Righteousness in Christ

’TIiat we might be made the righteousness of God IN Him.” — 2 Cor. V. 21. ’ And be found IN Him.” — Phil. iii. 9. pN Him “— clothed in the robe of His imputed |B righteousness, so that the eye of a holy t^=TTrfr-r Q.Q(j ijj looking upon us can see “neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing” (Eph. v. 27).

That is a truth, like some others, discarded in modern theology. It is, nevertheless, one of those divine verities, which, unless we wrest language from its plainest meaning, is everywhere alike implied and asserted in Sacred Scripture. Listen to the utterances of three representative Seers of the Old Testament — Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel. “Surely, shall one say, In the Lord I have righteousness ‘” (Isa. xlv. 24); “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels” (Isa. lxi. i o). “This is His name whereby He shall be called, The Lord our righteousness” (Jer. xxiii. 6). “To finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness” (Dan. ix. 24). The best and loftiest of inspired Hebrew poetry celebrates the same theme. If “the King’s daughter,” in the 45 th Psalm (the nuptial ode of a Greater than Solomon), be regarded as symbolising angelic hosts; peerless among them stands “the Queen in gold of Ophir” (Ps. xlv. 9).

That key-note, thus struck by the prophets and minstrels of the Old Testament, has its cadences prolonged and multiplied in the Gospel Age. Hear our own Apostle — “As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous” (Rom. v. 19). The whole Epistle of the Ptomans, indeed, is a sublime unfolding of the same theme. The righteousness of Christ is the jewel of that most precious casket, — the kernel of that “creed of creeds.” “I am ready,” is the opening sentence of the Ptoman letter, “to preach the Gospel:... FOR, therein is the Righteousness of God revealed “(chap. i. 15-17). In the unfolding of that revelation he begins with a demonstration of the proposition —” There is none righteous, no, not one;” and having established, by an array of irrefragable proofs, the humiliating assertion, — he proceeds to disclose the great end of “God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh “(chap. viii. 3),” that the Righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us “(chap. viii. 4). Thus,” 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 “(chap. v. 1 8). With his loved monogram before him, he can elsewhere tersely sum up the glorious truth —” But of Him are ye IN Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption “(i Cor. i. 30).” Jacob,” says old Thomas Brooks, “got the blessing in the garment of his elder brother. So, in the garment of Christ’s righteousness, who is our Elder Brother, we obtain the blessing, yea all spiritual blessings “m Eim!”

Is it not that same imputed robe, too, which forms the central point in the matchless parable of our blessed Lord? Before either the ring of adoption, or the shoes of liberty were spoken of, the command to the attendant menials is — “Bring forth the best robe and put it on him” (Luke xv. 22). The old ragged raiment of the wanderer is removed, and underneath that * best robe ’ (the choicest of the wardrobe) every scar, and blain, and blemish reminding of the ‘far country,’ is concealed from view.

The gracious lips which uttered the gracious truth in a parabolic form on earth, thus addressed His Ephesian Church from His throne in glory. Under the significant Oriental figure (which we have already referred to in our opening chapter), of a heavenly merchantman with goodly treasures, — costly wares, going from street to street, and from door to door, knocking for admission. He sets forth alike the righteousness that is awanting, and the righteousness that is provided — “And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou may est be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed” (Rev. iii. 17, 18).

Hear, yet again, our Apostle, when he was drawing nigh to the close of his great life, how fondly and lovingly he clings to this sheet-anchor in the gathering storm. The exhortations he had given to others in the past — “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. xiii. 14); “Having on the breastplate of righteousness” (Eph. vi. 1 4), he addresses to himself now. In that glorious garment and panoply he will wrap himself, and so pass unscathed through the swellings of Jordan. “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness y which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day” (2 Tim. iv. 8). Yes, “that day” had its most luminous glories associated with the same transcendent truth — the robe of righteousness, the clothing of wrought gold — “That I may win Him, and be found m Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil. iii. 8, 9).

[Qo IN CHRISTO,

What was Paul’s anticipated glory in “the Day of appearing,” has been that of Christ’s people in every age. At the supreme moment, when the trump of the Archangel shall sound, and the dead small and great shall be sisted at the great assize, the loved and familiar strain of earth will thrill with a new and grander significance —

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me.
Let me hide myself in Thee.”

