THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD
Everyone must give an account of himself before God one day. Many years ago, God appointed a king and made him the wisest man ever. He made him into a preacher, which is a very rare thing. We have seldom heard of kings being preachers. God made Solomon to be a king, and he made him wiser than other men as well as making him to be a preacher. Without doubt, it was the mind of God that men should listen to a king, knowing he was a wise man. It means he is worth listening to. Now this king preached a preaching which is in the Bible, the book of Ecclesiastes; and it ends with these words: “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil”. This is something that all men must face sooner or later. Every one must give an account of himself before God. In order that no one should ignore this, God has gone to the extent of confirming this with an oath. Before a court man must generally render an oath to realise the seriousness of what they will say. In the same manner God has come down to us, in order that we should accurately take account of what He is saying. He has sworn by Himself, as He has no one higher to swear by than Himself. “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God”.
Now I wonder if all have thought about this. Will there be anyone reading this who has not have had to with God. An opportunity is given to him or her to do that now. We read in the gospels about a man that said to himself that he had many years before him to enjoy, but God said to him. “Fool, this night your soul shall be required of thee”. Could the man do anything to hinder this? That is why God wants to emphasise to us all that, if we have not had to do with God before, then it is best to do it now. Because what marks the present time is that each one that approaches God will receive forgiveness of sins and be justified from every sin.
The scripture we read presents that God has righteousness in mind for man, and that is something that marks the present time. It is obviously something we need because, if we have to do with God, we need righteousness, as we have no righteousness in ourselves. And this passage makes the whole position clear in saying, “for there is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”. It is of no avail to have our own thoughts about this. God has His own thought about it and He will not lower His standard to suit us. God is prepared in His grace to provide us with righteousness, to each one that longs for it, a righteousness that He Himself has provided through the Lord Jesus Christ. Through this we can fully correspond to what His righteousness demands. We read “without law righteousness of God is manifested”, which means that God does not hold us under law any more. He knows that if we were held under the law, the law would condemn, but now “without law righteousness of God is manifested”. To understand this and all it involves, I would like to say a few words about Adam and Eve in the garden, whose story is well known to us. We remember that God blessed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and surrounded them with everything that was to their wellbeing, only laying one condition upon them; namely, that they were not allowed to eat from a special tree. It was very important that such a commandment should be laid upon them, because God has full right to demand obedience from His created beings. By presenting such a commandment God established His terms between Himself and man. Man fell in disobedience. And as soon as man and woman ate of the forbidden fruit, they knew they were naked. This means that they were conscious that their real state was known of God. Scripture says, “all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes, with whom we have to do”. Adam and Eve detected this and for the first time they understood they had to do with God. Their consciences told them that now they were unsuitable for the presence of God, and what was before them was capital judgment. This state is still prevailing in the world. Every cemetery testifies that all must die sooner or later. The reason for this is that we all have sinned, and the serious reality remains that after death comes the judgment. We read, “And forasmuch as it is the portion of men once to die, and after this judgment”, Heb 9: 27. The same scripture continues in saying, “thus the Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many”; so there is hope and a way out for all that believe.
