God Speaks - The Essence of Righteousness

We understand that Righteousness means the ability to stand in the presence of the Father God without the sense of guilt or inferiority.

This has been the quest of the ages.

The desire to get rid of Sin Consciousness has given birth to all the major religions of the world.

But God has dealt with the sin problem in His Son. He has put sin away by the sacrifice of that Son

He has made it possible on legal grounds for man who is spiritually dead, in union with Satan, to become a New Creation by receiving the very nature and life of God.

This life and nature of God is Righteousness.

Consequently, the man who has received the nature of God has automatically become the Righteousness of God in Christ. He may not know it, he may not take advantage of it, but it is true.

The dominion of Sin Consciousness over the Church has been fostered, developed, and made a reality by the ministers who have preached sin instead of preaching Christ and the New Creation.

Spiritually dead man cannot stand in God’s presence. We see how God illustrated that fact in the Old Covenant.

The High Priest went into the Holy of Holies once every year, and then only when he was blood covered. The High Priest did not go into the Holy place to worship, but to make a yearly atonement for spiritually dead Israel.

God sent His Son to the world to become Incarnate, to become eternally united with humanity. That Son went on the Cross by the determinate counsel of God, became sin, took our place as a Substitute. Then He conquered the Enemy and made Righteousness available to man.

A redemption that did not make man Righteous would be a fallacy. Until man is Righteous and knows it, Satan reigns over him, sin and disease are his masters. But the instant he knows that he is the Righteousness of God in Christ and knows what that Righteousness means, Satan is defeated.

God’s redemption in Christ is the solution.

It makes man a dominant spirit where he has served as a slave in weakness. How can we obtain this Righteousness that will give us perfect Fellowship with the Father, that will give us a consciousness of being masters over the forces of darkness?

That Righteousness comes to us by taking Jesus Christ as Saviour and confessing His Lordship over our lives. When we know that Jesus died for our sins according to Scripture, that the third day He arose again from the dead after He had put our sin away and satisfied the claims of Justice as our substitute; when we know that and take Him as our Saviour and confess Him as our Lord, that moment we receive God’s nature and we become the Righteousness of God in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:20–21 NKJV

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

We have become the Righteousness of God in Christ. This Righteousness is not an experience, although it gives birth to many marvellous experiences. It is the nature of the Father imparted to us. It is that nature gaining the ascendency in us until we know that we are what God says we are – masters, conquerors!

Sin Consciousness is the reason for practically every spiritual failure.

It destroys faith. It destroys the initiative in the heart. It gives to man an inferiority complex. He is afraid of God. He is afraid of himself. He is ever searching to find someone that can pray the prayer of faith for him.

He has no sense of his own legal right to stand in the Father’s presence without condemnation.

The inferiority complex that is bred of Sin Consciousness is faced everywhere in the church. It has been said to me many times, “If I could get rid of this Sin Consciousness, I’d get my healing. I’d be a power for God, but I can’t get rid of it.”

Has God provided a Redemption that cures this sin disease? I am sure He has. If He hasn’t planned to take it out of man during his earth walk, man can never stand right before God because Redemption works only in this age.

God has made provision to make a New Creation. He has planned to impart His own nature to him – taking out the old sin nature and replacing it with His own nature. This will destroy Sin Consciousness. Few theologians have recognized the fact that Sin Consciousness is the parent of practically all human religions.

Man has sought to heal this awful disease. The sense of unworthiness destroys faith, robs us of our peace of mind, makes ineffectual the most earnest and zealous prayer life. It robs us of all fellowship and communion with the Father. Our theologians since Luther have never found a cure for this condition.

The Holiness people have attempted bravely to meet this issue, but so far they have never been able to permanently cure a patient. Man’s cure has been repentance of sins, sorrow for sins, and deep agony in prayer.

Others have tried to quiet their consciences by going to church, doing penance, fasting, giving money, saying prayers, doing good deeds, giving up pleasures, confessing their sins, fighting bad habits, putting themselves under discipline of self-denial and self-abasement, by neglecting the body. Some have even gone so far as to lacerate their bodies. Others have taken long pilgrimages. All these methods have been tried. Every earnest spirit has attempted some of them.

A new movement has just arisen in which men and women are finding temporary relief in confessing their sins to one another. Confessing sins may bring temporary relief from the pressure that is upon them, but no works of any kind whether they be works of self-abnegation, repentance, penance, saying of prayers, or self-denial can ever rid the heart of Sin Consciousness.

There are two kinds of Sin Consciousness.

One is the man who has never been Born Again.

The other is the undeveloped believer - one who has never grown beyond the state of babyhood, doesn’t know his rights and privileges in Christ.

The natural man is a sinner, but he is more than that.

2 Corinthians 6:14 NKJV

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?

he is called “lawlessness” and “darkness”. He is by nature a child of wrath. He is spiritually dead. He is united with Satan as the believer is united with God.

The believer has become a partaker of God’s nature, the natural man is a partaker of Satan’s nature.

God’s Cure God has wrought a Redemption that covers every phase of man’s need, perfectly restores his fellowship with the Father so that there is no sense of guilt or sin, no memory of past wrongdoing.

