DG#7 The Righteousness of God

Intro:

Today we want to look specifically at the topic of the Righteousness of God. We’ve come across this phrase a couple of times in the past but we want to fine tune our understanding of it.

If not for the righteousness of God, Jesus won’t have suffered or we won’t go to hell.

But if God is not righteous, then heaven is going to be a chaotic place. Imagine living with the devil in heaven, how awful that would be.

The very reason why we look forward to heaven is that we won’t see the devil again. The devil won’t be tempting us to sin and suffer the consequences of sin.

Heaven is not a place where you can do anything you want. But it is a place where you can do all the good that you want. In heaven, people only do good and that’s what makes it heaven in the first place.

I. The Essence of God’s Righteousness

A. Conform to His Own Nature

@@ One definition of righteousness is conformity to the relevant norm. A person or even a thing can be called righteous if it conforms to the norm or standard to which it’s supposed to conform.

God’s righteousness can also be said to conform to the relevant norm. But what is the relevant norm for God? His own perfect nature. There is nothing greater than God.

Hence the essence of God’s righteousness is conformity to His own nature. What is God’s nature? It can be summed up in 2 things; holiness and love. So the relevant norm for God is perfect holiness and perfect love.

B. God Must Punish Sin - Good News?

Romans 1:16–17 KJV 1900

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. 17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Our righteous God must uphold the integrity of His law. His holiness demands that His laws must be kept. If His laws are not kept or broken, He must address that situation.

How does He do it? To ensure that His laws are kept by His creatures, He defines the penalties for breaking His laws.

Even in a country like Sg, it is impossible to pass a law without penalties. If there are no penalties, who will take the law seriously?

Unfortunately, man whom He made in His own image has broken His laws. His holiness then demands that the penalties for breaking His laws must be meted out or else God is not true to Himself.

In short, God must punish sin. In , Paul connects the Gospel of Christ with the righteousness of God. If the righteousness of God means He must punish sin, how can the Gospel be Good News for any of us?

Obviously Paul must be thinking in terms of grace rather than the law. Under grace, the righteousness of God is a gift given to believers as says.

Philippians 3:9 KJV 1900

9 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:

C. God’s Righteous Wrath must be Satisfied

Even if God wants to deal with us through grace, His righteous wrath for breaking His laws must be satisfied. Otherwise He is not righteous.

If He just carries out the punishment for sin, He is not conforming completely to the relevant norm which is His own nature. His own nature as we saw is basically 2 things: holiness and love.

Hence in His love, He pours out His holy wrath against all our sins on His Son Jesus Christ.

As a result of God acting in love according to His nature, God is perfectly righteous. No one can accuse of God being unrighteous.

Whenever we sin, we owe God an eternal debt. So God took all the debt man owe to Him and nailed it to the Cross.

Colossians 2:13–15 KJV 1900

13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; 14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; 15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Hence the message of the Gospel is: yes, the sinner’s debt must be paid, but the good news is that the debt has been paid by Jesus Christ.

II. How God Bestows His Righteousness on Us

A. Imputed Righteousness

This is something we saw in the last lesson but we need to look at it again so that we don’t miss it.

You know our minds tend to drift even when something important is said. So quite often people don’t get it the first time. Important teachings must be repeated.

We saw the last time that God gives us His righteousness in two ways: imputed righteousness and imparted righteousness.

The difference between these 2 righteousness is what separated the Protestants from the Roman Catholics and all the other religions.

@@ When man sinned against God, he owed God an infinite debt that he can’t pay back. So God came to man’s rescue in the person of Jesus Christ and paid all his debt without man having to do anything. In other words, God cancelled man’s debt. The man is now as righteous as someone who has not sinned. This is imputed righteousness.

Suppose you owe the bank $100,000 due to some bad business venture. You have a kind friend who offers to pay your debt but he requires you to work for him for 5 years and he still gives you a monthly allowance of $4,000. But you have to work for him during these 5 years.

Then another friend of yours

Many people have difficulty accepting this idea of “freely forgiven” is because they don’t know the immense debt they owed God. They think by their little good works they can pay back their debts.

On top of this, they don’t understand that they’ve lost ability to do good in the sight of God.

They have the “extra merits” mentality which we showed that it doesn’t exist because even when we perfectly do everything, we’re merely doing what is required of us.

Imputed righteousness is what the Bible calls justification by faith. The word “impute” is a bookkeeping term. It’s like your account book showing a great deficit but God came and made the deficit zero so that your account book is balanced.

B. Imparted Righteousness

@@ Imparted righteousness is God imparting His holy character to us and we’re involved in the process. In imputed righteousness, we didn’t do anything.

In other words, God gives us the ability to do good works. These good works don’t save us, they just make us become more like Christ.

How does God enable man to do good and become like Christ? Ans: 2 step process: 1) Regeneration and 2) Sanctification.

Why do man need to be regenerated?

Ephesians 2:1–3 KJV 1900

1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; 2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

These verses refer to our spiritual depravity, i.e. incapable of doing any good because we were dead in sins and were once under the power of Satan.

Remember sin brings about not only a legal debt but also sickness?

How did God regenerate us?

Ephesians 2:5 KJV 1900

5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

That is, God made us alive or made us new creatures as says.

The 2nd step is sanctification. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us to help us overcome the effects of the sinful nature that still remains with us. And we’re not passive in the process but actively working with the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:13 KJV 1900

13 For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

III. Christ Our Righteousness

A. Necessity of Christ’s Incarnation

The incarnation is also an absolutely essential aspect of our faith. Without it, the whole Christian system falls apart.

, sin is the transgression of the law. We have transgressed God’s law and have become guilty lawbreakers in God’s sight.

1 John 3:4 KJV 1900

4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

What’s the big deal about breaking the law? Mainly, it’s a big deal because of whose law it is. It is God’s laws that we’ve broken.

God is the Creator and Sovereign Lord of the universe. Therefore His rule over the universe is absolute and there is no court of appeal. That’s how scary it is to sin against God.

So why did God become man? To pay for our sins, Christ has to become as weak as man in order that He can become a substitute for man. If Christ is stronger than man, then He won’t be experiencing the same pain as man.

Hebrews 4:15 KJV 1900

15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

B. Jesus’ Satisfaction of the Law’s Requirement

Jesus satisfied the Law’s requirement in 2 ways: active righteousness and passive righteousness.

@@ Active righteousness is when Jesus obeyed the law perfectly. This is necessary because it was His own personal responsibility and duty as a man. So He has no “extra merits” left over to share with us. Hence we’re not justified by Jesus’ active righteousness or perfect obedience to the law.

@@ However, Jesus’ active righteousness is necessary for Him to become a perfect sacrifice for us. If He is not a perfect sacrifice, He won’t be accepted of God and we won’t be justified through Him.

@@ Passive righteousness is when Jesus died in our place to satisfy the penalty for the sins we committed as required by God’s law.

Hence we are technically justified only by Jesus’ passive righteousness. But we saw the necessity of Jesus’ active righteousness in order to become the perfect sacrifice for us.

Having paid the penalty for our sins, Christ frees us from having to pay the debt of eternal punishment in hell.

Conclusion:

Understanding the Righteousness of God is key to understanding the concept of justification by faith.

We now can have hope of going to heaven just because of what Christ has done for us. We do have to receive God’s gift of salvation by faith. And that means, we’ve to stop trying to save ourselves and trust that Christ alone is able to save us.