The Righteousness of God in Christ Jesus — Alan Martin

The Righteousness of God Revealed in the Gospel

If you have your Bibles and you want to follow me, you want to turn with me, I'm going to read a passage from Romans chapter one, because I'd like us to contemplate this morning the righteousness of God that's revealed in the gospel.

The righteousness of God is revealed in Jesus Christ. And I'm not sure that we can exhaust the topic of God's righteousness, but we can sure contemplate it. We can sure look at it from its varying aspects, because it's multifaceted.

But in Romans chapter one, starting with verse 16, Paul wrote, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God, for the salvation of everyone who believes, for Jew first and also for the Greek.

For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. So the righteousness of God is revealed in the good news of Jesus Christ. Well, what is revealed?

We know it's a righteousness of faith. Let's look at the term, this righteousness. Righteousness is that which is right in the sight of God. And when we think about righteousness, there's several things you can think.

The Testimony of Righteousness by Faith

One of the first things that may come to your mind is there is none righteous, no, not one. That's a term that Paul actually used in Romans, because he was writing to a people who tended to put their trust in keeping the law, thinking that their righteousness would come from specifically keeping the commandments of God.

And he had to make clear they knew there is no way to obtain righteousness that way. There is none righteous, no, not one. But you have to balance that statement, because if you take that statement out of its context and you don't understand why Paul made it, then you have other issues in scriptures, because in the Old Testament and the New Testament, God called many men and some women righteous, beginning with Abel, righteous Abel.

You read about righteous Abel in the New Testament. Then there's Noah. Noah was a righteous man and blameless in the eyes of God in his generation. And we read about the righteousness of Job. We read about the righteousness of Samuel.

We read about the righteousness of David, a man after God's own heart. We read about the righteousness of the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel. We read about the righteousness of men like Daniel in the Bible.

There's the righteousness of men like Ezra, a priest fully devoted in his heart to keeping the commandment of the Lord. And Nehemiah, the man who God used to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. Of all of these men, God speaks of them as righteous.

And in the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 11, we understand that these men had one thing in common. And I'll tell you what, one thing they didn't have in common is none of them never made a mistake. God is not saying by calling them righteousness that they never committed a sin.

What he's saying, and we learned from Hebrews, is the one thing they had in common that obtained for them the testimony that they were pleasing to God and God counted that as righteousness is that they had faith.

They were men who believed God, like Abraham, who I didn't mention, the famous one, our father in the faith. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. So there are some men before even the law was given, like men like Abel, Noah, Job, others, even before the law, God declared righteous.

And then there are those once the law had given that were considered righteous by God for they sought to walk and keep the law of God. Either way, before the law or doing the law, the one thing they shared in common was they believed in God and they sought to live their life pleasing to God.

They were men and women of faith, like Ruth and Naomi in the Old Testament. And because they believed in God and sought to live their lives pleasing to Him, God considered it righteous. Then we come into the New Testament, or just about that transition, there was a couple, an older couple, living right before the birth of Jesus.

The parents who are the soon to be parents of John the Baptist, Zacharias and Elizabeth. And it says of them that they were righteous in the sight of God, walking in all of his commandments blamelessly.

This is what God said about them. And to them, it was given the promise that they became the parents of John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus Christ, even before Christ was born. And then after Christ came and lived his life, there was a Gentile, a Roman centurion.

You know, we remember him as Cornelius. And Cornelius was a man who an angel of the Lord visited. The Bible says that Cornelius was a man who loved the Jewish people, even though he was a Roman centurion.

And he used funds from his own income and probably some of his own soldiers to build the synagogue for the Jews. And he would often offer up prayers and petitions to God. And the Lord sent him an angel.

And this is what the angel said to him, Cornelius, your prayers and petitions have come up as a memorial before God. God saw them. We need to understand this because there are some people who have taken another statement from the Old Testament out of its context.

Isaiah 64 and the Danger of Taking Scripture Out of Context

And here's the statement that men take out of its context. It's from Isaiah chapter 64, verse six, where Isaiah the prophet is in the middle of a prayer. Isaiah is the one who saw the Lord in the vision, high and lifted up in Isaiah chapter six.

Remember when he saw the Lord in that vision, he said, whoa, to me, I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips. And the Lord in the vision had an angel take a tongue from a coat and take a coal from the altar.

And he touched Isaiah's lips and says, your lips are cleansed now. And then the Lord says, who will go to this people and declare to them for me? And Isaiah said, basically, here am I, send me. And the Lord sent him to this people of Israel.

