CHRIST, THE END OF THE LAW FOR (GOD'S) RIGHTEOUSNESS


For Christ [is] the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. (Romans 10:4)

The Bible abundantly declares that God is perfectly and infinitely holy and righteous in all of His ways and in His eternal Being. Here are just a few verses of many, which are too many to list here:

I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high. (Psalm 7:17)

And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness. (Psalm 9:8)

The fear of the LORD [is] clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the LORD [are] true [and] righteous altogether. (Psalm 19:9)

And my tongue shall speak of thy righteousness [and] of thy praise all the day long. (Psalm 35:28)

According to thy name, O God, so [is] thy praise unto the ends of the earth: thy right hand is full of righteousness. (Psalm 48:10)

To show that the LORD [is] upright: [he is] my rock, and [there is] no unrighteousness in him. (Psalm 92:15)

Righteous [art] thou, O LORD, and upright [are] thy judgments. Thy testimonies [that] thou hast commanded [are] righteous and very faithful....Thy word [is] true [from] the beginning: and every one of thy righteous judgments [endures] forever. (Psalm 119:137-138, 160)

The LORD [is] righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. (Psalm 145:17)

O righteous Father, the world has not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. (John 17:25)

And I heard the angel of the waters say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus....And I heard another out of the altar say, Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous [are] thy judgments. (Revelation 16:5,7)


As God's creation, we are to glorify God and to live our lives in that same perfect righteousness:

For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you* may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:2)


Moreover, God declares that there are serious eternal consequences, namely, eternal death and destruction, for even the slightest unrighteousness against Him in our lives:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness... (Romans 1:18)

But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath... (Romans 2:8)

For the wages of sin [is] death.... (Romans 6:23a)

That they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. (2 Thessalonians 2:12)


Further, the Bible declares that, not only do we all fall short of the glory and righteousness of God, but we are desperately separated from God by our selfish wickedness. That's every single one of us, no exceptions:

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that does good, no, not one. Their throat [is] an open sepulchre [grave/tomb]; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps [is] under their lips: Whose mouth [is] full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet [are] swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery [are] in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. (Romans 3:10-18)


Thus, it is completely impossible for us to please God, we are fully committed to our sinfulness and unable to be holy and righteous, yet we are accountable to God for our sins.

Sadly, our sinful situation exists even if we were to conscientiously and diligently try to keep God's perfect Law. Our sin nature gets in the way regardless of how devoted we might be to doing the will of God of ourselves. It is a hopeless endeavor to live perfectly righteously in our fallen state. All the Law can do is show us how sinful we are compared to the righteousness of God. So, regardless of whether we live full-on in our sins, or carefully try to live to please God, we will fall far short and under the condemnation of eternal death. Romans 3 continues:

Now we know that whatsoever things the law says, it saith to those who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law [is] the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:19-20)


The more we might try to become righteous, or the more we might believe we are righteous of ourselves, the more unrighteous we become before God -- because the faux righteousness that we muster up within our deeply fallen spiritual state is born from innate pride and not from humility. It is not the true righteousness of God regardless of how holy we seem to be to ourselves or to others.

We see this truth demonstrated through the lawyers, scribes and Pharisees of Jesus' day who attempted to rigorously keep the Law of God. All that served to do was to build pride and hypocrisy:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you* are like unto whited sepulchres [tombs/graves], which indeed appear beautiful outward but are within full of dead [men's] bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so you* also outwardly appear righteous unto men but within you* are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. (Matthew 23:27-28)

And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men [are], extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as [his] eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified [rather] than the other: for every one who exalts himself shall be abased; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. (Luke 18:9-14)


The more we are exposed to the Law of God, the more it exposes our sinfulness, the more we are apt to rebel and become even more sinful against it. Our fallen spiritual nature is so sinister that the more we hear of the Law of God, the more we twist it to justify ourselves, the more we are actually repelled from it:

And the commandment, which [was ordained] to life, I found [to be] unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew [me]. Wherefore the law [is] holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. (Romans 7:10-13)


God explains that before we are saved, we are spiritually like the naked demoniac (demon-possessed man) who dwelled among the tombs and was in such a mad rage that he could not be restrained with chains:

And when he [Jesus] was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had [his] dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any [man] tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones. (Mark 5:2-5)


Of course, once he encountered the living Christ and the redemption that only comes from Him, we see a complete change in his life:

But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him.... (Mark 5:6)


And when the locals who knew of him heard it, they came out to see the great change that had come about:

And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. (Mark 5:15)


Similarly, we cannot be conformed by the Law of God to become righteous by our own efforts, it will simply drive us further into sinfulness. Yet, ignoring God's Law and living willfully in sin digs the hole deeper for us as well. We are in a woeful, desperate state, we are effectively hedged in by the sinfulness of our sin, that regardless of whether we brush aside God's Law or try to keep it to the letter, we fall short and are found guilty. Such is our sinfulness and the infinite holiness of God.

