RIGHTEOUSNESS
- mosesgodsbreath
- Aug 27, 2022
- 7 min read
kinds of righteousness
Righteousness is the ability to stand in God’s presence without any sense of guilt, inferiority and self condemnation as much as Jesus stood in God’s presence with no sense of guilt.
This was what Adam lost in the garden. He was the one who hid from God’s presence. He self-condemned himself. He lost that boldness, that righteousness.
The only thing that gave him right of standing before God was not action, but the fact that he came out of God. He was born of God and as long as he sees the Father in him, he was righteous. But the moment they started seeing themselves, they felt unworthy to stand with God.
Only God can stand before God and not be ashamed and Adam was born of God, he was God and needed not be ashamed. When he became partaker of the satanic nature, he could stand as it was only in the presence of Satan and not before God.
Man began to work hard to gain back that righteousness before God. As flesh, he tried to solve his problem in the flesh by self evaluation rather than seeing God and so he always falls short of the glory of God.
Everyone born of a woman and man is a sinner by birth, having done nothing wrong (Ps 51:5). Sin is then no more actions, but an inheritance, our genetic makeup. We are sinners by nature, by default, by inheritance. The carnal man, who walks after the flesh, will not accept this judgment. He will argue since the new-born baby has not done anything bad. To the carnal man, this is unjust. He wants to see wrong actions before he agrees that the guy is a sinner. To the carnal man, sin is wrong doing and righteousness is doing right. That is why I do not blame men for misinterpreting the teaching of righteousness. The carnal man cannot explain the righteousness of God. The carnal man will need God to prove to them that they are sinners which God did by giving them the law. The law proved them sinners. The law justifies God’s judgment.
Another way of righteousness was carved out because of the carnal man. i.e the law’s righteousness which states that if one can keep all of its requirement then he is righteous; if not, then he is unrighteous.(Rom 10:5). Men tried hard to be righteous before God by trying and failing to keep the requirements of the law. They never succeeded.
Paul called this ignorance or misdirected zeal.
For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.(Rom 10:3).
Man wants to make himself righteous before God rather than allowing God declare him righteous. God is the one who can chose who stands before Him. It is not of him that works or him that tries his best but of God that shows mercy.
Isaiah calls this type of righteousness “filthy rag” (Ish 64:6).
Job called it “impossible task” saying, “How can a mortal man be righteous before God , how can one born of a woman make himself righteous before God that even the heaven are not pure and the angels are not fit to stand before him? (Job 9:1,15:14-16, 25:4-6)
It was the same law given for righteousness that concluded everyone sinner - no not one is righteous (Rom 3:9-10, Gal 3:22).
Therefore, no one can be righteous by good works or well doing or rule keeping even though it is desirable to do good. (Rom 3:20, Gal 2:16). The man who tries his best to do the law more than the Pharisees (those law teachers) will still need more than that to be righteous.
For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:20).
I ask, can anyone possibly do the law more than the Pharisees? I guess no one. Paul the apostle, one of the most zealous Pharisees, who by the law was found blameless, still needed another kind of righteousness (Phil 3:9).
Righteousness can never be man’s responsibility but God’s work which ushers in of another way of righteousness apart from the law. This is called God’s righteousness because it depends entirely on God not man. It comes by trust in God not self.
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 unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference (Rom 3:21-22).
This righteousness will be a uniformed one in that the righteousness imputed unto one person will not be more or less than the other because it comes from God received by the common or like precious faith - for there is no difference. It is a unifying righteousness, not the dividing one that religion brought. It is void of boast since it is given not of works but by God.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law (Rom 3:27-28).
If man on his own effort is required to be righteous then no one will trust God to make heaven and then we all we boast of making heaven before God. Then righteousness will not be called a gift but God owing man or paying man’s good works. Then God is not worthy of praise, rather man is worthy of praise.
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God. For what saith the scriptures? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
Now to him that worketh is the reward not counted for a gift but of debt but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness (Rom 4:1-5).
Without faith it has always been impossible to please God and be bold in his presence.(Heb 11:1)
Give me one man who ever made heaven or declared righteous by God without faith. People read the Bible backwards when they claim Abraham, Noah etc were righteous by works. The Bible clearly tells us it was by faith that they all became righteous. Of course they did right at one point or the other. Was that what God saw? No! God saw their faith, not their works.
The Jews refused this way of righteousness, calling it foolish, yet the gentiles where saved by it.
What shall we say then? That the gentiles which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not the attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they sought it not by faith but as it were by the works of the law…(Rom 9:30-32).
This is serious, all what the Jews were trying to get by keeping God’s standards was given to the gentiles who were not trying to please nor seek Him. What people are trying hard to pay for has been made free in Christ. Hallelujah!
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes (Rom10:4).
Today, people are trying to be righteous by greeting God 5 times in a day or by their mode of dressing, lifestyle, good works etc . As good as these things may be, they do not account for righteousness. It may merit men’s approval and thumbs up, but it can never gain God’s approval. God is not a man. God’s righteousness differs from man’s righteousness. Man’s righteousness is always a rag before God’s righteousness (Isa 64:6).
We must quit trying and failing to be righteous and just receive the righteousness that is by faith. This is foolish but such is faith. We must be humble enough to agree that we can’t make ourselves righteous and then submit to God’s righteousness like Paul, a former Pharisee did.
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 3:9).
Do not put your faith on sinking ground of good works but on the chief corner stone called Christ.
For we are the circumcision (God’s righteousness), which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in what Christ has done, and have no confidence in the flesh (no confidence in our good conduct and self discipline).vs 3.
God looks at the heart of faith, not the body of works.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness…(Rom 10:10).
Jesus is now the sinner; we who believe in him are now the righteous. He was treated as we deserve (as a sinner) so that we can now be treated as he deserves (as the righteous). This is the gospel - exchange. We are to trade our sins for his righteousness. This is why it is easy to be righteous despite our short comings. He took our place and left his for us.
For 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).
Our new birth is the only reason for our righteousness. If we are born sinners (Ps 51:5), then we need a change of birth to be righteous (Jn 3:3). At our first birth, no one waited to see us do wrong before judging us as sinner, so also it is now that we are born again; we do not wait to see good works or lack of mistakes of bad works before we judge we are righteous. Our sinful state was not of sight and so also is our righteous state not of sight. Sin was by inheritance and so is righteousness our legal inheritance in Christ. Our sinful state was judged after one man’s sin so also is our present righteous state a product of one man’s righteous acts and much more.
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (Rom 5:19).Hallelujah!
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