What is righteousness? We discussed this in a previous chapter, but here we will examine this subject from a different viewpoint. There are many views as to what righteousness is. Jesus indicated that when He said, “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. Apparently, the Pharisees assumed they were righteous, but the Lord said that except our righteousness exceeds theirs, there is no way we can enter into the kingdom of heaven.
The Pharisees had their own unique idea of righteousness, which was described by Ellen White. “The greatest deception of the human mind in Christ’s day was that a mere assent to the truth constitutes righteousness. In all human experience a theoretical knowledge of the truth has been proved to be insufficient for the saving of the soul. It does not bring forth the fruits of righteousness. A jealous regard for what is termed theological truth often accompanies a hatred of genuine truth as made manifest in life.” DA 309.
She goes on to describe how those who professed to be righteous killed Christ because of His righteous life. Then she makes this statement: “The same danger still exists. Many take it for granted that they are Christians, simply because they subscribe to certain theological tenets. But they have not brought the truth into practical life. They have not believed and loved it, therefore they have not received the power and grace that come through sanctification of the truth. Men may profess faith in the truth; but if it does not make them sincere, kind, patient, forbearing, heavenlyminded, it is a curse to its possessors, and through their influence it is a curse to the world.” You can have the truth and be a curse to yourself and to mankind. We can call it finishing the Lord’s work by going to far off fields with our theological truth, but if it does not make us kind, patient, forbearing, heavenly-minded, then our truth is not blessing us. Truth must be brought into the heart and into the life in order to be a blessing. For a long time we have thought that, as long as we have the truth, that would be sufficient; but it is far from sufficient.
“A profession of faith and the possession of truth in the soul are two different things. The mere knowledge of truth is not enough. We may possess this, but the tenor of our thoughts may not be changed. The heart must be converted and sanctified.” COL 97. This strikes too close to home to be comfortable for any of us. The fact that we say we have the truth and are theologically correct creates a great problem for us. The Jews professed the same philosophy. Since we have ascribed to and received certain truths, we feel quite safe in concluding that we must be righteous, or at least on the road to righteousness. We have been baptized into the right church, we believe and teach right doctrines, we practice many right doctrines such as Sabbath keeping, tithing, and observing high standards; and so we logically ask how we can be unrighteous under such circumstances. Others do not have all these things, and therefore they are unrighteous; and since we have them and practice them, we must be righteous.
I would like to suggest that you examine that part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus brought up the issue concerning the Jews and how their righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. In His sermon, Jesus brought out a different tenor, or spirit, of righteousness that we seldom think about. He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Matthew 5:3. The poor in spirit are those who do not think highly of their righteousness, and who recognize their spiritual poverty. “ Blessed are they that mourn.” Verse 4. This mourning is related to repentance, and to those who mourn because of their sinfulness that crucifies the Son of God afresh. “Blessed are the meek.” Verse 5. This meekness is a lack of self- justification and selfrighteousness. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.” Verse 6. This is because they realize that they do not have it. “Blessed are the merciful.” Verse 7. Do we treat other people as Christ treats us?
Here are some additional characteristics of those who are blessed: “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven...woe unto you that are rich!…Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger.” Luke 6:22-25. This recalls how Laodiceans are described as being rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. Woe unto them.
Somehow these things have not been fitted into our Christianity and our concept of righteousness. The best evidence that we are not righteous (and I am speaking in general terms) is that we seem to be so absorbed in establishing our own righteousness. There is a high degree of self- justification, of selfprotection, and a craving to establish ourselves as righteous. Paul wrote about people with that attitude. “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.” Romans 10:3. People like this are not righteous.
If we try to establish our own, or produce it, or build it up, it verifies that we are ignorant of His, and that we have not submitted ourselves unto His. This is difficult for us to see because we believe that we must be performers of the law; therefore, we set out to do what the law requires. But this is not the way to righteousness. When we go out to establish our own, we are not finding His. This creates a problem that we frequently overlook, for we think we must establish our righteousness or we will be lost in the Judgment.
Righteousness is a vastly different thing than we sometimes think. It all refers back to the question: What is righteousness? If you are successful in establishing what you consider to be at least some level of righteousness in your life, then you are prone to make the mistake of believing that you can continue on and fully establish your own righteousness. Almost everything in Christianity is dependent upon your concept of what righteousness is.