Adam and Eve detected they were naked, and covered themselves with fig leaves. They did nothing else than what men advise to do, they did as best as they could. There are many that say today, if you only do the best you can and live uprightly, then God cannot demand any more. Adam and Eve did the best they could, and we can be quite sure that they were fully upright in what they were doing. But when they heard Jehovah Elohim walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and when they heard His voice, they hid behind the trees in the garden. It shows clearly that they did not have full confidence in what they had done in all their uprightness. They showed in their action that it was totally unrighteous to do the best you could even with the best motive, or to say that God could not require more. It is even not right to say that God had predicted this a long time ago and allowed Adam and Eve’s history to develop in such a way. We understand in this way how hopeless our position would have been as sinners before God, if God Himself had not come out as a Saviour God. God said to Adam: “Where art thou?” What feelings are linked with these words. These words show that God felt deeply that He had lost man. Do we grasp that God has feelings, and feeling for each one of us? In Luke 15, the Lord said, “What man of you having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” How could we think that God has less feeling than we do; why should anyone think that God would not be moved if we were to perish and be lost for Him? When God said, “Where art thou?” He expressed the feelings of His heart. He felt deeply that He had lost man who He had thought would have been a joy for Him. God desires to have each one of us for His own joy. We have been created for His sake and He has come forth as a Saviour God in the Person of Christ all in view securing us for His own pleasure. Adam said now, “I heard thy voice in the garden, and I feared, because I am naked; and I hid myself”. He acknowledged his true state before God. The fig leaves were of no avail, he did not even say that he had done his best to cover his guilt. He had his fig leaves on, and yet had to confess he was naked. He realised that in God’s presence he had nothing that could cover up his guilt, and he had nothing to say for his defence. He tried still to excuse himself saying, “The woman, whom thou hast given to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate”. This was an attempt at giving God the blame for it all. There are a lot of people trying to do the same today in our time. But giving God the blame will not stand in the presence of God. It is much better to come in on Gods terms and by what God suggests, and to be brought to God in the righteousness He Himself provides. That is just why we find Adam and Eve felt a need for what God provided for them. We read that Jehovah God made coats of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. God clothed two guilty sinners with coats through the death of another, which shows that God was now prepared to present Himself as a Saviour God and give man a righteousness through the death of a substitute. This substitute is Jesus. Do you know who Jesus is? He is “over all, God blessed forever”. He became Man in order to be the Saviour of man. There is a true word worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came in to the world to save sinners. The testimony that God sends out now says the work of redemption is now completed, and He has now raised Christ from among the dead and sat Him at His right hand in His glory, with a view to the whole world realising the value of the completed work of Christ.
God can now give every man and woman—if they only want to have it—a righteousness that is amply sufficient to meet all God’s requirements, and through the value of this God can freely justify us from all guilt. Think of Adam and Eve in their new coats of skin which God Himself had given them. Would they now be afraid of God? Or could they not say, ‘We can now enter freely into the presence of God. God cannot find any fault with the clothes He has made Himself’. When they had these coats on, they had complete peace with God. They could say: ‘God Himself has provided us with our righteousness and He will never find any fault with it’. This is what God is testifying about now. There is a righteousness that is available for man that is totally distinct from what we are able to achieve ourselves. All that is required is to acknowledge the truth about ourselves, and turn in faith to Christ by virtue of what has been righteously fulfilled in His death. The believer is now aware that judgment has now been borne by the Lord Jesus, that He has died and borne the penalty of death that rested upon the sinner, and that all the claims of God have been met. This is seen in God raising Jesus from the dead and exalting Him to the highest place in heaven. Now it could be said that God presents Him as a mercy-seat, Rom 3:25. This indicates that God has taken a position of grace and mercy. He takes this position for man’s sake and He is willing to show mercy to all them that acknowledge they need it. As far as God is concerned, God maintains this position towards all men. God made coats of skin for Adam and his wife, and they were the only ones that were about at the time. God did not just dress Adam and leave Eve unclothed, neither did He not just clothe Eve and leave Adam unclothed, but He clothed them both to make it fully clear that He had in mind that all should be saved. This is the blessèd glory of our God. He desires all to be saved. He does not want anyone to be lost. God has no pleasure in judging. He has no joy in the sinner being lost, yet He must judge sin, and He will judge sin. Judgment must be their portion one day of those who stand before God and have not availed themselves of the righteousness that God has provided at such an enormous price. If anyone prefers to continue in his sins instead of being delivered from them, this may lead to his becoming the object of God’s righteous judgment. But God’s present position is to present Christ as a mercy-seat through faith. The mercy-seat was the place from where God spoke to man. It involves the mercy that has been established in the death of Christ; “Christ Jesus; whom God has set forth as a mercy seat, through faith in His blood” Rom 3: 25. Scripture brings out the value of the testimony of the blood. It is written, “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses from all sin”. God knows how to value the blood of Christ. The blood speaks of how His life was laid down in death. That life that was such a wonderful pleasure for the blessed God was laid down in death for your sake and mine. We read of a “mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all”. The death of Christ is meant for all men, but the righteousness that is available will only affect them that believe. It is for all, but is upon all that believe. Those that believe come into the good of it. Those that do not believe will lose the value of it.
