Declared Righteous in Christ

Anonymous

To be righteous before God is to possess such a character as would make us suitable for acceptance with God. God, who knows every secret thing in man, says ‘there is none righteous, no, not one’ (Rom. 3:10). Who then can be accepted of God? for none but righteous people can come into God’s presence. Only divine righteousness can give us a standing before God.

Some people say that our sins were imputed to Christ (which is true), and Christ’s righteousness was imputed to us (which is not true). Christ Himself is by declaration of God made unto us righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30). To become our righteousness He had to suffer the righteous judgment of God against all our sins, and our sinful condition. Having suffered God’s wrath and judgment for our sins, and our sinful Adamic condition being ended, in God’s sight, by His death, God has raised Him from the dead and set Him at His right hand in His throne (Eph. 1:20), displaying thus in Him His righteous character in dealing, and having dealt, with sin. Thus is He God’s righteousness, which God, in infinite grace, makes over to all that believe on Jesus. It is not, therefore, in Christ’s righteousness (in the sense of the righteous life He lived) that we are accepted, but in Christ Himself, through faith. This is a righteousness that can never be marred nor spotted.

In such a righteous and divinely perfect manner has the question of all our sins and our nature of sin been brought to an end before God through our Lord Jesus Christ; and so satisfied is every claim of the holiness and glory of God that in us who believe the righteous character of God is displayed and exalted in accepting us in His Son Jesus Christ. We thus are ‘become God’s righteousness in him’ (2 Cor. 5:21). What an unshakable foundation for our eternal security and our present assurance and happiness!

Author unknown[1]

[1] From Help and Food for the Household of Faith (1908) vol. 26 p. 281.

From: Truth and Testimony, 2023