What is the BREASTPLATE of RIGHTEOUSNESS? | Theocast

The Imputation of Righteousness and the Believer’s Security

So, thinking in these terms about what the imputation of righteousness is, and what justification even is, and how we are righteous before the Lord, I think that helps us a ton when we come to a passage like Ephesians 6 and understanding what in the world is being discussed here, and how it is that we would have peace and security before God now, forever, in spite of the fact that Satan fires darts at us all the time and accuses us left and right.

I mean, righteousness is a great way for him to take us out. I mean, there's two forms of this, Justin. There is the person who understands they're not righteous, and they're being pointed to their own efforts.

When Satan goes, you're not very faithful, you're right, and they give up, they quit. Or there's the other side of it, where they feel like they're crushing it, and Satan just fuels that. And it sounds like this, wow, look at how well you're doing, and look at these people who don't take the gospel serious and don't take God serious.

You should question their salvation. You should go teach them the law. It produces in us an imbalance of the law. You should talk about law and duty all the time until these people get it in gear. And none of these things produce good things.

And for the anxious soul, like you said, it's despair. It's like, man, Satan's right. But it creates the person who has the self-righteousness, because we think Satan's attacks are going to always be negative.

Oh, no, they'll be to the affirmative. They will feed your pride. They'll feed the flesh. You'll get so high, when you topple over, it's a horrible fall. And we've both seen this in our ministries, where people in their self-righteousness build themselves so up that they walk away from the faith because the fall is so hard.

So this is why the absolute pounding of the desk that it's Jesus' righteousness on our behalf protects us from our own pride, and it protects us from fear that we haven't done enough because Jesus did enough.

What's the antidote to despair and to self-righteousness?

It's this.

Christ for Us in the Armor of God

It's Jesus for us. Let's just survey some of the words that are in the text. I'm going to just fly through this and rip for a second, and then you interact with anything.

You want.

So I can remember, again, it's been a few years ago now, preaching this text. There's a section where I wanted rhetorically to just pull out, because how often have you heard this too, where teaching on this, and it's not illegitimate to do, because you even, I think, are doing a little bit of this because you're zooming in on particular pieces.

But there often, sadly, has been much more made about, well, here's the armor that a Roman soldier would have worn, and let's talk 12 points about the helmet, and 12 points about the breastplate, and 12 points about the sandals, and exactly how they were made, and why they were effective for battle.

That's what we discuss, rather than actually talking about what in the world would these things be for the believer. So fasten on the belt of truth. Whose truth? That's so important. The truth about what?

That's right.

The Breastplate of Righteousness Belongs to Christ

Next, put on the breastplate of righteousness.

Whose righteousness?

Again, like we've been alluding to. Whose righteousness is that? Yours, John? Mine?

That's right.

It's like, we're going to wage war against the devil and all the principalities of darkness with our righteousness? I do not think so. Or your truth?

Exactly.

Live your truth? Next, put on the gospel of peace. Now whose gospel is that?

Exactly.

And who did it? We talk about that all the time too. Believers don't do the gospel. One person did the gospel. His name is Jesus. And he accomplished it. Next, take up the shield of faith.

Oh, faith.

What's faith? Faith is, by definition, it's an empty hand, and it is looking away from one's self to another. That is what faith is. It's in the object of something outside of yourself. It has nothing to do with you or anything that you have ever done or might do.

It has everything to do with Jesus and the object of your faith. Take up the helmet of salvation. Again, whose salvation? Who accomplished it? The scripture says salvation belongs to the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord.

Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of who?

God.

God.

And who is that word about? It's about Christ. So Paul's like, look, we don't battle against flesh and blood. We battle against the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers of this present darkness, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

And it's like, look, we are in over our heads. We better put on Christ.