THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD
[p. 457] THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD
The gospel comes to man to extricate him from the power of evil, and to invest him with moral beauty in place of his natural uncomeliness, but it also reveals the righteousness of God. None of us has any righteousness of his own, but “righteousness of God is revealed” in the glad tidings. It is well for us to understand thoroughly what this means.
God is righteous in all His ways. He is righteous in punishing the wicked, and in so ordering that men reap as they sow. He is righteous in taking account of all that pleases Him in His people, and in compensating them for what they suffer from the ungodly. The righteousness of God as referred to in the Old Testament has very largely this character.
But there are scriptures in the Old Testament which refer to God’s righteousness in another connection. For example, we read in Psalm 22: 31, “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it”. What a marvellous character the righteousness of God has in that psalm!
It gives us the utterance of Christ as the forsaken One, passing through the unfathomable sufferings of that dark hour when atonement was made. He has so glorified God in bearing sins, and suffering the judgment due to sin, that we find that those who fear God, and who seek God, are able to praise and glorify Him. “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto Jehovah, and all the families of the nations shall worship before thee”. He has provided One who could bear the judgment due to sin and to sinners, so that He might become the praise of all those who seek Him. The psalm does not speak in so many words of their being justified, but the fact that they praise and are satisfied and worship implies that they are. Here we see plainly the sufferings of Christ in atonement as the ground of blessing [p. 458] to the ends of the earth, and this declared to be God’s righteousness.
Another Old Testament scripture helps us to see the character of God’s righteousness in this way of grace. “My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him, ... that ye may know the righteousness of Jehovah” (Micah 6: 5). Balak would have had God’s people cursed, but the answer given to him was, “Behold, I have received mission to bless; and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen wrong in Israel” (Numbers 23: 20, 21). That was, as Micah tells us, “the righteousness of Jehovah”. It was really on the ground of the death of Christ — though that death was yet future — that God could in righteousness thus regard His people. The wondrous work of Christ upon the cross has so glorified God, so vindicated Him, that He can justify — or hold as righteous — every one who believes the glad tidings, and His righteousness is revealed in His so doing. It was “borne witness to by the law and the prophets” (Romans 3: 21), but it is now “revealed” and “manifested”.
Is it not wonderful “glad tidings”, that the righteousness of God should be known to us in the way of mercy and grace, and in absolving us from every charge? Thus sinful and ungodly men can be justified from all things that stand against them, without any works of their own. It is entirely of God that this should be; His righteousness is revealed thereby.
The Jews were “ignorant of God’s righteousness” (Romans 10: 3). That does not mean that they did not know that God was righteous, but they were ignorant of that which was revealed in the glad tidings; namely, that in infinite grace God is the Justifier of every one that believes. Hence they sought to establish their own righteousness — as so many are doing today — and did not submit to the righteousness of God. God has revealed His righteousness in the way of perfect [p. 459] grace; it is for man, the guilty creature, to submit to it, and consequently to find the knowledge of God. Without it nothing can be built up, in a divine way, in the soul. It is a question of the light of God into which we come through faith.
No natural process of reasoning could ever bring us to know the righteousness of God in justifying the ungodly. It is brought in “on the principle of faith”, and God was entitled to reveal His righteousness in that way. In no other way could it have been revealed to a fallen and guilty creature in the way of blessing. The sin of man has not deprived God of the right to take His own course, and His sinful creatures can rejoice that this is the case, for it constitutes their only outlet from ruin and condemnation. How we can glory in the righteousness of God as thus revealed! How we can boast in the blessed God as thus known to us! Like the convicted and repentant man of Psalm 51, delivered from blood-guiltiness, we can sing aloud of His righteousness.
“How can man be just with God?” was asked by Job about two thousand years before Christ appeared. The question is answered now; the whole secret and way of it is out; God has His own blessed way of bringing it about. His righteousness is “by faith of Jesus Christ towards all”. It is brought in “on the principle of faith”, in contrast with any works or merit on man’s part; and no subsequent works or service of the believer can make God one whit more righteous in justifying him. The ground of it was laid in the death of Christ, and nothing can be added to it by man; it is “righteousness of God” (Romans 1: 17).
In a coming day the righteousness of God will be known publicly, for He will have judged all evil, and fulfilled all His promises of blessing. “Jehovah hath made known his salvation: his righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the nations. He hath remembered his loving-kindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God” (Psalm 98: 2, 3). But at the present time God’s righteousness is not in public display; it is revealed “on the principle of faith, to faith”. On the ground of the death of Christ God can exonerate from every charge the creature who has sinned and come short of His glory, and reveal His righteousness in doing it. No claim of His throne has been set aside at all; His glory has been fully met; and now His righteousness is favourable to sinful men.
But no reasoning on man’s part, no influence of natural religion, no exercise of conscience in itself, could ever arrive at this knowledge. But being revealed it is known to faith, and to faith only. Our works or our conduct have nothing to do with it; it is purely and altogether a question of how God has revealed Himself, and of the character in which faith knows Him. Hence it is written, “But the just shall live by faith”. It is rather striking that Paul should bring in this scripture, which suggests that the faith principle is something to live by. It is not simply that one is justified by faith at some particular moment, when one believes the glad tidings, but the one who is in the place of a just man with God lives on that principle. He has continuously before him the righteousness of God, and the way in which God has dealt with sin in the death of Christ. He is thus maintained in self-judgment with an abiding sense of the ground on which he is with God. It is the foundation and secret of true piety, and of a holy, happy life. If we do not know the righteousness of God thus, there can be no solid peace, and no true enjoyment of His love.
There is not the slightest toleration of unrighteousness with God. On the contrary, “There is revealed wrath of God from heaven upon all impiety, and unrighteousness of men”. That wrath was revealed at Calvary, when the holy Sin-bearer was forsaken by God. The unrighteousness of men came before God there in its totality, as taken up in grace by Him who was personally the righteous One, and the wrath of God was upon it. What men deserved has come upon One [p. 461] who took it up as sent by God for that very purpose, and in His bearing it, it has been revealed that unrighteousness must come under the wrath of God. The wrath of God upon all unrighteousness in the vicarious judgment-bearing of Christ on the cross is the foundation on which God’s righteousness can be known in the way of grace, but it is also the solemn witness of what will come upon men if they continue in unrighteousness and do not obey the glad tidings. We need to have the truth of this deeply laid in our souls in these days when men have such loose and human thoughts of mercy, grace and love.
The thought of mercy and grace has been gathered from Scripture, but in men’s minds these things are divorced from what happened at Calvary, and the truth is really held in unrighteousness. The heathen, the moralist and the Jew all have some measure of truth; the Christian as having the Scriptures has the whole truth; but all, apart from divine calling, hold it in unrighteousness. If men speak or think of the love of God in such a way as to lose sight of the reality of His wrath, they hold the truth in unrighteousness. The fact is that His love is known through His beloved Son having come as Man to drink the awful cup of atoning sorrows, and to bear the wrath due to unrighteousness. It is on this ground that righteousness comes in for guilty men. “But to those that are contentious, and are disobedient to the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and distress, on every soul of man that works evil, both of Jew first, and of Greek” (Romans 2: 8, 9).
At the cross we see heaven’s estimate of unrighteousness. If men do not avail themselves of the righteousness of God for blessing, on the ground of Christ’s judgment-bearing, they will most assuredly have to undergo for themselves “wrath, in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who shall render to each according to his works” (Romans 2: 5, 6).