Jesus our Righteousness

15 February 2021

Isaiah 64:1-8

How does one really define a righteous person? If we paraphrase 1John 3:7  we can define a righteous person as “one who does what is right is righteous just as God does what is right and is therefore Righteous” . We read in Judges 17:6 “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.” Does our deeds, that are right in our own eyes, make us righteous? So thought Adam, when he defied God’s authority and ate the fruit from the forbidden tree. So did Cain when he killed his brother Abel. Abraham thought that he was right in helping God to fulfil His purposes, when he bore Ishmael through Hagar. And so did Jacob when he deceived his father into blessing him. David was so sure that as a king he was doing right in taking Bathsheba as his wife that God used a powerful illustration to show that David was indeed completely wrong. And it needed a blinding light from heaven to open the eyes of Saul to see that what he believed as perfectly right in stoning Stephen to death, was actually wrong in the sight of God.

One does not become righteous in choosing what one might believe as right in a choice between a right and a wrong deed. Neither does one become righteous in choosing a right action in a choice between two morally right actions. In choosing between going to Church on a Sunday morning and helping your hospitalized neighbor, choosing to go to Church does not make one righteous. Getting back to the definition in 1John 3:7 only a right act that God would consider as right, will result in righteousness. But who has known the mind of God ? Therefore the Bible declares that there is no one righteous not even one. The greatest philanthropist , the greatest social worker, the greatest Bible teacher and the greatest missionary will all be declared Unrighteous before God if deep down in their heart the motive for their righteous act is self-glory, self honor, self-appreciation . Therefore ALL are under the wrath of a Righteous God and ALL deserve eternal separation from God.

Oh ! What a wretched man , man is ! How can he be delivered from this eternal condemnation. There is only one way . Only if the very Righteousness of God be seen in man, will man be ever declared righteous by God. And Praise God !! That’s what we have received in Christ Jesus. He not only paid the penalty for our sins, but He has become our Righteousness (1Cor 1:30) . God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that IN HIM we might become the righteousness of God  (2 Cor 5:21) And that is the Gospel – a righteousness from God that is by faith alone (Rom 1:17) . A righteousness that is credited into our account without us working for it (Rom 4:5,24).

God’s Christ, who is my righteousness,
My beauty is, my glorious dress;
Midst flaming worlds, in this arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

Thou God of power, Thou God of love,
Let all Thy saints Thy mercy prove;
Our beauty this, our glorious dress,
Jesus the Lord, our Righteousness.   
Nicolaus L. Zinzendorf (1700-1760)