“And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Him of the evil.” Joel 2:3
If there is one characteristic about God that explains Him in some measure, and especially as that knowledge applies to us, it is that He is righteous. What does this mean? Just as God is perfectly good, and his goodness permeated the creation, and is revealed to the “new creature” IN CHRIST, so His righteousness is perfect, being revealed to men by the giving of the Law of Moses in the Old Testament, and the later coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, that living, perfect WORD of God. In the revelation of God in Christ is revealed the meaning of righteousness.
If we break down the word “righteousness,” we come to the small word, “right.” This word communicates to us a concept of something, not only being true and absolute, but which is correct, the perspective that all that one is, as being in conformity with the nature of God. God is always right in His actions and words because His nature is right. When God told Moses that his name was, “I AM THAT I AM,” He was communicating to Moses that He was the absolute standard and unchanging essence of that which was true, holy, and right. Everything that did not measure up to, or conform itself to, the nature and person of God was NOT right. When Jesus told His disciples, that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, He was speaking not only words of truth about God, but declaring that which was absolutely the Holy reality. God IS right, always right, never wrong. His standard of His “rightness” is absolute and unchanging. Everything that would militate against this particular knowledge of God, is not right. We call it “unrighteousness.” The reason for which we consider this matter of the righteousness of God is because of its application to lost, and sinful man. The apostle Paul wrote to the Roman believers: “There is none (speaking of sinful men) righteous, no not one.” (3:10) Lost man is totally “unrighteous” in thought, word, and deed, because he is not of a nature that is God’s nature, the only essence and standard of that which is right. Isaiah wrote: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” (64:6) It is because of the state, nature, and actions of men, being not right with God, not in conformity with God, not being of the very nature of God, that there is a righteouse antagonism by God towards sinful, lost man. John describes it as follows: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” (Jn.3:36) The settled antagonism by God against sinful and man and his sin is called “wrath.” The Apostle Paul wrote: “…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) So, if man is helplessly lost, his works, deeds, and words, testifying to God and to the whole world, that he is not righteous before God, then what is to be done, and how can the wrath of God be removed forever. The answer is singular, and so very transformingly powerful: Jesus Christ has been made unto the believing sinner, the righteousness of God. (1 Cor. 1:30) When a man is convicted of his lost and helplessness condition before God, and there is a grasping in some small measure of the settle opposition against him by God, against all unrighteousness, God is working to save that individual. The wonderful news which will save the lost, is also terrible news, for it involves the Son of God taking upon Himself all of our unrighteousness, the wrath of God, as a sword awakened, “…woke against Christ,” who died in our stead. Such love, such mercy, is revealed in Christ, exchanging His wrath for His peace.
Father, In wrath, in love, remember Thy mercy on earth today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.