This generation, who if you read in the first part of Isaiah were a generation that God had tried to correct so many times that they were covered from their feet to the top of their head with bruises from his spankings.

You can see that in Isaiah chapter one and through chapter five. This was a people who continually conformed to the nations around them. They mixed worship of the Lord with worship of idols. They kept the Lord's feast, but they mingled it with pagan practices.

So they had never fully forsaken the Lord. As a matter of fact, several kings had tried to come up with a reform and lead the people to get rid of all the former gods, the pagan gods, and only serve the Lord.

And it seemed like all the people would rally to the king and for a while, get rid of all their idols. And then that king would die and guess what would happen? Right back to the idols again. So their hearts never really changed.

And Isaiah is praying about this people. This people, and here's what he says. All our righteousness is no different than filthy rags. You see what he's, this was the condition of this people. Do not take such statements out of context.

God does not see every good thing that someone like a Cornelius did. God did not see Cornelius's gifts and his service as filthy rags, did he? He said, they've come up to God as a memorial. God does not see treating widows properly as filthy rags.

God does not see the treating of animals properly as a filthy rag. You can't take statements and take them out of context. You have to understand that the Bible is written to a group of people in certain circumstances at certain times.

And if you mistake the context which certain things are spoken and you try to apply it in general, you're going to miss out on the real meaning of it and come up with something that as sincere as it is, leads someone else astray, gives someone bad information.

Righteousness Does Not Come Through the Law

So yes, Paul did say, as we know, that of ourselves, there is none righteous, not one. So because Paul was a Jew and Paul knew that the Jewish people believed that righteousness came from keeping every single commandment in the law of Moses.

And Paul had to make sure they knew it is not possible to experience the righteousness of God. By trying to keep the law. So he made that statement to make sure they would not look to the law, but they would look to the son of God, Jesus Christ, that they might obtain the righteousness of faith.

When Paul was talking about the Jewish people in Romans chapter 10, he said this, he could testify about them that these people were zealous for God, but their zeal was not based upon knowledge for although they didn't know the righteousness of God, which it was in Christ he's talking about, but they sought to establish their own righteousness from the law, they missed.

They didn't submit themselves to the righteousness of God. They rejected Jesus. Remember the Jewish leaders rejected him, even though he was a cornerstone that God sent to build the foundation of the church, the Jewish leaders, the stone that the builders rejected, that's Jesus Christ, he became the chief cornerstone for the righteousness of God that would be by faith.

Well, when Paul says that righteousness will not come from the law, that raises questions for the Jewish person, because in their mind, God had entered into covenant with them and there's words all throughout there that this would be forever eternal to from the time he told them to the day they ceased to exist, they were to walk in these laws.

So they misunderstood the purpose of the law and Paul had to clarify why God gave the law. So Paul explains that the law was strictly made to the Jewish people to keep them in custody. It's like, it's like almost like in foster care to temporary custody.

God put the people of Israel under custody and here how Paul put it. God made his covenant with Abraham, the man of faith who pleased God. God made his covenant with Abraham based upon faith. So the law, which was 400 and something years later, didn't set aside God's covenant with Abraham.

It came as a custodian because the people of Israel did not understand. They didn't really know who the Lord was. They didn't understand him and they especially didn't understand how corrupt all the nations around them were.

And the Lord knew he was bringing them into the promised land but there were other nations there. And the Lord knew they were like children. They needed to be put under guardianship. They needed a guardian, a tutor, someone to be over them until they grew up.

And you know who that someone was? The law. The law became a tutor, a guardian because they didn't know any better. The Lord just says, if you walk this way, if you keep these commandments, if you do these things, it will go well with you.

And it was given for protection. But let me ask you, did they keep, did they stay under the guardian? No, they kept continually rebelling against the guardian. They didn't like the tutor. They kept looking around at the nations around them and they kept disregarding the covenant that God made with them and conforming to the nations around them.

The Law as Custodian Until Christ

And the New Testament reveals why they did that. That the law was weak, not because it wasn't from God. The law was weak for another reason. The law was weak because of sin in the flesh. If you haven't been here among us, let me encourage you.

If you read Romans chapter seven, you will see that the real problem in every single man and woman that has ever lived is the fact that sin entered the world through one man, through Adam. And that sin came to all men.

And every single one of us have been infected by Satan's spiritual virus called the law of sin. And that law of sin in us creates all kinds of desires that are against the law of God. And so the reason the law of God was weak is because all of his people had the law of sin in their members.

And it kept them from walking in the law of God. So God never intended that by living according to the law, someone would become righteous like he desired. The law was just the custodian, the guardian, and he put his own people under the guardian until Jesus came.

