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| Preacher |
There is something God wanted. There is something that God was looking for that would make Him happy.
What God wanted was righteousness — but not just any kind of righteousness. The kind of righteousness God was looking for was the King of Righteousness — one that met all the demands of the law and satisfied His impartial justice. That is the kind of righteousness He sought: the kind that fulfilled all the requirements of the law and upheld God’s inflexible justice. The kind of righteousness that God could look at and say, “This is it! I am pleased with it, and it glorifies My throne.”
And that righteousness had to meet the full demands of the law — it was no joke.
When we say “the law,” we don’t just mean the Ten Commandments. There were 613 laws. So the kind of righteousness that God required was one that satisfied all the demands of those laws. The righteousness had to be so perfect that it would satisfy infinite justice.
But that standard of righteousness — Moses did not measure up to it. David did not. Even before the law, Job did not meet that standard. Not Abraham, not Noah, not even Enoch, not Daniel, not Joseph — none of them.
Yet when you read the Bible, it tells us that some of these men were righteous. The Bible says some of them were blameless.
Although they were called righteous and blameless, those words were used in a limited and relative sense — not in an absolute sense.
So when it comes to absolute righteousness, the Bible says, “There is none righteous” (Romans 3:10).
But when it comes to limited or relative righteousness, that is what we see some of them described as.
In any case, even that limited righteousness was based on the sacrifices of the old covenant.
So when it comes to the kind of righteousness that satisfies infinite justice — God’s inflexible standard — there has been none since Adam. Everyone fell short, except one man who appeared on the scene: God in the flesh — our Lord Himself, Jesus Christ.
He was the only man who satisfied God’s impartial justice and fulfilled all the demands of the law.
Jesus didn’t just satisfy the law — He magnified the law and made it honorable (Isaiah 42:21).
In a limited sense, there is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The law was so high, but when Jesus came, the Pharisees had brought it down to a level they could keep. They had even added their own extra laws — about 3,000 of them — and so the law had lost its pristine glory.
But when Jesus came, He magnified the law. What the law hadn’t even mentioned in its spirit, He fulfilled.
Can you imagine that all His living, all His perfection, all His standard of righteousness — when you receive Christ, it is given to you as a gift? Not only that, it is imputed into your spiritual bank account.
Romans 4:22–24:
“And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.
[23] And this declaration was not just spoken over Abraham,
[24] but also over us. For when we believe and embrace the One who brought our Lord Jesus back to life, perfect righteousness will be credited to our account as well.”
That’s why it’s called a gift.
Romans 5:17 says:
“For if by one man’s offense death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.”
It’s a gift that is given and credited to your account.
Romans 3:21–22 says:
“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
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.”
That means it is a great gift. That’s why, when this gift is given to you, you become like Christ in the Father’s eyes.
That’s why He calls us obedient children.
1 Peter 1:14–16 says:
“As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:
But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;
Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”
But some people ignore this kind of righteousness and instead pursue their own righteousness — which is called self-righteousness.
Self-righteousness means doing things to make yourself righteous instead of receiving God’s righteousness. It’s doing good, wonderful, even spiritual things, instead of accepting what Jesus has done.
So there are people who are saved, yet they are self-righteous.
If you are not conscious of God’s gift of righteousness, you become self-righteous — wanting God to accept you based on what you do. That’s self-righteousness.
God’s justice is inflexible. What God wanted was not 99% righteousness. If you say you are going by your own righteousness and you are 90% righteous, you still attract all the curses. Because if you break one law, you’ve broken them all.
Anytime you try to rely on your own good works for God to bless you, you are walking in self-righteousness — and you have already come under a curse (Galatians 3:10).
But when you receive Jesus’ righteousness, all the blessings that come with that righteousness follow you.
So, it’s either you embrace the gift of righteousness and live by faith — or you try to earn it on your own.
But how did this all happen? On what foundation could we receive the gift of righteousness?
Righteousness comes both as a gift and as a birth. How do we receive this gift, and how are we born to become the righteousness of God? It is through the Cross.
2 Corinthians 5:21 — look at this verse carefully, because even in heaven this truth will still be proclaimed. The reason Jesus came to this earth was because of righteousness. The reason He went to the Cross was for one reason — righteousness — so that we would become His righteousness.
“For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
It is sad that there is a group in the U.S. called the Barna Group, an evangelical Christian polling firm based in Ventura, California. They did a study and found that 61% of Americans believe that Jesus was not sinless, 45% of professing Christians believe that Jesus actually sinned, and 42% of Americans believe that Jesus is not the only way to salvation — that there are other ways. But what saddens my heart most is that 25% of them believe that Jesus Christ was not sinless.
It means they are not saved. They don’t even have a revelation of who Jesus is.
Jesus is God. He came in the flesh, but not as we were born in the flesh.
He came in the flesh because of His preexistent existence — for without Him was not anything made that was made (John 1:3–4).
Colossians 1:17 says, “He was before all things, and by Him all things consist.”
This is Jesus. And there is a reason He left eternity and stepped into time — because He had no sin.
Paul said, “He knew no sin.”
Peter said, “He did no sin.”
John said, “In Him is no sin.”
Pilate said, “I find no fault in Him.”
And Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Which of you convinces Me of sin?” (John 8:45–47).