The believer stands complete in Christ. He has partaken of the fullness of God in Christ.

John 1:16–18 NKJV

And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

Under the First Covenant there was a remembrance made of sins year by year, but in the New Covenant a man who has accepted Jesus Christ loses the sense of sin and in its place receives a sense of his oneness and fellowship with the Father

Colossians 1:13–14 NKJV

He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

There are four facts here.

First, we are delivered out of Satan’s dominion.

Second, we are born into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

The third is, “In whom we have our redemption.” That is a Redemption from Satan’s dominion. Satan has no legal right to reign over the man who has accepted Christ as his Saviour. That man has been delivered out of Satan’s dominion, Satan’s family, Satan’s authority. He has been born into the family of God, the kingdom of the Son of His love. When this was done, the Redemptive work that Christ wrought became a reality.

Fourth, He not only redeems us out of Satan’s dominion – there is also a remission of our sins. He redeems us. He recreates us. He delivers us out of Satan’s authority. He remits all that we have ever done.

Let us notice just a few of the many things that Righteousness gives us as revealed in Christ’s finished work.

1. Greater confidence in God

It restores to man a standing before the Father on the same ground that Jesus enjoyed in His earth walk.

Remember the fearlessness of Jesus in the presence of the Father, His fearlessness before Satan. He knew He had a legal right in the Father’s presence. He knew He was Master of Satan and all his forces. Remember how fearless He was in the storm, and what an absolute Ruler He was over the laws of nature. He was not afraid to say to dead Lazarus, even in the presence of a large number of people, “Lazarus, come forth.” He had no sense of inferiority in the presence of death. He had no sense of inferiority in the presence of disease. He was not afraid to speak to the maimed and command them to become whole.

Righteousness is a masterful thing.

2. Our Fellowship Is Restored

Righteousness restores to man his lost Fellowship. We see that Fellowship illustrated in Jesus’ life. He approached the Father with the same liberty and freedom as a child approaches his parent. He addressed the Father as familiarly and as simply as a child addresses his father. Jesus enjoyed a unique Fellowship.

There was no sense of guilt, no sense of sin, no sense of condemnation in Jesus’ spirit.

You may want to ask “Can God restore such a Righteousness to man?”

We believe He can. We believe that the finished work of Christ guarantees it. Jesus had no sense of lack. When He needed money to pay His poll tax, He told Peter to go and catch a fish and he would find the money in its mouth. When He fed the multitude of five thousand, they handed Him five loaves and three small fishes. He blessed the bread and broke it. The multitude was fed and twelve basketsful remained. He had no sense of lack of money. He had no sense of lack of love, lack of knowledge, or lack of ability in any line. He had no sense of Sin-Consciousness. He had no Inferiority Complex. This Righteousness that Jesus had, gave Him the sweetest, most perfect Fellowship with the Father.

3. Faith Is Restored

Righteousness restores to man his lost faith. Jesus had no need of faith. He believed in Himself. He believed in His mission. He believed in His Father.

Matthew 17:20 NKJV

So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

If you want to see the necessity of restored Righteousness, go to our churches and see the utter faithlessness of the great body of Christendom. They are like Thomas who said, “I will not believe until I can put my finger into the print of the nails in His hand, and thrust my hand into His side.” Thomas’ faith, like that of the modern Christian, was Sense Knowledge faith. It is faith in what they can see and hear and feel. This is the reason why some of the modern movements, which have so much physical demonstration, have challenged the faith of the multitudes.

It is Sense Knowledge faith.

4. Peace Is Restored

Only when Righteousness is restored can peace be restored. It restores our peace with God. The individual is like the mass. The mass is like the nation–seething, restless, having no peace and no quietness. Isaiah 57:20-21 “But the wicked are like the troubled sea; for it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” The sense of lack, the sense of guilt, the sense of want, the consciousness of burdens and unpaid bills fill the heart with anxiety and restlessness. Righteousness restores quietness and rest to the spirit. We are no longer afraid of bills, no longer afraid of circumstances. Faith rises unconsciously and we face the most adverse conditions with a sense of superiority. We are masters. There is nothing that man needs so much today as a sense of Righteousness.

5. Freedom Is Restored

It not only restores peace, but it gives man the thing for which the human heart has sought and struggled down through the ages - freedom.

The greatest freedom is not political freedom, freedom from financial worry or physical discomfort, but it is freedom from Sin Consciousness.

Righteousness restores freedom to man - the same kind of freedom that Jesus had - the kind of freedom that the human has craved above every other thing. It is freedom in Christ, freedom from the fear of Satan, freedom from the fear of man because we trust in God with all our hearts.

We lean not upon our own understanding. We are not harassed and depressed by Sense knowledge or by circumstances. We stand in the sweet, wonderful consciousness of - “My Father is greater than all,” and “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world”.

5. Sonship Is Given

Righteousness gives us the sweet consciousness of sonship privileges. We are sons. God is our Father. We are His children. We are in His family. We know our father. He loves us and we love Him. Righteousness restores to us the joy, the unspeakable joy of Fellowship with heaven on terms of equality. We are not servants. We are not sinners. We are sons. We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.