteousness without law,” by faith of Jesus Christ, and hence “towards all men,” but taking effect only ‘’upon all them that believe.” It is here in special connection with redemption, and therefore it is added that God has set forth Christ a propitiation (or mercy-seat) through faith in His blood (Rom. 3:24-26).
In Romans 10 it is shown to be incompatible with seeking to establish one’s own righteousness. God’s righteousness being complete, the object of faith in Christ has to be submitted to or we have no part in it.
Second Corinthians 5 rises higher and shows what the saint is, according to the gospel of the glory of Christ made divine righteousness in Him risen and glorified. Hence in the Epistle to the Philippians, Paul, transported even to the last with this new and divine righteousness, shows us that, compared with it, he would not have the righteousness of the law even if he could, for what was of the law had no glory in his eyes because of the glory that excelled — that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness of God through faith (Phil. 3). Far from superseding practical godliness, this righteousness of God in Christ strikes deep roots in the heart and springs up in a harvest of kindred fruit, which is by Jesus Christ to God’s glory and praise (Phil. 1:11).
The Bible Treasury
Christ, the Law and Righteousness
There prevails a notion (unknown to the Bible) that Christ was making out our righteousness when He was here below. Now the life of Christ was, I do not question, necessary to vindicate God and His holy law, as well as to manifest Himself and His love, but the righteousness that we are made in Christ is another thought altogether — not the law fulfilled by Him, but the justifying righteousness of God founded on Christ’s death, displayed in His resurrection, and crowned by His glory in heaven. It is not Christ simply doing our duty for us, but God forgiving my trespasses, judging my sin, and finding such satisfaction in Christ’s blood that now He cannot do too much for us. It becomes, if I may so say, a positive debt to Christ because of what Christ has suffered.
The law is the strength of sin, not of righteousness. Had Christ only kept the law, neither your soul nor mine could have been saved, much less blessed, as we are. Whoever kept the law, it would have been the righteousness of the law, and not God’s righteousness which has not the smallest connection with obeying the law. It is never so treated in the Word of God. Because Christ obeyed unto death, God has brought in a new kind of righteousness — not ours, but His own in our favor. Christ has been made a curse upon the tree; God has made Him sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Were the common doctrine on this subject true, we might expect it to be said, He obeyed the law for us, that we might have legal righteousness imputed or transferred to us. The truth is in all points contrasted with such ideas. Surely Christ’s obeying the law was not God’s making Him sin. So, in the passage that is so often used, by His obedience many are made righteous. How is His obedience here connected with the law? The Apostle does introduce the law in the next verse as a new and additional thing coming in by the way.
Further, Adam would not have known the meaning of “the law,” though undoubtedly he was under a law which he broke. What, for instance, could Adam in his innocence have made of the word, “Thou shalt not lust,” or covet? No such feeling was within his experience. Accordingly, as we see, it was only after man had fallen that in due time the law was given to condemn the outbreak of sin. But Christ has died for and under sin — our sin. And what is the consequence? All believers now, whether Jews or Gentiles, in Christ Jesus are brought into an entirely new place. The Gentile is brought out of his distance from God; the Jew, out of his dispensational nearness; both enjoy a common blessing in God’s presence never possessed before. The old separation dissolves and gives place by grace to oneness in Christ Jesus.
W. Kelly
Grace, the Spring of Righteousness
In 1 John 3:1-3, we have a kind of parenthesis which comes between the close of chapter 2 and chapter 3:4, where the subject of righteousness is treated more fully. John had been exhorting the family of God to abide in Christ that, when He shall appear, those who labored might have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. “If ye know that He is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of Him.” Then he pursues the subject of righteousness in the following verses, beginning at verse 4. It is plain in reading from that point that he is occupied with practical righteousness. “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.” But then the Spirit of God lets us know that we have no power to be consistent in our relationships, which is the meaning of righteousness, unless we are strengthened by the grace of our God.
I suggest that this is at least one of the motives why the Apostle was inspired, on entering into the subject of righteousness, to make this digression. It is worthy of divine love, and assuredly with the deepest purpose and consideration of us. It is to give us the true spring and power of righteousness. Hence John brings the Father in here. Whenever it is a question of grace, we hear of the Father; where it is a question of righteousness, it is rather the name of God that is used. God has moral claims, and He does not abate these claims in the case of a Christian. On the contrary, responsibility on our part must rise in proportion as He makes known His grace and truth.
