What does the expression “the righteousness of God,” mean? It is evidently of the very essence of the Gospel; yet the common explanations are to me most unsatisfactory. The obedience of Christ in his life (blessed and perfect as it was) could not have saved sinners from the wrath of God. Will you, Mr. Editor, kindly give your thoughts upon the subject? “BETA.”
“The righteousness of God” embraces the entire display of God's ways in Christ, one of the least of which, if we are to compare things which are all perfect in their place, 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 could not but require, 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. For the righteousness of the law threatens no death to the righteous, but necessarily proclaims life for his portion who magnified and made it honorable. 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 Ten words knew nothing because they are law, 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 this only; for God raised Christ from the dead. He was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification. He was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father; His moral being, His purposes, His truth, His love, His relationship, His glory, in short, 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; for 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. Thenceforward, 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 return in judgment. It is not righteousness on earth, but its heavenly course and character, in the ascension of Christ which is here spoken of. So, again, in 2 Cor. 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. Thus, in Rom. 1:17,17For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (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 Rom. 3:21, 22,21But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; 22Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: (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,” in native tendency, 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. See verses 24-26. In Rom. 10, it is shown to be incompatible with seeking to establish one's own righteousness, God's righteousness being complete, and the object of faith in Christ has to be submitted to, or we have no part or lot in it. 2 Cor. 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 latter epistle to the Philippians, that ripe sample and development of Christian experience, 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 if he could. For what was of the law had no glory longer 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. 1:1111Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:11).)
It is a singular fact that, while God used Rom. 1:1717For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:17) to Luther's conversion, and we may say to the Reformation, neither he nor his companions, or their followers, ever apprehended the full truth conveyed by this blessed expression— “righteousness of God.” Hence it is habitually mistranslated in Luther's German Bible, where δικαιοσύμη θεοῦ is rendered “the righteousness which is available before God.” This, evidently, is far short of the truth; for a legal righteousness, if accomplished by man, would have availed before God. But God, in His grace, has accomplished in Christ and given an incomparably higher, i.e., a divine righteousness, and nothing less than this are we made in Christ. Perhaps the imperfect view entertained by the great German Reformer may account in large measure for the fluctuations in his enjoyment of peace. The same thing applies to most Protestants up to our day, even where they are devoted Christians, and perhaps from a similar cause; for they have advanced little, if at all, beyond the light on this head possessed by Luther 1 Cor. 15:2929Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? (1 Corinthians 15:29). What is meant by being “being baptized for the dead?”
For the due understanding of this verse, it is necessary to bear in mind that a parenthesis extends from verse 20 to 28 inclusively. The connection therefore, of verse 29 and seq. is with the reasoning which precedes that parenthetic revelation.
Now the apostle had already shown that “if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins: then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished,” closing with the further word, “if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” (verses 16—19.) Having thus proved the extreme gravity of denying the resurrection of dead persons, as overthrowing the foundation of salvation for the saints alive or dead, and neutralizing that hope which sustained those who now suffer for and with Christ, he interrupts the thread of argument by positive statement, “but now is Christ risen from the dead.” Then he draws out the glorious consequences of His victory as man—resurrection after His own pattern for those who are His at His coming, and a kingdom which He will not deliver to the Father till He has put all enemies under His feet, till the wicked dead are raised for judgment, and death is destroyed. “And when all things are subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.” For it is not here a question of His divine glory, but of a special authority vouchsafed to Him, as the exalted man, for a given purpose and time; this over, God (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) is all in all.
Having terminated this most instructive digression, which flowed out of the statement of Christ's resurrection, the apostle takes up the argument he had dropped, and referring to verse 16, he urges, “else what shall the baptized for the dead do?” “If dead [persons] rise not at all, why also are they baptized for them'?” And if he puts this case more strongly than in his first allusion to it, if he exposes the absurdity of people following the steps of those who are supposed to have perished, he in the next verses develops our present misery as Christians, and his own especially, “if in this life only we have hope in Christ.” Whether dead or living, the saints would be badly off indeed.
“To be baptized for the dead,” then, means to begin the Christian career, as the successors of persons whom some of them held to have died never to rise again. To be baptized for such, with any view or reference to them, was folly, if they were not to rise. To stand in jeopardy every hour, to die daily, to pass through such a conflict as the apostle had had with his Ephesian enemies, was to persist in madness, “if the dead rise not.” But if the dead are to rise and reign, if all outside them are merely enjoying the pleasures of sin for a season, which will give place to sure and stern and eternal judgment, the only wisdom was to enter their ranks, come what might to mow them down or harass in this life. God is only rightly known as the God of resurrection. Sin—this present evil world—tends to confuse and falsify all just thoughts of God, of His character, and His counsels. Resurrection, as revealed of Him, puts everything in its true place and light, and amongst others the suffering place of the Christian, from its commencement to its close here below. Resurrection is its key, its encouragement, and its reward.