May 16
7
EXEPT YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
“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.” (Matthew 5:20)
The Scribes and Pharisees were the most righteous men, outwardly, who ever lived. They lived by the ten commandments. According to the letter of the law, they were blameless. They paid tithes of all they possessed, fasted twice a week, and prayed three times a day. Yet, our Lord tells us that we must be more righteous than them, or we “shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The fact is that without perfect righteousness no one can ever enter into heaven (Rev. 21:27; 22:11-14). The righteousness required by God is a perfect righteousness, a righteousness which no mere man can produce. In order to enter that perfect kingdom we must be made perfectly righteous by the righteousness of Christ (Romans 5:19; 2 Corinthians 5:21). All who believe are made the righteousness of God in Christ by two distinct acts of grace.
l. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to us in justification (Romans 4:3-8). — Our sin was imputed to Christ at Calvary. Though he never committed sin, he was made to be sin, and became responsible under the law for our sins, as our Substitute. In exactly the same way, the righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us, though we never have performed a righteous deed. Just as the law punished Christ for our sin, which was legally imputed to him, the law of God rewards every believer for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us.
2. The righteousness of Christ is imparted to us in regeneration (2 Peter 1:2-4; 1 John 3:4-9). — “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). If I am born again by the Spirit of God, I have a new nature created in my soul, a righteous nature is imparted to me, by which I reign as a king over the lusts and passions of my flesh. Yes, God’s people do sin. Sin is mixed with all we do, so long as we live in this body of flesh. But sin no longer reigns over us. We are no longer under the dominion of sin (Romans 6:14-16; Galatians 5:22-23). The believer’s life is a life of faith, godliness and uprightness.
No Personal Righteousness
Every heaven born soul readily acknowledges that he has no personal righteousness, honestly confessing that even his best deeds are filthy rags before God. Believers are no more able of themselves to think a good thought, form a good desire, speak a good word, or do a good work than unbelievers. Yet, it is written, “he that doeth righteousness is righteous.” All believers do righteousness. However, the righteousness they do is not theirs. It is the righteousness of Christ, that new man in them “created in righteousness and true holiness.” As Paul puts it, “Christ liveth in me.”Don Fortner
Who can come out of the battle alive?
(J. C. Philpot, “The Word of God’s Grace” 1846)
“Hold me up, and I shall be safe!” Ps. 119:117
We know little of ourselves, and less
of one another. We do not know . . .
our own needs,
what is for our good,
what snares to avoid,
what dangers to shun.
Our path is . . .
bestrewed with difficulties,
beset with temptations,
surrounded with foes,
encompassed with perils.
At every step there is a snare!
At every turn an enemy lurks!
Pride digs the pit,
carelessness blindfolds the eyes,
carnality drugs and intoxicates the senses,
the lust of the flesh seduces,
the love of the world allures,
unbelief paralyzes the fighting hand and the praying knee,
sin entangles the feet,
guilt defiles the conscience,
and Satan accuses the soul.
Under these circumstances, who can come out of
the battle alive? Only he who is kept by the mighty
power of God. “Hold me up, and I shall be safe!”
Consider Jesus– Our Paymaster
“He was oppressed.” –Isa. 53:7
The Hebrew word here rendered “oppressed,” signifies to exact, or, to demand payment. It is so rendered in the following passage–“The creditor shall not EXACT of his neighbor, nor of his brother, in the year of release.” The word taskmaster comes from the same root; and as there is no noun prefixed to the original, the words may be fitly rendered–it was exacted of Him, demanded, required, and He was ‘afflicted,’ or, He answered. A truer view of the office and work of the Lord Jesus does not exist; nor is there a more gracious and comforting point of light in which a poor, sin-burdened, guilt-oppressed soul can study Him.
By nature all are God’s debtors, owing Him supreme love, perfect holiness, entire obedience, and unreserved service–yes, our whole being, body, soul, and spirit. To meet this great debt, we are–by nature, in consequence of the fall, morally and utterly unable–bankrupt of all righteousness and strength, having “nothing to pay.” No will, no heart, no might–in a word, there being in us no good thing. O my soul! ponder this your state by nature–owing an infinite debt to God, with no possible way of discharging a single fraction of the claim, deserving to be cast into the prison of eternal punishment until you have paid the uttermost farthing.
But consider Jesus as the Church’s great PAYMASTER and SURETY. Jesus, in eternity, entered into a bond, signed with His own hand, and afterwards sealed with His own blood, to free us from all this great debt. In fulfillment of that covenant engagement, in the fullness of time He was born of a woman, made under the law, and by His perfect obedience and atoning death, He gave full satisfaction to the Divine government, and so Law and Justice exacted from Him the obligation He had undertaken to meet. And now was fulfilled His own prophecy concerning Himself–“Then I restored that which I took not away.” Jesus restored the glory of God, of which He had not robbed Him. He satisfied Divine justice, which He had never injured. He fulfilled a Law He had never broken, and so restored to it a righteousness He had never taken away. And He made satisfaction for sins He had never committed; and so, “He restored that which He took not away.”