But then let us not forget that His grace gives power, a thing righteousness never does. You may have the fullest right to a thing, but that does not guarantee that you will get what you ought to receive; there must be a spring of power enabling the person to meet your demands. So our God does with us. His full intention is to have us according to Christ here, while we wait to be perfectly according to Him in heaven. But in order to accomplish either the one or the other, it must be by the dealings of His grace, and it is in this way that He works. The Father sends His Son that we may see and believe on Him unto life everlasting, and John has such a sense of the efficacy of Christ that, for him, to see Him is to be like Him. If you see Him, says he, as it were, you are sure to follow in His steps. John will not allow that anyone who is unlike Jesus has ever seen Him. Now there is nothing that gives a better idea of the transforming power of Christ than this. John does not admit of a person having seen Jesus without being like Him. This may be hindered by the flesh here, but the day is coming when all hindrances will be gone. We shall see Him perfectly then, and we shall be perfectly like Him when we do.
Adapted from The Bible Treasury
Love and Righteousness
There is variety in divine love as expressed in the Scriptures. In John 3 we have God’s love to the world, shown in the gift of His only begotten Son; in Ephesians 5, Christ’s love to the church, for which He gave Himself; in 1 John 3, the Father’s love to His children begotten of Him. There is variety also in the Scriptures in the truth concerning ourselves: In the epistles of Paul we are members of Christ’s body, linked to Him who is upon the throne, in Peter’s epistles we are strangers and pilgrims passing through the world to our inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled and unfading, while in John’s inspired writings we are children of God, brought into relationship with Him. This is what is so sweetly expressed here: “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God” (1 John 3:1 JND). We are not yet displayed as such to the world; for that we wait. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know what we shall be; we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
Sonship
Meanwhile, we are unknown by the world, even as He was unknown. We wait for the display of our sonship, but not for the consciousness of it. “Now are we children of God”; of this we are assured. Faith can always say, “We know”; faith deals with divine certainties. Conformity as seeing Him reminds us of 2 Corinthians 3:18: “We all, looking on the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit” (JND).
This, however, is moral, and now we find His image stamped upon us in measure as we gaze upon Him there in glory. First John 3:2 is future, goes beyond the moral aspect, and includes the body, for it shall be changed and fashioned like unto His own body of glory. And this will happen when we see Him.
Now John begins to be practical. “Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). We are told that the eternal life which was with the Father has been manifested unto us. We are called unto fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, and this in the light, even as God is in the light. Then, after the added word as to the provision grace has made in case of sin, the Spirit begins to be practical and says, “Hereby we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.” So, here, we are told of our hope, and then we are reminded of the purity that becomes us in view of it. How can I hold the hope without purifying myself? Is it possible to cherish the thought that I am soon to be like Him without having the desire to be like Him morally in measure now? Notice that Christ is the standard of purity, even as He is pure. Christ is always God’s standard; God sets no other before His saints. In chapter 2 we are to walk even as He walked. In chapter 3:16 His is the standard of love, and here He is the standard of purity. In fact, if I want to know how to display the divine nature of which I am a partaker, I must look at Him in whom it is perfectly seen.
Proof of Purity by Practice
If I purify myself even as He is pure, I must not practice sin, and sin is here presented in a solemn light; it is lawlessness. What a serious consideration for the Christian! We are sanctified to obedience and called to do the will of God, but when we sin, we commit lawlessness, that is, we work out our own will. Moreover, two important reasons are given why we should not sin. “He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin.” If I really believe that my sins caused His manifestation and death, I shall hate sin, and, on the other hand, knowing that sin is contrary to His nature (and we are partakers of that nature), I see the inconsistency of such a course. It is not he that professes, but he that practices that is really born of God. “Little children, let no one deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous” (1 John 3:7). Practical righteousness is what God expects to see displayed in those who profess to be born of Him. It is only by actions that we demonstrate to which family we belong — “in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.” The Lord ruled in John 8 that we are the children of him whose works we do. The Jews in that chapter boasted that they had Abraham to their father, but the Lord, while admitting them to be Abraham’s seed, disowned them as children of the man who rejoiced to see His day and who saw it and was glad. “If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham,” and subsequently, He plainly said, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John 8:39,44).
