Principles of HIS Righteousness, Not Ours

This Sunday in our corporate meditation on our confession of faith, we will be considering this short but infinitely important statement: “Justification is God's gracious and full acquittal upon principles of His righteousness of all sinners who repent and believe in Christ. Justification brings the believer unto a relationship of peace and favor with God” (Baptist Faith & Message 2000, IV.B).

That’s our problem as sinners: “...principles of His righteousness...” We do not stand before our Creator and Judge based upon a moral/ethical relativism that compares us to our neighbors, cultural sentiments, wisdom of the age, etc. We stand before Him based upon His standard, not ours.

“These things you have done and I kept silence; you thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes” (Psalm 50:21).

“‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isaiah 55:8,9).

He is not like us in a flexible, shifting idea of right and wrong based upon the feelings of the moment or a libertinism in which we are each our own law-giver. He is the unchanging, absolute God Who has given us His perfect standard in the Word of God. And we fall short. All of us. It’s not even close!

“Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:19,20,23).

Before the “principles of His righteousness,” all are guilty and merit only the eternal wrath of an eternally righteous God. “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 17:15). The one who thinks he will gain entry into the eternal bliss because he is a “good person” has never read and believed God’s own testimony on the matter in Scripture. All are guilty before Him: “...there is none righteous, not even one...there is none who does good, there is not even one” (Romans 3:10,12, quoting from the Old Testament).

So, what is to be done?

Work harder?

Ignore the Law of the Judge and hope in blissful ignorance alone?

The answer is justification: the righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ alone. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith [Habakkuk 2:4]’” (Romans 1:16,17).

We must stand before God with a righteousness that is as perfect as His own, a righteousness that that not come from us (who are radically incapable of even coming close to achieving perfect righteousness before a perfectly righteous God).

Jesus must be our righteousness.

“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed [δικαιουται, “justified”] from all things, from which you could not be freed [δικαιωθηναι, “justified”] through the Law of Moses” (Acts 13:38,39).

“...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:23-26).

This confession of the righteousness of Christ being accounted to us by faith is under attack these days.1 We hold to it, not daring to think that in the coming Day the best efforts of our whole life lived will not match God’s perfect holy standard of righteousness. We plead Christ alone and His righteousness alone.

Those of you who think you can stand before God based on your own goodness or righteousness slander the cross of Christ! “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through [our keeping of] the Law, then Christ died needlessly” (Galatians 2:21). Repent of your self-righteousness and embrace the justification that comes through faith in Jesus Christ’s righteousness!

We hold to this confession.


1 I have a friend that holds to the teachings of this movement (New Perspectives on Paul, as they're called). They seek to redefine "justification" as having nothing to do with our status as sinners before a holy God, calling this view of justification as being the result of Martin Luther's existential angst over his own guilty struggle with sin. They argue that Paul meant no such thing in his theology of justification, that the New Testament idea of justification has nothing to do with our sin before a holy God or how to be saved from His wrath. With this confession we hold not just to Martin Luther's reclaiming of the biblical doctrine of justification, but Jesus' own estimation of what it means to be justified before God! “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:13,14).