We simply cannot attain to the infinite and eternal level of the righteousness and holiness of God as declared in the law of God throughout the Bible. It is absolutely and utterly impossible. And to make matters worse, in the spiritual darkness of our fallen nature, we cannot even begin to comprehend it:

And the light shines in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:5)


If God left it at that, we would forever be locked in and there would just be no remedy for anyone to escape eternal death.

Thankfully and wonderfully, Christ tells us in the Bible that He came to call, not the righteous, but sinners to repentance and faith in Him:

But go ye and learn what [that] means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Matthew 9:13)

When Jesus heard [it], he said unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Mark 2:17)

Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21)


As stated, none of us can ever be righteous of ourselves. We are all desperate sinners. The point here is that those who think they are righteous of themselves, who are actually not righteous, are rejected for their self-righteous disposition. Yet those who disregard God's commandments altogether are also rejected in their sins. We must recognize that we are unrighteous sinners under the wrath of God unto eternal death and destruction before we can recognize our serious need for salvation in Christ, for the salvation that only He can provide. Only then can we truly possess the righteousness of God completely through His work on our behalf. It is His work, it is His righteousness that we need, not our own.

It is only in this context, then, that God can speak of anyone as righteous before Him in His Word. This is what Jesus is all about. We must possess the righteousness of God in Christ, not our own "righteousness" (so-called, falsely), nor can we continue in sin against God and hope to find eternal life.

Jesus died for His people, He became a curse on our behalf, He became sin for us if we are saved, if we are His, that He might become the righteousness of God for us:

Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this [is] His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (Jeremiah 23:5-6)

That is, we become saved through Christ's righteousness completely apart from keeping the righteousness of the Law of God to which we cannot possibly adhere in our sinful, fallen state. Thus, Christ fulfills the law in us by the Spirit of Christ, through faith in Him, not in the letter of the Law in a vain attempt to keep it perfectly ourselves:

But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not [in] the oldness of the letter. (Roman 7:6)

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death....That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:2,4)

This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?....But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. (Galatians 3:2, 5:18)


Thus, it is only in and through Christ alone and His work at the cross that we have the hope of redemption and eternal life. Christ Himself is the Essence of eternal Life, He alone has immortality:

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)

Who [Jesus] only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto.... (1 Timothy 6:16a)


So it is only through complete union with Christ that we, too, can possess eternal life as He dwells within us by His Spirit and we in Him through His Word, the Bible. He Himself must become our righteousness in order for us to possess the righteousness of God. That is, Christ Himself IS the righteousness of God that we so desperately need, He Himself IS our eternal life, our immortality, without Whom we cannot exist throughout eternity. All of this requires that we become born again through the Spirit based on Christ's work. It requires a new heart and a new spirit within us giving us the desire to do the will of God in our lives according to the Spirit and not according to the letter. And all of this can only be by the action of Christ Himself, not by our own doing.

Please read the following passages carefully as they declare this Truth again and again. We need God's righteousness in Christ, not our own, false righteousness where we attempt to keep the Law, nor where we completely cast out the righteousness of God by willfully living in sin:

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:...Whom God has set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, [I say], at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-22, 25-26)

But to him that works not, but believes on him [Jesus] who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describes the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputes righteousness without works.... (Romans 4:5-6)

For if by one man's [Adam's] offence 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. Therefore as by the offence of one [judgment came] upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one [the free gift came] upon all men unto justification of life....That as sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:17-18, 21)

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit....And if Christ [be] in you, the body [is] dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:4,10)

What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. (Romans 9:30-31)

For they [national Israel] being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ [is] the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believes. (Romans 10:3-4)

But of him [God] are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: (1 Corinthians 1:30)

For he [God] has made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (Ephesians 4:24)

And be found in him [Christ], not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: (Philippians 3:9)

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5)

Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: (1 John 2:1)


So, to restate in conclusion, we must find and possess the righteousness of God in the living Jesus Christ through His Word, not futily attempt to "get right" with God by trying to keep the Law, nor by ignoring the Law altogether in our sins, both of which will only doom us to eternal death according to the sentence of the Law which condemns us to death for any and all sin.

As God wills, we can only find Christ in and through the Bible, the Word of God, to know Him and to commune with Him therein unto life eternal. The only way to find the kingdom of God (Christ being King), the righteousness of God and to possess eternal life is through Him and His work, through His atoning shed blood at Calvary and His resurrection on behalf of His people -- through faith alone in the living Christ alone if He be pleased to pardon us of all our transgressions and to draw us unto Himself.

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)

For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Romans 1:17)

For [there is] one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; (1 Timothy 2:5)


7.30.2023