The Wonderful Gift of God’s Righteousness Through Christ

 Good afternoon and a most Blessed Saturday to everyone!

So this last Wednesday morning my last reading of the morning was in Hebrews chapter 5. I was intrigued with the phrase, “…the word of righteousness..” and wrote myself a note to study it further and perhaps write about it at a later date. Then around noon my good friend and beloved co-worker Pete W. texted and asked if I would share a communion devotion at Home Group that evening at his house. I was glad to do so and decided maybe this would be the opportunity to give further thought to this phrase and truth, “The word of righteousness” found in vs. 13, “For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant.”  Hebrews 5:13 

(I’m going to try to remember most of what I said and add to it a bit in this post. My devotional only had the major Scriptures in it as far as notes are concerned).

What is this word of righteousness and what is it about it that only mature disciples can grasp? I would like to venture that the word of righteousness is the message of righteousness from Genesis ch. 1 to Rev. ch. 22. And what separates the mature from the immature is the ability by the Spirit of God to see it and embrace it in its entirety.

Let’s first attempt to define righteousness: Righteousness can be thought of as right standing with God. Being found right in one’s nature, thoughts, words, actions, motives before God. Being found pleasing to God who sees our inner core. “Conformity of heart and life to the divine law” says Noah Webster in 1828 Dictionary.

Most people, mature or not would agree that God is righteous I think. In the Old Testament He is clearly declared to be so in a number of passages. Here is one from the book of Deuteronomy.

“The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.” Deut. 32:4 

Where the mature get separated from the immature or babies in the faith is how we see the righteousness (or lack of) of man. So what can we learn first from the Old Testament?

The consistent message of the Old Testament is that every human that has ever lived and ever will live is unrighteous to the core. First from Genesis 6, “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  Genesis 6:5  It was this realization by God that caused Him to decided to destroy all of humanity except for Noah and his family.

Remember that time as recorded in Genesis 18 where “the Lord appeared to….” Abraham in the form of three men and they had a protracted discussion in which Abraham began to try to negotiate when he learned that their intention was to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham thought surely God would change His mind if there were a sufficient number of righteous people in those cities. Sadly such people were not found. “Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten (righteous) are found there?” And He said, “I will not destroy it on account of the ten.” Gen. 18:32  At this point in Abraham’s negotiations, he quit. He must have known by this point that his was a losing argument.

The Psalmist declared: “ For in Your sight no man living is righteous.”  Psalm 143:2b  In and of ourselves this is the sad reality for every person ever born on planet earth.

King Solomon saw and perceived a lot of hard truths in his life and reign as King. The depravity of man was one of them, “….Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives…..” Ecc. 9:3 Unless God intervenes by His mercy and grace, this is true of each of us.

While this is the consistent teaching of the Old Testament, those that insist on the “broad way” that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 7:13 refuse to accept it. Indeed this reality and the difficulty we proud humans have in accepting it is the primary reason man continues to embrace any and all philosophies and religions that enable us to sweep this under the rug (for a while).

So for those of you who want to remain in the narrow road with Jesus, let’s explore then the problem this reality of the depravity of man creates with our being able to have a relationship with the living God who is righteous through and through.  If this was the condition of all humanity in the Old Testament days, how then could humans ever be deemed righteous and thus accepted by God?

Well let’s start with Noah, who lived in a time in human history where there was no people of God to be salt and light and thus there was no restraint on the evil that resides in the hearts of men. This from Hebrews 11:7,“By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” Cf. Gen. 7:1  Noah was seen as righteous in God’s sight because Noah believed God, trusted God and put his hope in God alone for his salvation and ability to relate to a holy and righteous God.

What about Abraham?  “Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” Gen. 15:6 Ahhh… Seems to be a pattern developing here. Neither of these men were righteous in and of themselves. But because of their faith and trust in God to solve this problem for them, He saw them as righteous.

The prophet Habukuk put it this way, “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.” Hab. 2:4  If you can find a man or a woman in the Old Testament who was deemed righteous by God, in every case it was because of their consistent faith and trust in God and willingness to admit in and of themselves they were found wanting in this regard. This passage by the way is quoted in the New Testament.

Ok. Well that’s “the word of righteousness” in a very quick nutshell in the Old Testament. Now let’s jump over to the New Testament and see what it says about our Savior Jesus in terms of righteousness. “But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you.” Acts 3:14 (cf. 7:52, 22:14) This was from Peter’s second sermon again to a very large crowd formed because of the healing of a man whom everyone knew about. It is interesting that Stephen in his bold sermon to his antagonists in Jerusalem and Paul later in his defense before the Jews in Jerusalem both saw fit to proclaim Christ as among other things – “righteous”.