An illustration of this is found in the experience of the Jews. They were told to “love thy neighbour as thyself” Leviticus 19:18. When Jesus came, He seemed to change that law, or at least He called it a new commandment. He evidently was not changing it according the way it was written, but according to the way it was understood. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.” John 13:34. He was giving us His understanding of the command in Leviticus. In doing so, He adds, “that you love one another as I have loved you.” This was new. The Jews had a certain interpretation of loving their neighbor, and as they reasoned and studied about it, all the Jews had come to accept the idea that their neighbor did not include everyone. After Jesus told the Jews that they were to “love thy neighbour as thyself,” a lawyer asked, “And who is my neighbour?” Luke 10:27,29. He had a certain idea as to what it meant to love his neighbor, but he did not consider everyone, especially Samaritans, to be his neighbor. Jesus then gave the parable of the Good Samaritan; and when He finished He asked, “Which now of these three [the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan] thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” Verse 36. The Jews would not even answer the question lest they defile their lips by saying the word “Samaritan.”
Those Jews had some unusual ideas about what constitutes righteousness, and these ideas are not all gone. Many today have the same attitude towards people and towards loving our neighbor. Jesus taught that the only right standard of loving your neighbor is to love your neighbor as He loves us. There is no other standard; and you do not understand righteousness if you do not love your neighbor as Jesus has loved you. This is as hard for us to understand as it was for the Jews. They read about love in the Scripture, they professed to have it, but they did not understand the kind of love that Jesus came to establish for us. Jesus is the only true standard of loving your neighbor. When we go about attempting to keep the law, we usually try to keep the law according to our concepts of the law, and we have many concepts of law keeping.
Some Protestants say that the law has been nailed to the cross and thus done away with. What, then, is their standard of righteousness? Well, it surely is not the law, because they say that is done away with; so they have to discover a new standard. I have asked several people who believe that the law was done away what they think righteousness is and what must a person do to be saved. I asked these questions in order to discover what they believe is the standard of righteousness. I am amazed at the answers I have heard, for most professed Christians have invented their own standard of righteousness. If you accept man’s wrong interpretations of righteousness, you will not be very happy because you will often place the standard so low that God is not giving you all He desires you to have.
Those who believe that being righteous is simply being a good citizen or church member will not be very thankful, either, because many out there who do not profess to be Christians are also good, upstanding citizens. They also try hard to be good. They do not get thrown into jail or get into trouble with their neighbors; but they do not go to church, either. Nor do they read their Bibles. If they are righteous because they try to be good, then you do not need Christianity to be righteous. Therefore, God has nothing special for those in the church who think righteousness comes by trying to be good.
There is still a problem even among those who believe in the law, because they do not always understand righteousness, even though they believe in the law. In fact, they easily misunderstand righteousness as much as those who do not believe that the law exists. We tend to think that the law is merely a checklist of rules where, if we just discipline ourselves to avoid the “thou shalt nots” and force ourselves to do the “thou shalts,” then we are righteous. If this is your concept of righteousness, then you do not have very much, for the law is not in the heart. It is only manifested in the external behavior. People who think this way usually end up saying, “I thank God I am not like other men,” and they praise themselves and establish their own righteousness, and all because of their misconception of righteousness.
There are too many of us who think that if we avoid the “thou shalt nots” and do the “thou shalts,” then we are righteous. That is not true at all. It is not just a matter of rigidly conforming to a list of rules. It never has been and never will be, but that is what many people have thought it to be. Strong-willed people like this idea, but weakwilled people usually end up hating this idea. Many who hold this concept of righteousness stand up and say they are going to be righteous no matter what, but only they will think so. Their spouse and children and fellow church members will not think so because they know how such people can act when their will is crossed or when someone steps on their toes.
Some people understand that the law is love. This is what Jesus taught when He said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40. When we discover that the law is love, we have a tendency to think that we have arrived, that now we understand righteousness. But how many concepts of love exist in the world today? Therefore, as soon as you arrive at the conclusion that the law is love, you have still not arrived, for you must then discover what genuine love is. Righteousness will be no higher than your concept of love. To some, love is merely doing your own thing and satisfying self. We can understand that the law is love, and that righteousness is love, yet neither understand nor possess righteousness because of our false understanding of love.
The sad thing about this is that whatever we think about righteousness, and whatever we understand to be the standard of righteousness, determines what we think about conversion, Christian growth, sanctification, the gift of righteousness, our behavior, and our relationship with others. Everything involved in practical Christian living depends on our true understanding or our misconception of righteousness. And today we have many arguments and disagreements because we cannot agree on what righteousness is. It has been like this in the Christian community for many centuries now.
Jesus said, “A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 13:34. He is really saying that the only standard of law keeping, the only standard of righteousness, the only standard of love which God honors, is that which meets the life of Christ. The life of Jesus is love, and therefore the life that Jesus lived is righteousness. His life was the law lived out, and there is no other standard. God has not left it for man to define righteousness or law keeping. He has not given us that privilege. He knows that if we are left to ourselves to define what both law keeping and righteousness are, we will misunderstand as did the Jews. During the fifteen hundred years from the time of Moses until the time of Jesus, the Jews had developed some very distorted ideas as to what law keeping was all about.