Fraternal Love
But a second test is added in our chapter: He “that doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” Here we get a rapid transition from righteousness to love. Is it possible we may be mistaken as to the first test? We may, because of our imperfect discernment, mistake, at times, moral uprightness for the righteousness which is the result of being born of God, but we can scarcely err as to love. We may find a man merely morally upright, but does he love the brethren? The man born of God does: “Every one that loveth Him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of Him” (1 John 5:1). To what extent are we to love? ‘’We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren,” and this because they are brethren. Yet lest we get merely sentimental in our expressions, the Apostle adds, “But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in Him?” (1 John 3:17). We may never have opportunity to demonstrate our love by the laying down of life, but in the other way opportunity occurs every day.
It is striking to observe how love to the brethren and hatred from the world are connected here. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.” The same thing is observed in the Lord’s own teaching in John 15. In verse 17 He commands His own to love one another, and He proceeds in verse 18 to speak of hatred from the outside world. All the love we find in the present world is that which we show to one another. From the world which gave the Lord only a cross, we expect nothing but hatred, rejection and scorn; in the holy circle of the family of God we expect to find love, and that after a divine pattern. The order, however, is divine: righteousness first, and then love.
W. W. Fereday
The Need for Practical Righteousness
Righteousness may be defined as conduct which is in keeping with what is right. In spiritual terms, it is conduct that acknowledges God and His claims and acts according to all that God is in His character. It acknowledges right as God sees it, and not according to the changing morality of this world. As we can see in other articles in this issue, the believer is already positionally “the righteousness of God in Him [Christ],” while he waits for that perfect righteousness that will be displayed in every believer at the coming of the Lord. In placing us in this position, God has acted perfectly in accordance with His holy character, for the sin question has been settled at the cross, and in a righteous way. “To declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Rom. 3:26).
The Extensive Effects
of Righteousness
We know also that the finished work of Christ will have far reaching effects as to righteousness. Because He has suffered, not only for sins, but also for sin, John the Baptist could say, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). In the same way, we read in Hebrews 9:26, “Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” Because of His work to put away sin, God has highly exalted His beloved Son, and He will be vindicated in the day when “a King shall rule in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment” (Isa. 32:1). For the entire millennial day, righteousness will reign, and judgment will be executed every morning against those who sin openly.
More than this, there is an eternal day coming when the prophecy of John the Baptist will be fulfilled. Righteousness will reign during the one thousand years of the millennium, but in the eternal state we read of “a new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). All sin will have been removed, nor can it ever raise its head again. For all eternity the scene in both heaven and earth will bear testimony to the fact that righteousness dwells.
Righteousness Suffers
Where does all this leave us now, in this world? Sad to say, righteousness neither reigns nor dwells in the world at the present time. Rather, righteousness suffers, because the “Sun of righteousness” (Mal. 4:2) has been rejected and crucified. Men chose a Barabbas instead of the Lord Jesus, and with one consent they said, “We will not have this man to reign over us” (Luke 19:14). The reason was clearly stated by our Lord Himself: “The world cannot hate you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil” (John 7:7). Until the Lord comes back in power and glory as the Sun of righteousness, Satan remains the god and prince of this world, and righteousness suffers.
Unhappily, we find in these last days that unrighteousness is reaching a crescendo. The description given in 2 Timothy 3:1-7 is that of Christendom, when God’s claims and the truth of God’s Word have been rejected. The details given are typical of the worst kind of unrighteousness, which will, no doubt, increase as time goes on.
The Influence of Unrighteousness
There is a serious danger that we, as believers, will be drawn into this vortex and adopt, in our everyday lives, the unrighteous practices of the world around us. As evil continues to rise, “situational ethics” and political expediency become the basis on which moral decisions are made. Man refuses to recognize any objective standard of right and wrong. It requires more and more diligence to walk according to the truth of God’s Word and to conduct our lives in a righteous way. Some years ago a believer was passed over for a promotion in his company, although he was by far the best qualified for the job. His boss simply told him, “You are too good a man.” The company realized that the believer in question would refuse to conduct business in an unrighteous way, and thus he would not be suitable to fill the position.
