The righteousness of God

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished--he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law (Romans 3:19-28).

The end of October celebrates the anniversary of the Reformation. The heart of the Reformation is understanding the righteousness of God. Correctly understanding God’s righteousness is what took the reverend doctor Martin Luther from being a guilt-ridden monk and made him a confident reformer and pastor of the Christian church. Correctly understanding the righteousness of God is what lifts us from the filthy muck of our sins and guilt and shows us the joyful truth that Jesus has cleansed us and made us presentable to stand before our God, unafraid of His anger.

Righteousness is not the same as holiness. God is holy—that means there is nothing evil or corrupt about Him. But righteousness is something different. Righteousness is about how God reacts to sin.

God is perfect, and He finds the imperfection of sin to be intolerable. We live in a world that is infested with sin everywhere you look; since it is so much a part of everybody’s lives, most people don’t get too shook up over sin--unless they are the victim of someone else’s sin. Then it becomes a big deal, because it now affects them personally. But for the most part, the people of our world don’t get too excited about violating God’s expectations (if they can get away with it).

The reason that God takes sin so seriously is because of what we read in 1 John 4:16. The evangelist tells us that "God is love". Such a simple phrase to describe such an important truth. God is love. Think about the implications. We know that God created everything; in Colossians chapter 1 Paul writes, "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Without God, no one would be alive. Without God, there would be no world to live in. And without God, no one would ever experience love.

How important is love? It’s more important than life--more people commit suicide because they feel unloved than for any other reason. Love is crucial in order for us to be happy—notice that more songs are written about love than about any other subject. Are workaholics praised for loving their jobs more than their families? Of course not. We’re kidding ourselves if any of us think that there is anything more important than love.

But let’s be clear—love is not just an emotion. Love is more than attraction or affection or finding happiness in the company of another. Love is service. Love is caring. Love is commitment to serving and caring for another person, even when that caring service leads to unpleasant things like visiting a sick friend in the hospital, disciplining a willful child, or admitting that you were wrong in order to save a marriage from divorce. Love is wonderful, but it comes with obligations—love can be hard.

God is the source of love. He knows better than any of us what true love entails, and it infuriates Him to see people act without love towards each other. When we get into fights over foolish, earthly things, we fail to show loving care. When we wonder what it would be like to have an intimate relationship with someone that we are not married to, we violate the commitment of love. When we cheat or steal from another person, we act without love. When we speak badly about others, when we plot and plan how to get the advantage over others, we are not serving in love.

And what is the effect of these loveless acts? Pain, anger, bitterness, loneliness, and despair. The very things you would not dream of doing to a person that you loved if you were in your right mind. But we are not in our right minds. God created mankind with right minds, but sin has twisted our thinking, corrupted our morals. There is an old saying that "you always hurt the one you love". It’s a true statement—everyone that we love, we love in an imperfect, twisted way, and it is the corruption of our tainted love that causes the hurt.

Is it any wonder, then, that God finds sin to be detestable? Every moment of every day, God looks in love on the humans He has created, and sees them trampling on his gift of love as they constantly hurt each other by their sinful thoughts, words and deeds.

I said earlier that righteousness is how God reacts to sin. To us, it would seem perfectly natural that God’s reaction would be to just incinerate the world and its people in cleansing flame and be done with it. But God is perfect in every way. He is perfectly holy, which means that He cannot tolerate sin. And our God is perfect in His love for us—He does not want to see anyone lost forever in the corruption and despair of sin’s control, and He has been willing to make whatever sacrifice is needed to remove us from the doom of sin.

The sacrifice that God made out of love for us was in sending His holy Son Jesus to be the bearer of our sins. The righteousness of God—His reaction to sin—demanded that two things be done. Sin must be punished severely, and mankind must be offered a way to escape God’s terrible punishment on sin. Jesus did both for us. From the beginning of time, God had in mind exactly how Jesus would satisfy the righteousness of God, and God announced this plan of salvation through the Law and the prophets, the writings of the Old Testament. Jesus came among us to take upon Himself God’s punishment of our evil deeds. Jesus Himself was sinless; Jesus Himself loved perfectly. And that perfect love led Jesus to accept every bit of His Father’s angry judgment upon human sin, a judgment that resulted in the death of our promised savior.

But Jesus’ death was not the end of the story. Jesus not only dealt with the pain of sin, He also overcame the death that is the result of sin. Paul tells us "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Death is the result of living in the grasp of sin. But since Jesus suffered for all of us the death that comes from sin, we need no longer fear death. Jesus Himself rose from the grave to prove to us that the power of sin is broken forever. With the power of sin destroyed, death lost its grip on Jesus. And we can hope for freedom from sin and death as well.

We can be free of the domination of sin and the eternal death that it brings by trusting in Jesus. Paul tells us, This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. This righteousness, this access to God through the work of His Son, is free; Paul continues, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

"Justified" is a word you don't see used much anymore. To illustrate its meaning, consider the story of Merlin Carothers. He joined the army in World War Two, but got into trouble and was sentenced to five years in prison. Instead of sending him to prison, the judge told Carothers that he could serve out his term by staying in the army for five years instead, but if he ever left the army, he would have to return to prison to finish out the balance of his term. The war ended before the five years were up, so Carothers returned to the judge to find out where he would serve the remainder of his sentence. To his surprise and delight, Carothers was told that he had received a full pardon by President Truman. Carothers was told, "This means that your record is completely clear. Just as if you had never gotten in trouble with the law."

That is how justification before God works. Carothers had still committed his crime, but because of the presidential pardon his criminal record was torn up, destroyed. When we go to Jesus in faith seeking mercy because of our faulty love, God gives us His pardon; because the Son of God forgives us and represents us to His Father as His own brothers and sisters, God the Father treats us as if we had never sinned. And this incredible gift is free. We have done nothing to earn it; Paul reminds us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Jesus forgives us and guarantees us new life after death, purely because He loves us—loves us perfectly.

The righteousness of God is how God reacts to sin. The righteousness of God is His plan of salvation for the human race, the plan whereby sin is treated as the evil thing that it is, but man is offered escape from God’s just wrath. The righteousness of God has been played out in the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. The righteousness of God is His free gift—to Martin Luther, to you, to me, to all who believe in Jesus as the only rescuer from sin and unending death.