Sin is a debt–Jesus paid it when He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. Obedience is a debt–Jesus paid it when, by the obedience of One, many were made righteous. Death is a debt–Jesus paid it when He bowed His head on the cross and gave up the spirit. And when thus we behold Him dragged into the court of human justice, and sentenced to a felon’s death–and when we follow Him to the garden of His sorrow, sweating great drops of blood, and thence to Calvary, and see Him nailed to the accursed tree–suffering, bleeding, dying–what do we behold but the exacting from Him the full payment of the bond for the honoring of which He had entered into an eternal suretyship on His people’s behalf?
What life and liberty are bound up in these words–“I forgave you all that great debt!” Believing soul, the debtor’s prison is no longer your abode. The bond is cancelled, and God, the Creditor, fully satisfied with the Atonement of His beloved Son, has given a full discharge both to Him and to us, in that He raised Him from the dead. No longer, then, look at your sins, unworthiness, nothingness, and poverty; but look to Jesus, and, looking constantly by faith at Him, walk in the holy, happy liberty of one all whose debt is cancelled, and for whom there is now no condemnation. Is Jesus your Paymaster, O my soul? Then He has equally engaged to provide for your temporal needs, to deliver you out of all your difficulties, and to enable you to meet all your worldly engagements. Surely He who has paid your greater debt to God, will help you honorably to pay your lesser debt to man. Octavius Winslow
WHAT JESUS HAS DONE FOR ME
Let me tell you what Jesus has done for me. He assumed my human nature so I could partake of His divine nature (John 1:1, 14; II Peter 1:4). He became poor so I could become rich (II Cor. 8:9). He was born of a woman so I could be born of God (Gal. 4:4; John 1:12). He became the Son of Man so I could become a son of God (Luke 19:10; Galatians 3:26). He was born under the law of God so I could be free from the law of sin and death (Gal. 4:4; Romans 8:2). He was made sin for me so I could become the righteousness of God in Him (II Cor. 5:21). He was condemned so I could be justified (Isaiah 53:11). He endured God’s wrath so I could enjoy God’s grace (Isaiah 53:4; Romans 5:12-21). He died so I could live (Romans 5:8-10). He suffered the hell I deserved so I could enjoy Him in heaven (Psalm 18:4; John 17:24). He saved me by His grace and gave me faith to believe in Him (Ephesians 2:8). He did this for all who believe in Him. Do you?
- Daniel E. Parks, Missionary to St. Croix
That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Rom 8:4)
The works of the law, and the righteousness of the law, are synonymous terms. By the former, we are expressly told, no flesh can be justified: nor consequently, by the latter, as performed by us. Why? Because every man is a fallen creature; and to the corruption of his nature, is hourly adding the accumulated iniquity of actual transgressions. Therefore, by such a partial, imperfect, and polluted conformity to the moral law, no person can possibly be accepted unto life. And yet, without justification, man must be lost forever. He must, therefore, either give up all hope of salvation, or seek for a justifying righteousness at the hand of Christ. Now Christ came for this very end, to fulfill all righteousness; not for himself, who was and is the source and center of all holiness; but for us, who had lost our original rectitude (good), and are become the degenerate plants of a strange vine. The Son of God left his glory, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled for us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. This must certainly be the genuine import of the text under consideration, the exact sense of which according to the genius of the original, stands thus: “That the righteousness required by the law might be fulfilled for us,” i.e. in our stead, or on our account. What the law was desirous of but through weakness, could not obtain: that did Christ perform for us.
Augustus Toplady
TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS
Most modern preachers are preaching against sin without declaring the true nature and character of God, and it just comes out as dos and don’ts and decisions and reformations. The whole process is merely peripheral. Their message reaches only to that which they have done; and consequently, that which they can change. They have never seen what they are; and that which no man can change. Such religion breeds self-righteousness and makes converts who do not need the full, free justifying righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Just give them a plan, a proposition, a few things to do, a few rules to follow, a few commandments to keep, and they rest very comfortably. You will hear them talking about free grace, but all the while they are thinking about what they have done or are doing; and this is contrary too grace! TRUE grace brings a TRUE knowledge of God, a TRUE knowledge of self (sin), and leaves the sinner’s attention focused upon TRUE righteousness, righteousness through the doing and dying of the Lord Jesus Christ, righteousness which is obtained through faith alone—a sinner trusting Christ! Maurice Montgomery
OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS
There is but one human righteousness, and it is Christ, His Person and work. When we speak of “our Righteousness,” we are speaking of Him, for He is eternally, the Lord our righteousness (Jer 23:6). In this regard, as in all others, nothing can be added to, nor taken away from Him. Our gracious, loving Father has brought us the Best Robe, one woven throughout, without seam. Nothing we do can mar it, no matter how hideous our sin, and no imagined goodness that we perform can add a stitch unto it.
Do not presume that works of faith wrought in and through us by God, Who worketh in us both to will and do of His good pleasure (Php 2:13), are meritorious in any way or considered as supplemental to His. If we are considered in ourselves at all, even based on our best work, we are undone. And do not despair, though your sin become exceeding sinful to you. Of God are we in Christ Jesus, Who is made unto us Righteousness (1Cor 1:30). We have no other, and need no other. Chris Cunningham