November 16

“Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all those who believe.” Romans 3:22

THE righteousness wrought out by the incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death of Christ, is a most glorious righteousness. It took in the whole law of God. It did not soften down or ask for a compromise of its claims. It took the law in its utmost strictness, and honored it. It gave all the law demanded, all it could demand. And what stamped this righteousness with a glory so great? what enabled the Redeemer to offer an obedience so perfect?—what, but that He was God in our nature! The Law-giver became the Law-fulfiller. The God became the Substitute—the Judge became the Surety. Behold, then, the justification of a believing sinner! He stands accepted in the righteousness of Christ, with full and entire acceptance. What says the Holy Spirit? “In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel by justified, and shall glory.” “And by Him (the Lord Jesus) all that believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses.” “And you are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.” “Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” “He has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

Mark the expression, “made the righteousness of God”! So called because the righteousness which Christ wrought out was a divine righteousness—not the righteousness of a created being, of an angel, or of a superior prophet, else it were blasphemy to call it “the righteousness of GOD.” Oh no! the righteousness in which you stand, if you are “accepted in the Beloved,” is a more costly and glorious righteousness than Adam’s, or the highest angel’s in glory: it is “the righteousness of God.” The righteousness of the God-man—possessing all the infinite merit, and glory, and perfection of Deity. And what seems still more incredible, the believer is made the righteousness of God in Christ. So that beholding him in Christ, the Father can “rest in His love, and rejoice over Him with singing.” Is it not then, we ask, a perfect, a complete justification? what can be more so? Do not the passages we have quoted prove it? Can any other meaning be given to them, without divesting them of their beauty and obvious sense? Would it not be to turn from God’s word, to dishonor and grieve the Spirit, and to rob the believer of a most influential motive to holiness, were we to take a less expanded view of this subject than that which we have taken? Most assuredly it would. Then let the Christian reader welcome this truth. If it is God’s truth—and we humbly believe we have proved it to be so—it is not less his privilege than his duty to receive it.