Okay, so now you can see why Jesus said this. All the law and the prophets were until John. They were, that's the custodian, that's until they are. Now the kingdom of God has come because Jesus came with something the law did not have.

And you see this in the book of Galatians when Paul is trying to keep the Galatian believers from being convinced to live like a Jew and come underneath the law. Paul explained that the law could not give life.

The law was just commandments, basic principles. They were good principles. They were God's principles. They were the basic of right and wrong. Treat your neighbor right. Treat your wife right. Treat your animals right.

Don't take advantage of the stranger. Be kind to the orphans and the widows. Do what's just. Pay a fair wage. Release your servants if they've freed from their debt. Forgive one another. All of these principles were of God, but they didn't have a life of God.

When Jesus Christ came, he had the very life of God in him. The spirit of God, the power of God, the very nature of God was in Jesus Christ. Never was in the law. So Paul said to the Galatians, well, here's what he said.

Actually, it starts this way. Is the law opposed to the promises of God? Paul being a good Jew says, no way. The law is not opposed to the promises of God. This is in Galatians 3 .21. He says, but if a law had been given that could have imparted life, righteousness would have come from the law.

But the law couldn't impart life. But in that statement, where will the righteousness come from? It must come from the life of God himself. It takes the life of God to produce the righteousness of God in us.

This is why Jesus Christ in him was life and that life was the light of men. Jesus Christ came to bring the life of God to us. Now to take us out from under the custodian of the law, out of the guardianship of the law and to bring us into a relationship with his father, where the life of God himself through the Holy Spirit living in us will begin to produce in us something the law could never produce as long as the law of sin was there, warring against it.

Freedom From Sin Through the Spirit of Life

In Christ, something happens. When you're just had the law and you want to try to keep it, but you're still under the control of the law of sin, you've come to the same place that Paul did when he wrote in Romans 7.

What place did he come to? Most of y 'all can know and say it with me. Oh, wretched man that I am. It's a wretched place when you feel like you know what you should do, but you don't have any genuine ability to do it.

And you know what you shouldn't do and you don't want to do it, but you keep finding yourself doing it because you don't have the ability to restrain yourself. That's the condition of someone under the law.

But Paul says, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory in Jesus Christ. Because once Christ has come and Christ is filled with the life of God, Christ brings the spirit of God in Christ, the law of the spirit of life in Christ sets us free from the law of sin and death.

Just like the law of power and aerodynamics overcomes the law of gravity. Planes overcome the law of gravity, don't they? Spaceships overcome the law of gravity. They don't cancel it, they're just more powerful.

The more powerful law overcomes the other law. And the law of God's spirit living in us, the life of God, the power of God, the wisdom of God, the very nature of God through the spirit coming to live inside the believer overcomes the law of sin.

And suddenly the believer in Christ has an ability to begin to do what the law says. It's not contrary to the law. Paul said this in Romans chapter three, I think it's 41. Is faith opposed to the law of God?

Absolutely not. Does faith nullify the law of God? No, it establishes the law. What does Paul mean by that? Do you think in Christ, God wants you to stop loving your neighbor as yourself? In Christ, would God didn't care about how you treat your animals?

In Christ, would God not care about you taking care of the orphans and the widows? Of course not. In Christ, literally empowered by the very life of God in us, we are actually able to do those things the law describes.

Faith doesn't nullify the law. It establishes the righteousness of the law. This is what Paul said in Romans chapter eight. Therefore, if any man is in Christ Jesus, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away.

I mean, that's in second Corinthians 5 .17. If anyone is in Christ Jesus, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away. All things become new. And here's what becomes new. You become new in the inside.

A new heart, a new spirit, a new mind, new desires, new power. You're not the same old person under the law knowing what you should do without power to do it. You are a new person in Christ where his life is now giving you power to do what God desires.

The New Covenant and God's Holiness Displayed Through His People

And God said this, this is what he was gonna do way back through the prophets. Let me read this passage to you from Ezekiel chapter, this is chapter 36, starting with verse 22. Therefore say to the house of Israel, says the Lord Yahweh, it's not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm about to act, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you have come.

And the prophet is, the Lord is using the prophet to speak about the new covenant that he's going to make. And here's what the Lord says he's gonna do. I am going to prove the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst.

And then the nations will know that I am Yahweh, declares the Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes. I want you to catch that. What is God gonna do in the new covenant? He's going to show the nations how holy he is through the lives of his people.