Grace and Unrighteousness
However, God has given us everything in order for us to exhibit practical righteousness in our lives. The book of Titus is noted for its emphasis on good works, not in order to obtain salvation, but rather to show the results of it in our lives. The power to do so is given to us clearly: “The grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared, teaching us that, having denied impiety and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, and justly, and piously in the present course of things” (Titus 2:11-12 JND). We may seek to curb our tendency to unrighteousness by an appeal to conscience or by human energy. However, the strongest force to keep the believer from sin is a sense in his soul of the grace of God. It has appeared to all men, although many do not believe. But God has revealed Himself in His Son, who has not only displayed righteousness in His walk through this world, but who has made a way for all to become “the righteousness of God in Him.” I would suggest that one of the strongest testimonies to this world is a righteous walk, not on a legal or self-centered basis, but rather because of our appreciation of the grace of God. Both grace and righteousness should characterize the believer, as he conducts his affairs in this world.
W. J. Prost
Practical Righteousness
If we look at Romans 3, we find the righteousness of God is the constant theme, but if we look at Romans 6, although we find righteousness continually spoken of, it is never the righteousness of God, the reason for the difference being that there are two righteousnesses, which are perfectly distinct. One is God’s, and the other is the believer’s. In chapter 3 the former is the theme (connected with our standing); in chapter 6 it is the latter (connected with our state).
For an example of these two, let us look for a moment at the first person who is clearly said to have had both. We are repeatedly told that Noah was a just and righteous man and also that he was a preacher of righteousness. We know that he was not a preacher of what we call “the gospel,” but that his preaching and practice were characterized by righteousness of walk and ways. This is analogous to the righteousness of Romans 6. If we now turn, however, to Hebrews 11, we there find that Noah “became heir of righteousness which is by faith.” Carefully notice the language. In the first place, he is an heir to it, which implies two things: the one, that he has not got it yet, and the other, that he has not worked for it, for no man can work for what he inherits. Second, this righteousness is by faith. Turning to Romans 3:22, we see clearly that the righteousness which is by faith is the righteousness of God. We thus see that Noah lived in one righteousness and became heir to another. The reason he was only heir to the righteousness of God is explained in Romans 3:25, where it is shown that God could not declare His righteousness, in passing over Noah’s sins, until an adequate propitiation had been made by the death of Christ. By considering this case, we see that the righteousness in which Noah stands (or will stand) before the throne is the righteousness of God, as seen in the perfect work of Christ, whereas that in which he lived and glorified God on earth was his own practical righteousness. In Ephesians 4:24 we read that the new man is created anew in “righteousness and true holiness,” or practical righteousness and sanctification. Walking in newness of life (Rom. 6:4) includes these two things (see Luke 1:75), as is seen in the end of Romans 6, when both are connected as the result of a godly walk (vss. 19,22).
Practical Righteousness
Taking practical righteousness first, we will briefly consider what Scripture says on the subject. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 we notice this remarkable fact that it is the first thing mentioned in separation from evil. It is also the very first thing that we are called to follow after (1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 2:22). Thus on three separate occasions it occupies the first place. Also, it is the first of the three things of which the kingdom of God is said to consist practically (Rom. 14:17). In 2 Corinthians 6:7, it is generally described as the Christian’s armor, while in Ephesians 6 it is the breastplate, or that which protects the vital parts. Practically, it is said to give a good conscience (1 Peter 3:16), which is also of all importance. God’s eyes are over the practically righteous man (1 Peter 3:12), and that His ears are open to his cry is seen not only here, but also in James 5:16, where the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. In none of these passages does the word “righteous” refer to our standing before God, but to the individual acts and character of the believer’s life.
Righteousness in Daily Life
Such then is a brief review of the way in which Scripture speaks of this quality of the new nature. In what then does it consist? In perfect uprightness of walk and ways. How is it obtained? By living daily in the light of God’s presence. It is the fruit of the light (see Eph. 5:8-9 JND).