When God presents Christ in this way, it shows that He is righteous, when He justifies the unrighteous who is of the faith of Jesus. How great it is to know that you can be completely firm in your soul, knowing that God has freely justified you, which He loves to do in His grace, and He is absolutely righteous in doing so. He has not overlooked anything that must be taken into consideration. Every sin of the believer has been dealt with by the Lord Jesus and the penalty of death has been borne by Him, and our glorious position is now that it is all finished for time and eternity and will never be taken up again. The value of this is available for all that want it. It only requires that we take our place in repentance before God, acknowledging our guilt and helplessness, and freely receive the blessing God has in His heart for us.
We remember the young man in Luke 15, who went away to a far country and spent all he had in debauchery, and none gave to him when he was in need; and then he came to himself and thought. “I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee; I am no longer worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants”. That was what he planned to say, and thus he arose and went to his father. “But while he was yet a long way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell upon his neck, and covered him with kisses”. What does all this mean? It shows God’s dealings with a sinner that repents. It is the feelings of His heart towards any one of us when we change our mind and we experience what sin is in God’s eye; saying just like Job: “I repent in dust and ashes”. With dust, Job meant that he understood that death was upon him, and with ashes he acknowledged that he only deserved God’s consuming judgement. When this marks us, God will be tender and caring towards us. He feels for us in such a state, and he ran towards the son and covered him with kisses. Then the young man said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, I am no longer worthy to be called thy son”. He did not add in his thought to make him to one of his hired servants, and he had two good reasons for this. Because when you have once come in to the presence of God, you realise that you are not even worthy of being a hired servant. It would be presumptuous to say that to God, when you feel yourself as a guilty sinner in His presence. There is also another reason that he could not say this, and that is that God has no need of hired servants. He wants to have sons that have a place in His love and are at home in His house. That is why the father said to the servants. “Bring out the best robe and clothe him in it”. Do you believe that God gives the very best to a repenting sinner? Because this is what God has in mind for repenting sinners, and many of us here knows something of what is of the very best God has, the best that God has prepared for man. He is prepared not only to forgive us from all our sins, even placing us before His countenance in Christ forever, and proving to us His favour in the Beloved, yet even more. He want to give us the Holy Spirit in order that we might love what He loves and hate what He hates, that we might feel at home in the presence of God and, through means that the Holy Spirit gives us, to understand and know something of what God has prepared for them that love Him.
Allow me now to ask a question: what do you have instead of all this? Can you suggest anything better? It is either a question of a repenting sinner receiving God’s Christ or remaining unforgiven and thus coming into eternal judgment; as the Lord says: “where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched”, Mark 9: 48. These two alternatives are given. On the one side, the greatest possible blessing that the heart of God could think of for man; and on the other side eternal judgment and banishment from God without hope for all eternity. But this latter God does not want for any man. Christ has died that we may escape the judgment, and the Spirit has come down from heaven that we may be taught to know the thoughts of God. The question remains with us then, What do we have in mind to do? “Behold”, scripture says, “now is the well-accepted time; behold, now the day of salvation”.
I leave these thoughts with you, dear friend. I have said what I had in my heart, but God has heard all that has been said, and He desires that all should come in to the blessing that He has in His heart for us in Christ. May the Lord bless His word for us, for His Name’s sake.
GÖTEBORG
25th March 1951
Translated from a pamphlet published in Swedish
This article is not in date order in these books because the pamphlet only came to hand when just this one was left to finish.
