Are Christians Righteous or Unrighteous?

00:00:00.000 | Is the Christian righteous or unrighteous?

00:00:08.120 | A simplistic yes or no answer to this question is misleading because it's a tricky question

00:00:13.520 | that calls for theological care and it's a question we have received from a listener

00:00:17.960 | named Jason.

00:00:18.960 | Pastor John, I have recently been listening to your old sermon, Our Hope, Righteousness.

00:00:25.440 | In it, you mentioned that full and perfect righteousness lies in the future.

00:00:29.660 | It is our hope, not our possession.

00:00:31.940 | This is in reference to Galatians 5.5, "For through the Spirit by faith we wait for the

00:00:37.360 | hope of righteousness."

00:00:40.040 | Can you clarify for me what it means to be righteous?

00:00:44.360 | I thought it meant right standing.

00:00:46.600 | In placing my faith in Jesus, does that make me righteous at the time of my profession?

00:00:52.440 | Or does righteous mean perfect?

00:00:55.140 | And that's why we're not righteous now.

00:00:56.960 | Can you clarify for me the various stages of righteousness in the history of a believer?

00:01:04.440 | Oh, I will love to try, because this is just so close to the heart of what the Gospel is

00:01:13.440 | and who Christ is to us, and getting this distinction is right at the heart of the Gospel,

00:01:19.600 | right at the heart of Reformation discoveries 500 years ago.

00:01:23.580 | So here we go.

00:01:24.580 | Let's try.

00:01:25.720 | Even though there are particular passages about righteousness which are unclear to me,

00:01:32.640 | frankly, as to their precise meaning, nevertheless, the overall picture, I think, in the New Testament

00:01:42.280 | is clear.

00:01:44.160 | So just to keep matters as simple as possible, without distorting the reality, I would love

00:01:50.760 | to say there are two basic uses of the word righteousness in this regard.

00:01:59.840 | One that is reckoned to us, counted to us, imputed to us—pick your word—reckoned

00:02:08.840 | to us through faith and which comes from God as a gift in the moment that you receive it

00:02:16.100 | by faith.

00:02:17.840 | That would be because Jesus has done that righteousness.

00:02:21.080 | He has performed that righteousness, and His is counted as ours.

00:02:25.320 | We call that imputed righteousness.

00:02:28.520 | The other use of the word would be righteousness that we ourselves are acting out, living out

00:02:38.200 | in our daily lives, and both of them—not just one of them—both of them are through

00:02:44.000 | faith, but not in the same way through faith.

00:02:49.200 | The first is an imputed gift, counted as ours, that gift received through faith.

00:02:59.160 | The second kind is an imparted gift—not an imputed gift, but an imparted gift—which

00:03:06.920 | we ourselves perform.

00:03:08.720 | We ourselves perform by faith in His power.

00:03:13.560 | 2 Thessalonians 1:11.

00:03:16.440 | So the first kind of righteousness is perfect.

00:03:19.920 | The second kind of righteousness is progressive and will someday be perfected at the end of

00:03:26.780 | our lives when God completes our process of becoming practically and personally perfectly

00:03:34.760 | righteous, but which now in this life is not yet perfect.

00:03:41.160 | And the relationship between these two kinds of righteousness is that we can't make any

00:03:47.800 | progress in practical, lived-out righteousness until we are accepted by God, forgiven for

00:03:58.520 | our sins, and declared to be perfectly righteous with the imputed righteousness of God in Christ.

00:04:07.440 | That's tremendously important to see, because it means that the effort—the effort that

00:04:16.160 | we make by faith through the Holy Spirit to put to death sins and become more and more

00:04:25.240 | practically righteous—that effort is not the basis of our right standing with God,

00:04:34.360 | but the consequence or effect of our right standing with God.

00:04:40.160 | That's huge.

00:04:41.160 | If we get those switched around, we don't live the gospel.

00:04:43.880 | We don't have the gospel.

00:04:46.140 | The gift of the first kind of righteousness is called justification.

00:04:51.200 | We receive it by faith alone.

00:04:53.120 | Romans 3:28, Romans 5:1.

00:04:56.520 | This means that it happens instantaneously through our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior

00:05:04.200 | and Lord and treasure at the very instant of our first act of saving faith, which God

00:05:12.160 | gives us in the new birth.

00:05:15.500 | At that very instant, God is then and from that moment on 100% for us and not against

00:05:25.920 | us.

00:05:26.920 | No condemnation.

00:05:27.920 | Romans 8, 1.

00:05:29.620 | Even though before that we were children of wrath.

00:05:32.400 | Ephesians 2, 3.

00:05:34.360 | At that moment then, for the first time, by the Spirit through faith, we are able to kill

00:05:43.320 | specific sins and make progress in God-pleasing, practical, lived-out righteousness.

