THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS

We bring to your attention one of the most hated and despised truths of God’s Word, which is the imputed righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Webster’s Dictionary we find that the word impute means “to give to another person the credit or blame.”

The imputed righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ strips a person, who is trusting in his own self-righteousness for salvation, of all the security he has and leaves him with no foundation to stand on. This truth knocks the props from under a self-righteous person, because “Salvation is of the Lord.” (Jonah 2:9) For anyone to deny or disbelieve the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, and trust in his own righteousness, is to split the difference between heaven and hell.

In the third chapter of Genesis, we find that Eve disobeyed God’s command and Adam was a partaker of this disobedience. Their eyes were then opened to the fact that they were naked (guilty, depraved sinners) before God. Immediately they sewed fig leaves together to make aprons for themselvs. They were made to see that they did not possess any righteousness of their own. So they attempted to cover their spiritual nakedness with their own hands, that is, by their works.

Reader, are you trusting in your good works or your church membership for salvation? If so, this is a form of fig leaves, spiritually speaking. Baptism, Bible study, hymn singing, tithing, church work, giving out tracts or religious literature, etc., is all a form of fig leaves when salvation is concerned. God’s Word is very plain. In Eph. 2:8, 9 we read, “For by grace (unmerited mercy) are ye saved through faith (in Christ) ; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Can a depraved sinner come to Christ for salvation by his own will and choice? He can attend church and become religious, but will be seek Christ as Lord and Savior? In Eph. 2:1 we find these words: “And you hath He (God) quickened (brought to life) who were dead in trespasses and sins.” The apostle Paul was writing to believers in the church at Ephesus and explaining to them how God had dealt with them before they were saved. In their natural state, the Ephesians were “dead” spiritually, as are ALL men. The individuals whom God intends to save He “quickens” from their spiritual deaths, thus giving them the ability and desire to seek Christ as their Lord and Savior.

We do not mean that if a man is “dead” spiritually he is also dead to the extent that he can’t possess human kindness, rear a family, work out great mathematical problems, be industrious, etc. Such qualities, however, do not merit salvation. Man by nature is spiritually dead and he cannot move one half inch toward Christ. God’s Word says so. A spiritually dead man can no more move toward Christ for salvation than a corpse can move out of its casket. Hear the words of Christ, “No man can come to Me except the Father which sent Me draw him.” (John 6.44)

The fig leaf aprons Adam and Eve made to cover their sinfulness were not acceptable in God’s sight. In order for Adam and Eve to get back in communion with God, they must be clothed from God’s own hands. “And so, unto Adam and also to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them.” (Gen. 3:23) The first sinners required a divinely-provided garment that they might be made fit for God’s presence, thus all sinners must be clothed in the righteousness of Christ before they can be clean and undefiled before God.

In Romans 3:23 we find the natural condition of man: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” In the next three verses (24-26) we find what God does to a believer: “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation (appeasement) through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness; that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”

Notice in the 25th verse where it says, “His (Christ’s) righteousness for the remission of sins.” Here is God’s consistency with His own law and holiness, in freely justifying a sinner who believes in Christ. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.” (Rom. 10:4) “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith (in Christ) without the deeds of the law.” (Rom. 3:27, 28)

In closing, we would add that the imputed righteousness of Christ does not give a believer a license to sin. Never! For in Romans 6:15, 16 we read, “Shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid, now ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”

A true believer can say, as Paul said in Gal. 2:20, “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.”

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