The Righteousness of God

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 7
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GOD is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works. He cannot excuse sin, but must righteously condemn it. He abhors that which is evil, and yet He loves man— "His delights were with the sons of men." But man is a sinner, an enemy to God by wicked works—under sin, a transgressor—and righteousness calls for vengeance. "How then," it was asked, "can man be just with God?" In no way, unless God's righteous judgment of sin could be met. How then can man be saved and justified, and yet all God's righteous claims be vindicated? The crucified Son of God is the answer—the Holy One made sin for us, and God condemning "sin in the flesh" in Him instead of in us.
Christ having thus, in grace, taken our place, God spared not His own. Son, and having answered every claim of divine righteousness for us, thus vindicating the throne of God and glorifying God about our sin, by bearing its righteous judgment unto death—even the death of the cross—God, in His righteousness, raised Him from the dead, in righteousness gave Him all power and glory at His own right hand, and is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to justify us from all things by His blood. As another has said, Man has no righteousness for God. God has one in His grace for man, sinful and wretched man. Who can stand before the law of God? Who can say, "I have not transgressed it?" How can a man justify himself by a law he has transgressed? “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” What is to be done? Hear what the apostle says," But now the righteousness of God without the law is made manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God by faith in, Jena Christ unto all, and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference; for all have' shined 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 to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. "It is the precious blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, which is the only answer (which God Himself has furnished to us) to the demands of the justice which condemns the sinner. It is the righteousness of God by Jesus that makes righteous the man who has no righteousness to present to God, so that God is just in justifying them that have faith in Jesus. What grace, what a blessing for the poor sinner who has a heart broken enough and cleansed, sufficiently true for him to condemn himself!" Boasting is excluded through faith in Jesus.”