Keep that in mind, that's the new covenant. The law couldn't do that. They kept getting out from under the guardianship, but God's gonna do something where he can actually show his holiness through the lives of his people.

Look what he says he's gonna do. I will take you from the nations. I will gather you from all the lands where you've been scattered. I will bring you into your own land and I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean.

I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness, from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart, put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a sensitive heart.

And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and keep my judgments. Do you see that? You see, in other words, I'm gonna make a new people who are not gonna be like my unfaithful people under the law.

My unfaithful people under the law cause my name to be profaned, which means to be made common. It's like they drew trash upon my name everywhere they went. I'm gonna do something so radically dynamic that the people of the world are going to have a chance to see my holiness through the new people I create.

And here's what it's gonna take. I'm gonna give them new hearts, new spirits. I'm gonna put my spirit in them. This is the new covenant. And is it opposed to the law? Remember, I'm asking, is this opposed to the law?

No, because part of this new covenant is I will write my law upon their hearts. I will put my laws in their mind, meaning the spirit of God himself will produce in them a new heart, a new spirit, new desires, and suddenly my people will learn with joy to walk in my ways.

And as the world sees the transformation I do in them, my name will be seen for who I really am. I am holy, my people will be holy. Their conduct will be holy. Their conversations will be holy. Their action will be holy.

And you'll get a true sense of who God is by the dynamic work he does in the lives of his people. This is the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. It does involve, the first thing that it involved is God had to, on his own, take care of the fact that we sinned.

Christ's Death as the Ground of Forgiveness

And you know the decree of God, the soul that sins shall die. The wages of sin is death. God had to take care of that. And you know what, he took care of that on his own. Because that's the sentence every single one of us had.

And how did God take care of it for us? He sent his son and he bore in our bodies, what did he bear? I mean, he bore in his body. What did he bear in his body? He bore our sins in his body. And what did he do with that body for us?

To fulfill the decree of God, what did he do? He died for our sins. Therefore, God is able to keep his own decree that the soul that sins shall die. And Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, takes away the sin of the world.

By the grace of God, he tasted death for every man. And in that death, he redeems us out of slavery of sin. Through faith in him, it's like Jesus likened it to the time that the Israelites were in the desert and they had been murmuring and complaining again.

And the Lord sent venomous serpents among them that were biting the people. And as the people were dying, they realized it was because God was dealing with them harshly. They went to Moses, they cried out for mercy.

They asked the Lord to make the plague of the serpent stop. And the Lord told Moses to make an image of a serpent in a bronze image and to put it up on a pole or tree. And that everyone who looked upon that image would be healed.

They would not die from being bit. Jesus said that in this same way, that's how it should read, in this same way, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish.

So by you and I looking to Jesus' death on the cross, we receive forgiveness for sins. And that's dynamic. God did all of that. And that is a gift. Not one of us could earn it. Not any of us could have obtained it by our merit.

God did it. He did it all. He did it as a gift. And all that you and I need to do is look to Jesus by faith and receive forgiveness of our sins. But it goes beyond just receiving forgiveness. Because when your sins are forgiven, remember all those things God said he's gonna do?

I will cleanse them from all of their uncleanness. I will take their heart of stone out of them. I will put a new heart in them. I will put a new spirit in them. I will write my laws upon their hearts.

I will put my laws in their minds. I will put my spirit in them and inspire them or move them to walk in my ways. Why? So that God's great name will be seen in the new conduct, the new creations in Christ Jesus that God is making.

God will show himself holy to the world by our actions. That's the purpose of Christ's coming. That's the righteousness of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That God sent his son to create a people that he could show himself holy to the world.

Holiness as the Visible Fruit of New Life

That's why even in the New Testament, you'll read in so many places, you be holy because I'm holy. You represent me the way I am. And that holiness is to be in this. Our speech is to be holy. Our actions are to be holy.

Our conduct is to be holy. Empowered by the spirit of God dwelling in us. God showing himself through our conduct to the eyes of the world that he is holy, he is righteous. And just so you'll know this, this is just not the opinion of Pastor Allen.

This is the New Testament. Let's look at it just a few places. If you have your Bibles and you wanna turn, I'm gonna turn to 1 Peter chapter one. 1 Peter chapter one. I'm gonna start with verse 13. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

As obedient children, not conforming yourselves to your former lust as in your ignorance, but just as he who called you is holy, so you also be holy in all your conduct. You see that? In all your conduct be holy.

A wife should be the visible holy conduct to her husband. A husband should be the visible holy conduct to his wife. A mother should be the visible holy conduct to her children. Grandparents should be the visible holiness of God to their grandchildren.

