What is righteousness?

Righteousness is used for that which is the fulfilment of obligation, and acting according to what is due (and in this sense is true even of God), and satisfies that judicial estimate, but also for the just estimate itself too — the righteous Lord loves righteousness. In every case its measure is consistency with the relationship in which we stand: in God, consistency with Himself and His own perfection, while maintaining the obligations of those relationships in which He has placed us.

It is hard for us to believe that all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and that there is not one righteous in God's sight. We might argue that surely there are a few; but God says, "Not one." This does not mean there are no honest men among men, but that not one of us has given God His rights. It would only be right that we should love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind. But no one has done so, therefore no one is righteous before God.

He does not say, the love or the mercy of God, but His righteousness: because, as we have seen, without the permission of righteousness love and mercy cannot act; every act of God must be justified by all His attributes. No sinner was ever afraid of the love of God, or of His mercy; His righteousness is another thing. So it is exactly the righteousness of God which, if it can be revealed in a gospel — in good news to sinners — gives us something with real power to save.

"That He might be just." Who is He? Is it Christ just, or is it not God just by virtue of Christ?… It is, therefore, "the righteousness of God," without a hint of transferring to us the legal righteousness of Christ. It is by virtue of Christ, or God could not be thus righteous on behalf of the sinner. Redemption is the righteous groundwork. The blood of Christ deserves at God's hands that the believer should be justified, and God Himself is just in so justifying him.

If righteousness is imputed, it needs no argument to prove that the one to whom it is imputed had no hand in it. It comes by faith, and not by works. "God imputes righteousness without works." It is by faith, but faith in what Another has done.

The question is: How can a righteous God justify sinners? Well, the proof and testimony of God's righteousness is that He has set Christ at His own right hand. When Christ had perfectly glorified God, and that as made sin on the cross, God places Him at His own right hand in heaven; and there only do I see righteousness. But this work, though perfectly to God's glory, was done for us, so that it is God's righteousness to give us a place with Him. In Christ we are thus made God's righteousness.

The practice of righteousness begins with God and then extends into all life's relationships. No unbeliever can be said to practise righteousness, because they have never begun at the beginning. They do not practise what is right in relation to God. The Word of God teaches practical righteousness in every relationship of life: husband and wife, parent and child, employee and employer, ruler and subject, brother and brother. Righteousness is consistency in any relationship in which we are placed. It must start first with our relationship with God.