00:05:53.080 | Before we had faith, we could not please God at all or perform true righteousness, because

00:06:01.220 | without faith it is impossible to please God.

00:06:03.880 | Hebrews 11, 6.

00:06:05.800 | But as soon as we were given faith, in that instant we were justified.

00:06:12.100 | So none of the works of righteousness, none of our own works of righteousness that come

00:06:18.040 | from faith could ever be the basis of justification, because we are justified with Christ's perfect

00:06:24.400 | righteousness the very instant that we have faith before we do any works of faith.

00:06:29.160 | Now if that's a complicated paragraph, stop, back it up, listen again, because I meant

00:06:36.760 | what I said and I think it's biblical.

00:06:39.400 | So let's look at a few passages of Scripture to show that these things are so.

00:06:45.420 | That's just what I've been saying so far is almost all theological conception is built

00:06:50.200 | on text, but here are the texts.

00:06:52.360 | Let's start with imputed righteousness, the righteousness that is reckoned to us by God

00:06:59.760 | because of Christ.

00:07:01.440 | Romans 5, 19.

00:07:03.560 | As by one man's disobedience the many were appointed sinners—that's Adam—so by one

00:07:10.240 | man's obedience—that's Christ—by one man's obedience the many will be appointed

00:07:16.840 | righteous.

00:07:18.760 | That's what I mean by imputed righteousness.

00:07:21.960 | Or here it is from Romans 4, 6.

00:07:24.720 | David speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts.

00:07:30.400 | So there's the biblical basis of the word "imputation" or "reckoning."

00:07:35.320 | He counts righteousness apart from works of the law.

00:07:41.500 | Or Philippians 3, 8, and 9.

00:07:43.560 | "I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may

00:07:47.720 | gain Christ and be found"—here are the key words—"be found in Him"—in union

00:07:54.920 | with Him, and that's the basis of it—"in union with Him, not having a righteousness

00:08:00.760 | of my own that comes from law, but that which comes through faith in Christ."

00:08:08.120 | The righteousness from God that depends on faith.

00:08:10.900 | So those are at least three illustrations of righteousness that we have as a gift from

00:08:19.280 | God through faith.

00:08:21.400 | None of our practical, lived-out righteousness is the basis of that gift.

00:08:27.140 | As Paul says in Titus 3, 5, "God saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness."

00:08:38.240 | So he refers to good works of righteousness that we can actually do.

00:08:43.240 | And then he says, "Those aren't the basis."

00:08:46.440 | God saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His

00:08:51.280 | own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit.

00:08:56.880 | Now what about the practical, lived-out righteousness?

00:09:01.300 | That's what we do now, by the Spirit, since we have been made alive through faith by the

00:09:09.580 | Spirit.

00:09:10.580 | Here's Romans 6, 13, "Do not present your members"—that is, your hands and your feet

00:09:16.100 | and your tongue, your sexual organs—"do not present your members to sin as instruments

00:09:22.400 | of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God"—here it is—"as those who have

00:09:30.440 | been brought from death to life."

00:09:36.360 | Make yourself alive by doing this.

00:09:38.920 | You've been brought from death to life, and your members now present them as instruments

00:09:43.880 | of righteousness.

00:09:45.200 | And Paul says clearly that in this life we are not yet perfect in righteousness of our

00:09:54.560 | own.

00:09:55.560 | Philippians 3, 12, "Not that I have already obtained or am already perfect"—oh, that's

00:10:01.680 | so important for perfectionistic people—"but I press on to make it my own because Christ

00:10:08.640 | Jesus has made me His own."

00:10:11.000 | So here's the glory and the mystery of the Christian life.

00:10:15.880 | We are already righteous in Christ, and so we have peace with God.

00:10:23.000 | Romans 5, 1, "And in the peace of that acceptance with God, we strive for righteousness in our

00:10:32.260 | daily lives, because we know that this not only confirms that we are God's people"—2

00:10:41.720 | Peter 1:10—"but because this is the most deeply satisfying way to glorify Christ."

00:10:50.960 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the great question, Jason.

00:10:55.320 | If you have a question for Pastor John, send it to us.

00:10:58.400 | Go to our online home, DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn, and submit a question of your own.

00:11:04.440 | You'll see the box.

00:11:05.560 | Click on it.

00:11:06.560 | You'll send us an email.

00:11:08.000 | And I thank you in advance.

00:11:10.680 | Well what genuine authority does Satan wield over this world?

00:11:15.040 | It's another really great question we need to address, and it's up next on Wednesday.

00:11:19.440 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:11:20.440 | We'll see you then.

00:11:21.400 | [END]

00:11:21.900 | "And in the peace of that acceptance with God, we strive for righteousness in our daily

00:11:28.900 | lives, because we know that this not only confirms that we are God's people"—2

Are Christians Righteous or Unrighteous?

Chapters