Jesus came to demonstrate to us what love is, what righteousness is, and what law keeping is. “The Lord Jesus came to our world to represent the character of His Father. He came to live out the law, and His words and character were daily a correct exposition of the law of God….Jesus was a living manifestation of what the law was,…” ST March 14, 1895. You can see what true law keeping is by looking at His life and His words. He has made these things manifest to us. Christ is the only true interpretation of righteousness. He is the correct interpretation of love and of the law. All others are a sham, a misrepresentation, and are man’s fabrication out of a sinful heart, trying to reduce righteousness down to their own abilities. Trying to be righteous in and of ourselves only leads to frustrations.
Here is where so many of our problems hinge. The devil realizes that the sinful heart is selfish and proud, so he dangles before us what we can do; and then he says, “If you will only do a little bit better.” And we struggle and strive and labor trying to be good enough for God to love us, and to save us, and to call us righteous. We get ulcers in the process, and we lose our tempers when someone finds fault with us. We quibble, we quarrel, we compete in all this process simply because we think we must struggle to attain to a righteousness that the Lord will approve. Love never comes into the picture, and the devil knows that. I recognize that the devil does not truly understand the spirit of righteousness, but he seems to understand enough about it to be able to destroy the true concepts of righteousness in the minds of many. How he can be so close and yet so far is beyond my understanding, but he has certainly disrupted our thinking concerning this subject.
The only standard that God will ever look at, the only interpretation of love and righteousness and law keeping, is the life of Jesus. There is no other. I know you might not like that, but if you have read the chapters previous to this one, it should not discourage you, for we have been talking about righteousness by faith in Jesus and not by faith in self. If you have sufficient faith in Him, it should not be discouraging to discover that your standard of righteousness has been pretty low.
The Bible teaches that God is love. This love is the kind that Jesus manifested, which has a unique quality and is quite different from what men teach to be love. Jesus was the outshining of the Father’s glory, and we are told that His glory is His character, and that the law is His character written down; so Jesus is God’s character lived out, and God’s character is love. He said, “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father.” John 14:9. Therefore, He is the manifestation, the demonstration that people can see and hear of true righteousness, of true love, and of true law keeping.
We must never trust in our own concepts of this. Like the Jews, we discuss and argue about what righteousness is. There are many theories, such as in a book published in bygone years written by four authors who apparently had divergent views about perfection. Jesus is perfection. There is no other definition but Jesus. (We will talk about perfection in the last chapter of this book.) You can try to pick perfection apart in all its minute pieces, but Jesus is perfection. There will never be a better definition than that by anyone. He is God’s definition of righteousness. God is love, and Jesus is love because He came to show us the Father.
The Bible says, “There is none righteous, no, not one.” Romans 3:10. You cannot look around and trust somebody else’s interpretation, or their definition, or their description. You cannot do that or you will misunderstand, misinterpret, and wrongly define. Jesus is the only righteous Person, and He alone has the correct interpretation and the accurate description of love and righteousness and perfection. He is God’s interpretation of these things. There are few people who truly accept the concept that the life of Jesus is the righteousness that God prescribes.
If you have a standard other than the life of Jesus, then you either destroy, or at least minimize, your experience in righteousness; and that covers everything in righteousness. If your standard is not the same as that of Christ’s, then you destroy righteousness by faith in Christ, because righteousness by faith is based on what righteousness is.
I would like you to see how we can literally disrupt and misunderstand and minimize righteousness by our wrong concepts. Let’s look at justification by faith, which is conversion or the new birth, and see what it is like when you begin to see the standard of righteousness is Christ, and not self. What happens to you in the new birth? “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” 1 John 3:9. You have no doubt seen someone’s daughter and said, “She looks just like her mother.” How did she get that way? She was born that way. What happens to a born-again Christian when they are born of God? Not of their mother or their father but of God? What are they like? Do the laws of heredity cease to function in the spiritual life? Are we not like Him when we are born of Him? What happens when we are made a new creation in Christ? What happens to a human being no matter what his past life has been like? What are people like when they are “created in righteousness and true holiness”? Ephesians 4:24. In all this I am talking about conversion, or justification by faith, and I would like to know what happens when God goes to work in the heart of a person so that we are born of Him, and recreated by Him in Christ.