Surely we can all agree on Jesus Christ’s righteousness. But what about humanity in the New Testament. Have we evolved and become much “gooder” now?  Well the good news in Jesus’s sermon on the Mount is He promised that “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.” (Matt. 5:6). The bad news is, the righteousness He is looking for and that we should hunger and thirst for is of a whole different nature or standard than anything they had seen in their spiritual/religious leaders in that day, “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20 (cf. Phil. 3:6). That statement probably caused a lot of folk who knew how religious the Scribes and Pharisees were to shake a bit at the knees.

Have you pondered much the discussion Jesus Christ had with Nicodemus, who arguably in terms of the righteous standard the Pharisees and Scribes had created was a ten out of ten?  He decided to visit Jesus one night and try to get to the bottom of the disturbing things coming out of Jesus’s mouth in terms of His standard of righteousness. I believe Nicodemus had some degree of hunger for righteousness. But he was in the thick of the “righteous” culture the Pharisees had devised. So it was not going to be easy for him to break out of it. He started off the conversation by complimenting Jesus and Jesus immediately took it in a startling different direction. Let’s listen in, “Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3   The damage done to every soul born into this world by the very nature of being born in sin requires that we all must have a do-over – an overhaul. We must become a “new creation”. And only the Spirit of God can bring about such a thing.  Later in that chapter either Jesus or the apostle John/the author said of mankind, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” John 3:19   Unless God by His mercy and grace intervened, this was the reality of mankind in Jesus’s day and ever since.

The apostle Paul, quoting much from Psalm 14, on the subject of the nature of man, wrote, “as it is written,”There is none righteous, not even one;” Romans 3:10.

Not a popular truth then or today, but it is indeed the truth and a crucial part of the “word of righteousness.” Thus Jesus from time to time would address in man that which makes this so hard to accept, which is man’s pride or self righteousness. Do you remember which brother in the New Testament had a big problem with self righteousousness? Yes, the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. “But he (the older brother) became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began pleading with him. But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.”  Luke 15:28-30   This older brother of the one who had squandered some of his prime years was disgusted with his younger brother’s depravity, experienced no joy or happiness with his restoration to God and family; and he saw fit to remind his father of his perceived righteousness (in his own eyes). This parable, especially this part of the parable was directed at the Pharisees and scribes, who were similarly disgusted with Jesus’s tendency to minister to and receive the tax collectors and sinners (see Luke 15:1,2).

A few chapters later Jesus again addresses this problem, this time discussing the subject of effective prayer – or prayer that God will actually respond to, “And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.”  Luke 18:9-12  This kind of praying is nauseating to God, as it is filled with self righteousness and spiritual pride. What God is looking for in our prayers is portrayed by the other man – the tax collector as seen in vs. 13. God’s estimation of them both is seen in vs. 14.

So if it is a blessed thing to hunger and thirst for the righteousness that comes from God and is not found within ourselves, what would that path look like?  Well first it would be grounded in ongoing faith and trust in God that He will impart to us what we cannot generate on our own through His precious Son and what He did on the cross. Paul speaks to this numerous times in his epistles. Here’s a sampling of them,

“For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”  Romans 1:17 (here he is found quoting Habakuk). In the gospel or good news about Jesus Christ, the righteousness of God is revealed when He chooses to provide a way for us to be deemed as righteous in His sight - - even though we have all sinned and gone our own way and for a while trusted in our own self righteousness.

“even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction”  Romans 3:22   Faith in what Christ has done for us on the cross will get us there, regardless of where we are at in life, and regardless of how we have lived our lives.

“But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.”  Romans 4:5   Works will never get us there. Self effort will never get us there. Faith in Christ alone will get us there.

“For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:17   The one spoken of in the first part of this verse is referring to Adam. Please note the only righteousness that God will ever be pleased with and acknowledge as pleasing to Him is the “gift” of righteousness that comes through His Son. It cannot be earned!! It is a gift!

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” II Corinthians 5:21  Jesus received and owned our sin that we might receive and own His righteousness. Praise God for this amazing exchange!!

“For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.” Galatians 5:5  There are many times where the righteousness and character of Christ that we know by faith is within us who are born again by the Spirit of God, is slow to manifest in the more stubborn areas of sin in our lives. Perhaps you have had a bad temper as long as you can remember and it still flares up from time to time, even though you have known the Lord for years. This is when we by the power of the Spirit and the assurance of the Holy Spirit within us must learn to wait for His righteousness to overrule and manifest where our flesh seems almost invincible.

“But flee from these things…and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith,….” I Timothy 6:11   Finally there is a fleeing of all aspects of the flesh, and a pursuing of all aspects of righteousness and godliness. This again is by the Spirit and by faith. We don’t flee or pursue in our own strength and effort.

Well this is much longer than I had hoped so I will quit for now. All of these major principles of the “word of righteousness” could and should be elaborated on. But I hope this gives you a sense of the primary truths that make up “the word of righteousness”. What a wonderful message for those of us who for years futilely tried to muster up self made righteousness on our own.

God bless each of you and Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there!