Do you suppose for one moment that the man who walks to his daily business and transacts it before God, can stoop to any of the thousand tricks of trade that pervade every calling — practices that are either commonly winked at or openly allowed, but which are not according to God’s standard of right? Impossible. He must do one of two things: Either he must forego all such ways and buy and sell and transact his business according to the perfect light in which he stands as a Christian, or, turning his back on the light and shutting his eyes to it, he must descend to the level of this world’s morality and allow many a thing to pass in his business life that he would shrink from allowing privately. Alas, how few are found in all things to carry out the former practically! How many dwarf their souls, check their spiritual life, and grieve their Lord by slipping into the latter. Let us consider how it will all look before the judgment seat of Christ. It may be that we are not actively employed in business, but all have their temptations to unrighteousness, and often in most insidious forms. Live as Paul did, in the light of God’s presence and the nearing eternity, and do not allow yourself to stoop to any action, however advantageous to yourself, however commended and advised by false friends, which will not bear that light.
Be Righteous in All Things
It is fearful to think how many of us live in daily unrighteousness in what we call little things and then venture to approach God in prayer and the Lord’s table without confession. His ears are open to the cry of the righteous. Nothing so arrests the attention of the world and makes it believe in the reality of Christianity as righteous acts that are to one’s own disadvantage, for there is no disguising the truth, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13). You cannot fear God and be heaping up riches for yourself. You may lose money and many a seemingly good opening if you walk strictly in practical righteousness, but in eternity I need not say who will be the gainer. If you enjoy and trust in “the grace of God” that has brought you salvation and remember and practice its lessons, you will live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. Happy indeed is the man who, standing before God in the righteousness which He has provided, walks before his fellow-man in that practical rectitude which can alone adorn the grace that has picked him up.
A. T. Schofield
The Body Is Dead Because of Sin
Not only am I in Christ (Rom. 8:1), but Christ is in me as a believer (vs. 10). The effect of knowing that I am in Christ is that there is no condemnation; not merely that I am not condemned in this or that, but all condemnation is absolutely annulled. God must condemn His own Son if He condemned those that are in Him, and every Christian is in Him. The measure of God’s salvation is that, first of all, as to our standing, we are put in Christ risen from the dead, who is our life in the power of the Spirit. Next, there is the active working of the Spirit of God in the believer. This is what is spoken of here: “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” If I allow the body its own will, there is nothing but sin produced. How am I to get power against its dragging me into sin? Hold it [the body] for dead; this is the prescription. He is not speaking of unbelievers, but simply about Christians. To them the word is, “If Christ be in you.” Remember, this is what you are to do — count the body as a dead thing; do not pamper it; never yield to it. If there be the allowance of the active will therein, it is not merely the body; it becomes then simply “flesh.” Where liberty is given to the will, irrespective, of course, of God’s, the body is but the instrument of sin, not of righteousness.
Power Over Sin
Thus, the way for the Christian to get power against the sin that is in him is to count the body dead. Is he that is dead to allow such and such an evil thing to work? When you cease to hold it for dead, there is sin, but if you do, the Spirit works in moral power. “The Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
It is only so far as you do not yield to your own will that sin is practically null and void, and the Spirit of God acts freely. The Apostle is looking at the actual working of the Spirit of God in us. It is not life simply viewed as ours, but as in exercise — a matter of experience day by day. What is between the soul’s deliverance (as in verses 1-2) and the resurrection of our bodies? “If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Righteousness is not found simply by seeing that I am in Christ. This alone will not do. A man who merely talks about being in Christ and makes this his Christianity will turn out very bad indeed. He is merely making Christ a means for getting off eternal condemnation and present responsibility, but this will not do. As surely as you have got Christ and you are in Christ, Christ is in you, and if Christ is in you, take care you do not allow self to work. Where the body is not treated as dead, but alive, and is allowed to have its way, sin must be the result. If you treat it as dead, its career is cut short, its course is closed, and the Spirit of God deigns to become the sole spring of what you are seeking.