If we expect little in justification because our concept of righteousness is so meager, then not very much happens. If it is just a human invention as to what righteousness is, then being born again, justified by faith in His righteousness, accomplishes almost nothing, because my standard is so low. Literally, our poor understanding of righteousness has caused many people to have a miserable experience in conversion. They did not expect much because in their way of thinking, righteousness is not very much; and so they are not converted very much, and yet they say they are converted. The question is: To what were they converted? Were they converted to the standard of righteousness that is found in Christ, or just to a church, or a mental assent to truth, or to their parent’s religion? There are all sorts of things we are converted to.
I would like to read a few descriptions of genuine conversions found in the Spirit of Prophecy. Especially notice the use of the word love or those actions related to love, and there are many of them found here. “The grace of Christ received into the heart [speaking about that new experience in Jesus] subdues enmity; it allays strife and fills the soul with love. He who is at peace with God and his fellow men cannot be made miserable [not should not be, but cannot be]. Envy will not be in his heart; evil surmisings will find no room there; hatred cannot exist. The heart that is in harmony with God is a partaker of the peace of heaven and will diffuse its blessed influence on all around. The spirit of peace will rest like dew upon hearts weary and troubled with worldly strife.” MB 27,28. Do these words jolt you like they do me? God makes it impossible for envy and evil to exist in the new heart.
“In the heart renewed by divine grace, love is the principle of action. It modifies the character, governs the impulses, controls the passions, subdues enmity, and ennobles the affections. This love, cherished in the soul, sweetens the life and sheds a refining influence on all around.” SC 59. Wouldn’t you like to have that happen in your house, in your school, in your church, where love is the governing principle all the time?
There is more on this. “Those who become new creatures in Christ Jesus will bring forth the fruits of the Spirit, ‘love, joy, peace, long- suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.’ Galatians 5:22,23. They will no longer fashion themselves according to the former lusts, but by the faith of the Son of God they will follow in His steps, reflect His character, and purify themselves even as He is pure. The things they once hated, they now love; and the things they once loved, they hate. The proud and self-assertive become meek and lowly in heart. The vain and supercilious become serious and unobtrusive. The drunken become sober, and the profligate pure. The vain customs and fashions of the world are laid aside. Christians will seek not the ‘outward adorning,’ but ‘the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.’ 1 Peter 3:3,4.” SC 58. Who is that “hidden Man of the heart”? That Man is Jesus. The Bible says that God is love, and Christ is like Him, therefore He is love. For Christ to be in your heart is to love Him.
“Received into the heart, the leaven of truth will regulate the desires, purify the thoughts, and sweeten the disposition. It quickens the faculties of the mind and the energies of the soul. It enlarges the capacity for feeling, for loving. The love of Christ with its redeeming power has come into the heart. This love masters every other motive, and raises its possessor above the corrupting influence of the world. The word of God is to have a sanctifying effect on our association with every member of the human family. The leaven of truth will not produce the spirit of rivalry, the love of ambition, the desire to be first. True, heaven-born love is not selfish and changeable. It is not dependent on human praise. The heart of him who receives the grace of God overflows with love for God and for those for whom Christ died. Self is not struggling for recognition. He does not love others because they love and please him, because they appreciate his merits, but because they are Christ’s purchased possession. If his motives, words, or actions are misunderstood or misrepresented, he takes no offense, but pursues the even tenor of his way. He is kind and thoughtful, humble in his opinion of himself, yet full of hope, always trusting in the mercy and love of God. The grace of Christ is to control the temper and the voice. Its working will be seen in politeness and tender regard shown by brother for brother, in kind, encouraging words. An angel presence is in the home. The life breathes a sweet perfume, which ascends to God as holy incense. Love is manifested in kindness, gentleness, forbearance, and long-suffering. The countenance is changed. Christ abiding in the heart shines out in the faces of those who love Him and keep His commandments. Truth is written there. The sweet peace of heaven is revealed. There is expressed a habitual gentleness, a more than human love. The leaven of truth works a change in the whole man, making the coarse refined, the rough gentle, the selfish generous. By it the impure are cleansed, washed in the blood of the Lamb.” COL 101,102.
Then it goes on and tells how it strengthens and changes the whole life by partaking of divinity. And finally one little sentence, perhaps the most important of all: “A new standard of character is set up—the life of Christ.” COL 99. The standard of character is the life of Christ. All other standards are thrown out the window, for they are useless. This is conversion, and we cannot be converted until we accept that the life of Jesus is the only standard of love, of righteousness, and of law keeping. Everything else is far less than this kind of experience. The Lord has blessed us and helped us. He understands our ignorance and our weakness. He does not condemn or criticize; but I really believe He wants us to see more of the fullness of the life of Jesus.
