Christ, The Righteousness of God

The Bible reveals Christ as “God's everything.” He Himself is the very essence of all we need. Therefore we dare not separate Christ from His gifts. We saw last week how that Christ is God's wisdom. He is Wisdom personified, Wisdom incarnate. This divine wisdom comprehends the other three things listed in v. 30, “righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.”

The truth that “Christ is made unto us righteousness” touches on the doctrine of justification. This doctrine is the very pillar of Christianity. It is the truth that God used to spark the great Protestant Reformation and the awakening in Northampton, MA in the 1730's under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards. It is a truth taught clearly in both the Old and New Testaments. Let us understand it and then glory in it. A defective understanding here will cause us to go awry on other doctrines.

Christ is all the righteousness you will ever need! Do you know that you have been ‘justified'? Can you truthfully say, “The Lord, MY righteousness”? What if you actually heard Jesus say to you (as He said to the paralytic man) “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee”? Would that make you surer of your standing than just believing what God has said in His Word (Ps. 138:8)?

“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness…
On Christ the solid Rock I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.”