"Just and Righteous" Conclusion Review of Justification and Righteousness

"Just and Righteous"

-Conclusion-

Review of Justification and Righteousness

"And lest the shadow of a spot should on my soul be found,

He took the robe the Savior wrought

and cast it all around!"

(Isaac Watts, "Awake My Heart, Arise My Tongue!")

     

     As we conclude our consideration of justification and righteousness, let us reconsider the major points of the series.

    "Just" and "righteous" reference the same Biblical truth, both words being interpreted from the same Hebrew and Greek root words.

    In their primary meaning, just and righteous refer to rightness, that is, something is as it should be.

    God alone is inherently just and righteous.  All others depend on Him to make them into what they should be, and empower them to do what they should do.

   When we believe in the Lord Jesus, God justifies us and Christ is made to be our righteousness.

   

    In Christ, we are justified and righteous in our spiritual being because God made us to be His habitation, a gift of grace fulfilled when the Spirit of the Lord Jesus enters our spirit in the new birth.

    The indwelling Holy Spirit makes possible our bearing "the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ."  We are not only justified and righteous in Christ.  We may  think, speak, act, and relate accordingly through the power of the Holy Spirit.

    We can still, however, walk after the flesh rather than after the Spirit.  In our present life, a "law of sin" still inhabits our earthly humanity inherited from Adam.  Thus, we can be righteous in our innermost being through the presence of Christ, but nevertheless live in contradiction to who we are in Him.

     Increasing knowledge of the righteousness of Christ and our righteousness in Him makes far more likely our walking in a manner that corresponds with our being.  Thus, we are called to reckon, or account as true the fact of our justifying relationship with the Lord Jesus. 

     God calls us to live in expectation of revealed righteousness based upon our received righteousness in Christ.  This involves our ultimate glorification and our day by

 day walk of grace through faith in our present lives.

    

    We exist because God made us.  We exist rightly because He indwells and changes us when we trust the Lord Jesus.  We walk accordingly as we grow in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, and in His righteous presence within us.  To be just means that we have been justified by the Just One.  To be righteous means that we have been made righteous through Christ being made our righteousness.  Our Father spiritually enrobes us with the rightness of His Son when we believe, thereby reconstituting us as a "new man, created in righteousness and true holiness" (Ephesians 4:24).  Such truth is true for believers regardless of whether we live accordingly or not.  Certainly, however, we long to walk in righteousness, even as we live in Christ's righteousness.  Too much was sacrificed for believers to fail to avail ourselves of so great a Gift, provided by so great a cost…

"He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."

(II Corinthians 5:21)

Next - Addendum  The Cost

Weekly Memory Verse    

   He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved.

(Psalm 62:6)