God’s righteousness is a gift . . .

 

Is there a difference between “doing right” and biblical righteous or righteousness? If I drive the speed limit, pay my taxes, help others when they need help, or respect those who rule over me, I am doing the right thing, but do I have to be righteous to do it? What is the difference?

RIGHTEOUS is a quality ascribed to God. He is characterized by a holy standard of morality and goodness that exceeds even our ability to understand, never mind achieve. Psalm 11:7 says, “For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds.” Other psalms say, “His righteousness endures forever” and “He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord” and “Righteous are you, O Lord, and right are your rules.”

All God’s actions are righteous and just. He hates evil and love goodness. His discipline is also righteous as Daniel prayed (9:7 and 14): “To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you . . . . “Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice.”

God wants His people to act in a righteous and just manner because to be like that is to be like Him. However the OT is clear in the history and in its words — Isaiah 64:6. “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

When all is said and done, we can only receive righteousness as a gift from God. As both OT and NT say, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” This amazing gift of grace changes the way we live. Isaiah 32:17 says, “And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.”

The NT says we are reborn and “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This happened because God, “For our sake, made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Just as God imputed our sin on Christ, He imputes His righteousness on us. We have none of our own. It is a gift from our righteous God who loved us while we were sinners. He died for us so we can spend eternity with Him. The changes come because He moved in, not because we moved out or renovated.

While we tend to justify ourselves before God thinking we deserve salvation because of our good behavior, the Bible is clear: no one is “justified by observing the law” but only by faith in Jesus Christ. (Read Romans a few times!)

Getting right with this righteous God comes only one way:

Romans 3:21–26. “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

All those who believe in Jesus are credited with righteousness and have Abraham as their father. Keeping the law plays no role in our being counted as righteous in God’s sight. However, a changed life is evidence and the result of imputed righteousness. We are set free from sin and “hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. This short look at righteous and righteousness deeply impacts my heart. I dreamed last night that I was younger and a man seemed to be testing me to see if I was the right person for him. At the end of the dream, he said he knew it in his heart that I was His, even though everyone expected Him to be a logical thinker that had to prove it by the way I lived. When I woke up, I realized this was the Lord affirming His grace to me. I was not earning my acceptance for He had already made His decision and His heart told Him so. What I did was not the issue; His acceptance was in place regardless. However, having Him in the driver’s seat makes a difference in all that I do. Amen.