The big question is: How do you obtain such righteousness? How do you become like Jesus? The process is simple. Bring your righteousness to Christ, yours that you have right now, every shred of it, bring it to Jesus. Just hang it up where you can see the whole thing; and then see what happens. I would like to dare you to do it. No matter how exalted you think your righteousness is, bring it all to Jesus, and on your knees, hold it up and say, “This is righteousness.” Then see what happens. You, like Isaiah, will say, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.” “All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.” Isaiah 64:6; 6:5. And like Ezekiel, you will loathe yourself when you see Jesus.
This is a difficult experience. In the past, we have compared our righteousness to everybody else’s, which is what I call comparative religion— better than, holier than. That is the very opposite of Christianity. There is only one comparison we can make and that is with Jesus, because the Bible says that “when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.” 1 John 3:2. It is not enough to be better than the conference president or the pastor or the elder. You are going to have to do much better than that. You are going to have to be much better than the General Conference President or you will never make it. You will have to do much better than Ellen White, a lot better, or you are not going to get there, because they are not going to get there because of their goodness, not one of them. They are going to be there because of Jesus and no other reason.
We must be like Jesus, and not until you bring your righteousness to Him can you ever find out what a sham your righteousness really is. We can look good compared to other people, but we do not look very good compared to Jesus. He is so different, and His righteousness is so different from what people teach to be righteousness. His love is so different.
The correct understanding of the Judgment in the first angel’s message is something we have left out of our teaching on the Judgment. We have made people cringe in fear from a God spying on us. But the real heart of it, if we understand that justification by faith in Christ is part of all three messages and not just the third, is that we are going to be judged by the Man Christ Jesus. This is confirmed by several texts such as: “Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained.” Acts 17:31. “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.” Romans 2:16. I would like to suggest that in addition to being judged by a decision of Jesus, we are judged by comparison to Jesus because we have had offered to us the righteousness of Christ. God will simply look at us to see if we have received it. Jesus stands there beside the record of my life, and God asks, “Is he like Jesus?” Being judged by Jesus is a comparison as much as a decision on His part, for we are to be like Him.
“We must renounce our own righteousness and plead for the righteousness of Christ to be imputed to us.” 5T 219. Renounce our own and plead for His, not going about to establish our own. One of the finest Scriptures concerning this is where Paul said that he wants to be rid of his own righteousness. He said he counts as dung all his own righteousness. Instead, he said he wished to be “found in 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.” Philippians 3:9.
If Jesus is righteous, and we know that He is, and if God so loved the world He gave Him to us, when we have received Him as our salvation and our righteousness, then we have His righteousness as a free gift from heaven. And as righteous as He is, He gives to you all of that. This is why the Lord can expect us to be like Him. He gives it to you, and by faith you receive it, this gift of love. As I respond by loving Him, I embrace the gift and say it is mine, not because I feel it, not because I am worthy, but because God is so good and because I desperately need it. I do not have any other righteousness but His. Everything else is as filthy rags. Therefore, I must have His.
Righteousness is Christ in you the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). Righteousness is Christ in me and I in Him (John17:23). Jesus gets inside of us by revealing His love over and over again to our hearts, manifesting this tremendous love for you and for me until we love Him because He first loved us.
John the beloved, who received that name rightfully, wrote, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” 1 John 3:1. Remember that love is righteousness, and love is keeping the law. We must see this love, which is so different from the love we find elsewhere in the world. His love has that quality of God which, when we were yet rebels and enemies, sinning against Him, He so loved us that His Son came all the way from heaven to be one of us, to buy us back with His precious blood, to make us clean, forgiven, pardoned, and to take away our penalty. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1. His love is such that He will not let us go, and all of this while we were His enemies. This is righteousness. This is selfrenouncing, self-sacrificing love.
It is this kind of love that Christ demonstrated throughout His whole life. It is this kind of love that is true law keeping, and true righteousness. It is this kind of love that breaks my heart and melts your heart. It is this kind of love that He wants to manifest to the world in you and me, a selfsacrificing and self-renouncing love in my thoughts and deeds towards others, in my attitudes, in my feelings, in my words, in my gestures, in my touch, in my gentleness, in my compassion, in my understanding, in my sensitivity to you, in my realization and awareness of you.
This self-renouncing love is righteousness. This is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, for God is love. This is the righteousness He wants to give you at this very instant. This is the righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees. He wants to push away all the other concepts and standards of righteousness by the supreme definition of righteousness—that we love one another as He has loved us.
There is only one perfect example of righteousness. In the marvelous experience of righteousness by faith in Christ, He will make you like Jesus. What a tremendous opportunity is ours when we understand true righteousness by faith.