TWO APPOINTMENTS
There are two things which every man has to face, one is death; the other, judgment. The Scriptures tell us that “as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many”, Heb 9: 27. That is, there is an appointment fixed which each one of us must keep with death and judgment. The Scriptures also tell us that God has “appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained”, Acts 17: 31. Death and judgment stand before every one of us. It is for this very reason that the gospel becomes such a vital necessity for us.
In the epistle to the Romans, the gospel of Christ is spoken of as “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth ... For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith”, chap 1: 16, 17. The writer takes account of every kind of man: he sets forth the condition of all men: the heathen, the philosopher, and the Jew, and shows that all are under sin—indeed he proves it, “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God”—that God, who “shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ”. Again, it says, later on in the same epistle, “As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God”, chap 14: 11. What man confesses will be his own condemnation in the presence of God who knows every heart. Thus every mouth is stopped.
But then, if that is so, God sends forth His gospel concerning Christ—“his Son Jesus Christ our Lord,” and the preaching of Christ coupled with the efficacy of His death becomes God's salvation to the ends of the earth. The testimony comes with divine authority, and is to be received on the principle of faith; faith in God who raised Christ from the dead; Rom 4: 24.
If I am exposed as having no righteousness, then I have no hope in myself; will God come in for me? Can He do it? God will never surrender righteousness; it would bring in confusion into the moral universe; if the foundations of His throne should be impugned all would be confusion. The crucial question then is, Can God save me righteously and consistently with what He is as God? Unless my feet are on an absolutely righteous basis, I am not safe.
Now God comes out in the gospel and says, I will show you what I can do—how I can bless you righteously. He tells us that the righteousness of God is manifested, “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference”. The bearing of it is towards all, no one is left out of the scope of the blessing. If that all have sinned and all are guilty is the verdict upon all men, the righteousness of God in view of justification is co-extensive with the verdict of guilt, for it is “unto (or towards) all and upon all them that believe”. It is indeed “unto all”, but the person who does not obey gets no benefit from the righteousness of God, for it is “by faith of Jesus Christ unto all”. If all have sinned and come short of the glory of God—and that not as in the past but as a present thing—God comes forward in the manifestation of His righteousness by faith of Jesus Christ. He declares his righteousness: “that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”, Rom 3: 26. He says, “Being justified freely”—What a word for a man standing at the bar of God! What a word from the mouth of God! “Being justified freely by his grace”. It is not only that I am forgiven, but I am justified freely—justified by a judicial act on the part of the Judge—by His grace “through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”. A redemption that subsists in undiminished value before God, for it subsists there “in Christ Jesus.” “Whom God hath set forth ... a propitiation”— mercy-seat—“through faith in his blood”.
This is the position that God takes up: He sets forth Christ as a mercy-seat—in the value of His blood. It is not a question of our estimation of the precious blood of Christ, but of God's; and He assures us that the precious blood of Christ has sufficed to meet the righteous, holy demands of God in regard to our sins. As of old, God spoke to Moses from off the mercy-seat, so now He sets forth Christ as the point from which He speaks in mercy, declaring His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past. The blood of Christ has fully met every claim of His throne—every demand of His holiness, and now God sets forth Christ as a mercy-seat. He can take up the attitude of forgiveness righteously; He declares Himself as “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”. Think of the grandeur of it—that the One who pronounced the sentence of guilt has Himself provided in the precious blood of Christ a righteous way whereby He may justify the sinner.
I have not to accomplish the righteousness, but God sets Christ forth a mercy-seat through faith in His blood. The justification is according to God's estimate of the blood of Christ. God now declares His righteousness, so that if there is one who is prepared to trust in Christ, He says, You shall be justified righteously; absolutely cleared of every charge on the ground of the precious blood of Christ. The death of Christ is of such great value to God, that He can be the righteous Justifier of the one who believes in Jesus. So that the believer can say, “If God be for us, who can be against us? … It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?” God is our Justifier, so that no one can condemn us.
Date not given
Published as a tract by Stow Hill Bible and Tract Depot
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