Will not the wail of ‘Eden lost,’ only with an altered and more glorious meaning, become the first utterance in Eden restored — “I heard Thy voice, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself! “Hid thyself! where? I am found IN HIM:” — “A Man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest” (Isa. xxxii. 2). Nay, when the opened Books of Judgment are closed, when the redeemed multitude which no man can number are seen thronging (like ministering Levites, each in their appointed places) the Heavenly Temple; — and when, in that place of undefined glory where, interweaved, are the figures of Temple and Palace, Priest and King (Rev. vii.), the question is represented as being asked by Angel Spectators — “What are these arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?” The reply is, “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Pwev. vii. 13, 14). That radiant, blissful assemblage will be like Israel at the Exodus, in the borrowed jewels with which they marched out of Egypt and entered Canaan, “earrings of gold, and chains and bracelets of silver.” The old words of earth will form the refrain of the Eternal anthem — “Made the righteousness of God IN Him.” “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun” (in the Sun) “in the kingdom of their Father”^ (Matt, xiii. 43)-

One other query is naturally suggested ere we close. Is that Righteousness easily procurable? — is it within reach — accessible? Listen on this point also to the

In these our days, when this doctrine of imputed righteousness is, with not a few, decried, it is well to turn to some of the Great Lights of bygone centuries, and see how resolutely they clung to it as a foundation-article in their creed. Hear the words of Luther: ““What gives peace to the conscience is. that by faith our sins are no more ours but Christ’s, on whom God hath laid them all; and that, on the other hand, all Christ’s righteousness is ours, to whom God hath given it. Christ lays His hand upon us and we are healed. He casts His mantle upon us and we are clothed.” AVhat says so reliable an authority as Richard Hooker?” The righteousness wherein we must be found, if we will be justified, is not our own; therefore we cannot be justified by any inherent quality. Christ hath merited righteousness for as many as are found in Him. In Him God findeth us, if we be faithful, for by faith we are incorporated into Him. Then, although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man, which in himself is full of sin, being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin in hatred through repentance, him God beholdeth with a gracious eye, putting away his sin, by not imputing it; taking quite away the punishment due thereunto by pardoning it, and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous as if he had fulfilled all that is commanded him in the law, I must take heed what I say, but the Apostle saith, ‘God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. ‘God hath made Himself the sin of man, and men are made the righteousness of God.” “A soul,” says Gurnall, “castled within these walls, is impregnable. God cannot see the sinner, because Christ hides him.”

Apostle’s own expression, in his own comforting assm*- ance — “It is nigh thee” (Rom. x. 8). In the same graphic passage he further asserts, that the Provider of that righteousness in offering it, mocks with no impossibility; as if its attainment demanded scaling the heights of heaven or descending to the depths beneath (Rom. X. 6, 7). “I bring near my righteousness,” is God’s part. Acceptance by faith is ours. “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe” (Rom, iii. 2 2). “It is by becoming one with Christ, that Christ’s righteousness can become our righteousness” (Zightfoot). “Thus,” has it been well remarked, “the very perfection of God which seemed ,to close the door, is the very perfection that opens it to a poor sinner coming through Jesus” {Harrington Evans).

Some ancient warriors had their shields embossed, outside and in, with figures of their particular gods. With these they covered their head in the day of battle; and the intervention of the hallowed symbol (on which their eye rested) between them and the missiles of the foe, nerved their own arm in the thickest of the fight. “Behold, 0 God our shield,” exclaims the believer in the midst of the spiritual conflict, as the Apostle’s monogram gleams engraven on the shield of faith, — “Behold, 0 God our Shield, and look upon the face of Thine Anointed” (Ps. lxxxiv. 9).

Accept, then, the glorious verity in all its fulness, as your alone security now, and your only safety and security on “that day.” Destitute of that righteousness — ’ out of Christ ’ — you are like the bird, building its nest on the precarious bough. It may appear secure: but the ringing axe of the woodman sooner or later is heard at the root; and driven from the havoc of its dismantled home, it goes screaming through the forest with the tale of its woe. In Christ, on the other hand, you are like the bird which builds in the recess of the ocean-cliff. Boiling, seething caldrons may be at its base: the death-shriek from some bark, with its drowning crew grappling with the storm, may be heard below: the unavailing boom of the gun of distress dies away, unsuccoured and unresponded to, amid the wail of the tempest. But, up in the niche of that beetling precipice, all is safe. There the most timid of the winged tribes can nestle with folded wing — “He shall dwell on high, his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks “(Isa. xxxiii, 1 6). “No axe can touch it: — no blow can shiver it: — no prowler’s hand can pillage it: — the wild wind cannot sway it: the spent spray cannot reach it. “Oh my dove, who art in the clefts of the Rock” (Sol. Song ii. 14). “Trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is” (marginal rendering) “the Rock of Ages!”