Saints should be the visible holy character and conduct of God to those who watch their lives. This is the New Testament. This is the righteousness of God. It is a righteousness that men should be able to recognize that sets you apart, that you are so different on the job because you represent the name of God.

You are a Christian. You have a new heart. You have a new spirit. God's laws are written on your heart and mind. His spirit lives in you. And the reason you had that job is in everything you do. You do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.

You're always giving God thanks to him. You do that so that everyone at your job sees that God is holy. That's your calling. That's our high calling. And to show you that it is not simply, I'm gonna use this term, a mystical righteousness.

Imputed Righteousness and the Necessity of Fruit

I want you to contemplate that this mystical righteousness, I've never heard it called mystical righteousness. So what do I mean by that? Well, there are some who so emphasize the fact that God grants to us the righteousness of Jesus, that God sees us.

He sees the blood of Jesus on us. That he sees us. Some will say that when he looks at us, he just sees Jesus. He doesn't really see us at all. And there are some that can carry that thought so far that they'll say our conduct doesn't really matter.

It doesn't affect our relationship with God because Jesus is my righteousness. And when God looks at me, he's given me like I'm perfect in Jesus Christ already. There is some truth in that. God does grant us the merit of Jesus Christ.

It is Jesus Christ who purchased our forgiveness, our forgiveness and our atonement. And without Jesus Christ death and blood shed on the cross, there'd be no forgiveness of sins. But God still does see us.

You can see that in the churches of Revelation. There's seven churches in Revelation and the Lord himself, the resurrected Lord himself speaks to them. And you can tell in his interaction with them that he sees what they're doing quite plainly and quite clearly.

And he doesn't see them as perfect. And matter of fact, he addresses some of them. One church specifically, he says, you need to repent because I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of God.

So we have to be careful how far we take this mystical righteousness. Because it's a righteousness that is designed to produce fruit in us. If you make a tree good, its fruit will be good. Listen to this promise in the Old Testament.

God is willing to give us, and this is a beautiful promise for all of us. God is willing to give us beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

And why does God wanna do this? Why does God wanna give us a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness and the oil of joy for mourning and beauty for ashes? Why? So that you might become trees of righteousness, a planting that the Lord has planted so that he might be glorified.

You see what God's saying? I will make the tree good, and then its fruit will be good. And when people taste the good fruit of my spirit in your life, when they taste love, joy, patience, kindness, meekness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, when they taste that, they will see God's goodness through our conduct, and God's name will be honored like he fulfilled, and it will produce actual conduct that's righteous.

Lawlessness, Righteousness, and the Evidence of Knowing Christ

And just to make sure, one other passage before I wrap it up today. It's gonna be shorter today somehow. I don't wanna hear amens on that note. I'm teasing. First John chapter three. This may make more sense.

I hope it makes sense to you now. First John chapter three. I'm gonna start from the verse one so we can get into the meat of it here. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God, and that's what we are.

Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know him. And beloved, we are the children of God, and it doesn't yet appear what we're gonna be, but that we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

And everyone who has this hope in him, everyone who has the hope of seeing Jesus and being like Jesus, everyone with that hope purifies himself as he is pure. And then he goes into this next statement.

Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. For those of you who have wrestled with this passage, let me give you a key. That's the key right there. Sin is lawlessness. And in general, not talking about a specific act, in general, missing the mark is not living according to the law of God.

To miss the mark, to be against God is to disregard his law. That's what sin is. Now he goes on. And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins. What did Jesus Christ come for? Remember, he's the one who brings the life of God.

He's the one who brings the ability to circumcise the old heart, take it out, put in a new heart, cleanse us from all our uncleanliness, put his spirit in us. And so what that removes is that removes the lawlessness from us.

And his spirit, God now at work in us, both the will and the do of his good pleasure begins to move us and enable us to actually live according to the law of God so that all the righteous requirements of the law are fulfilled in those who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

It fulfills the righteousness of God by the life of God working within us, something the law couldn't do. It takes the life of God in Christ in us doing this, but it fulfills living according to God's law.

Sin is lawlessness, and Christ Jesus came to save us from living in a way that disregards God's law. So he goes on. Whoever sins, remember lawlessness, whoever is living a lawless life has never even seen God.

You see that? If you're still living a lawless life, if you're still disregarding the law of God, you haven't even seen him. It's not saying he commits an error. It's not talking about that. It's something more serious.

Sin is lawlessness, and Jesus Christ came to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify to himself a people zealous for good works. And anyone who's living a lawless life, if that's how you're walking, you have never even seen Jesus or known him.