Christian Liberty
And let no one suppose that this is bondage; it is Christian liberty. A slave works in this way, because he must, and we also, when in a low state, are apt to make a law of everything. When the affections are not flowing, we are only kept from what is openly evil because there is a servile dread of doing what our consciences know is contrary to God. When this is the case, I am forgetting my ground of duty. What is it? Even now Christ is in me. If Christ be in me here, I am responsible to do His will. How is this to be done? I have got my body; if I allow it to have its own will and way, it will land me in sin. Treat it as dead, and let the one spring of what you desire be that which pleases the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit is life because of righteousness.” There is no practical righteousness produced in the Christian except by the power of the Spirit of God. If the body is allowed loose rein in what we desire, it is only sin. The Spirit, on the contrary, is life in the practical sense, and this is the only way of righteousness for our walk.
W. Kelly
Righteousness of God by Faith
What does Paul mean when he speaks of possessing the righteousness of God? “That I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. 3:8-9). What is being “made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21)?
The expression in Philippians 3:9 is rather “the righteousness from God.” First of all, the sinner who believes on Him that justifies the ungodly is reckoned righteous, of God and by faith. It is not that so much righteousness is reckoned to him; rather, he himself is reckoned intrinsically righteous before God (Rom. 4). God acts righteously through the precious blood of Christ in counting him so. Christ, at God’s right hand, is the proof that God’s righteousness is manifested. His first act, when Christ met all His righteous claims as to sin and glorified Him, was to set Christ as man in heaven. His next act is to count righteous all who believe in Jesus.
But this is not all. To the believer has been communicated a new life — a life in Christ risen from the dead, the character of which is a justified life. It is a life on the other side of death and sin. Christ risen is this life; our life is “hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). Christ has been made sin for us that we might become God’s righteousness in Him, as gone on high. He is in heaven, God’s righteousness, and we become God’s righteousness, that is, the expression of it, in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).
Thus far as to what we now possess by faith. But we are journeying on to heaven to win Christ and be found in Him, not having our own righteousness (even supposing we had all that Paul could boast of in Philippians 3:4-6). He throws it aside and counts it dross and dung, desiring and looking for another thing when he reaches the goal, even a righteousness which is from God by faith.
Thus you find that on the one hand he is already righteous; he is already “in Christ” by faith, while he is still, at the same time, running towards the goal, as in Philippians 3, to be “found” “in Christ” at the close and to have the righteousness which is from God at that day.
The anomalous state of the Christian, “as having nothing” in himself yet “possessing all things” in Christ, explains it.
Words of Truth, 7:160
Righteousness
The righteousness of God is the display of the nature of God in all His acts.
We, believers, are made the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:21).
He, CHRIST, is our righteousness before God (1 Cor. 1:30).
It is not the merits of Christ put to our account, nor is it Christ keeping the law for us.
The righteous judgment of “sin” (the root), and “sins” (the fruit) were both seen at the cross.
The blood of Christ put our sins away (1 John 1:7). The death of Christ ended our Adam history before God (2 Cor. 5:17).
Now Christ is our life (Col. 3:4).
We are “in Christ” before God (Rom. 8:1).
It is a blessed fact that Christ is the believer’s righteousness before God, so that he rejects all other righteousness as worthless. Read carefully what Paul says in Philippians 3:7-9.
The Lord give us each to enjoy it more and praise His grace together!
“He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21).
“Righteous alone in Thee,
Jesus, the Lord!
Thou wilt a refuge be,
Jesus, our Lord!
Whom, then, have we to fear,
What trouble, grief or care,
Since Thou art ever near,
Jesus, our Lord!”
H. E. Hayhoe
Perfect Righteousness
The perfect righteousness of God
Is witnessed in the Saviour’s blood;
’Tis in the cross of Christ we trace
His righteousness, yet wondrous grace.
God could not pass the sinner by;
His sin demands that he must die;
But in the cross of Christ we see
How God can save, yet righteous be.
The sin alights on Jesus’ head;
’Tis in His blood sin’s debt is paid;
Stern justice can demand no more,
And mercy can dispense her store.
The sinner who believes is free,
Can say, “The Saviour died for me”:
Can point to the atoning blood
And say, “This made my peace with God.”
Little Flock Hymnbook, #67 Appendix