God’s Gift to Believers

The Doctrine of Righteousness

Righteousness means rightness or being upright in all things. Paul’s letter to the Roman believers explains God’s righteousness and humanity’s lack of righteousness. Only God is holy, pure, and utterly perfect; He knows no sin. Every human lacks true and perfect righteousness.1 While we may gain a measure of security by finding someone whose behavior seems worse than our own, righteousness cannot be measured by imperfect human standards. Righteousness must be measured by God’s holy and perfect standard—by which we all stand condemned and without hope.

God understands our weakness and does not leave us hopelessly enslaved by sin. He extends compassion and offers His grand solution to our utter unrighteousness. God sent His Son to provide us His own true and perfect righteousness. When we believe Jesus bore the punishment our sin deserves, God freely gives us His righteousness, apart from any contribution on our part. This is the only way to be right with God. This transaction is called “justification” because we are counted as “just,” or back in proper relationship, with God. Jesus “was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”2 

To overestimate ourselves and reject the righteousness God offers through His Son leaves us with only our sin-stained attempts to be good enough. Ignoring the sin that infects our motives and actions means missing what God requires. We desperately need Jesus’s perfect righteousness—God’s ultimate gift. Without turning to Christ, the peace we long for eludes us. The ineffective game of comparing ourselves with others we deem worse leaves us filled with uncertainty and doubt. 

Belief in Christ clothes God’s children in His righteousness. This amazing transfer of Christ’s perfection to us takes place by God’s doing, not our own. We contribute nothing, yet through faith in Christ we receive what we cannot earn. Though we remain sinners, God sees us through the lens of His perfect Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. We enjoy peace with God because we belong to Him. God counts believers as righteous, equipping them in their ongoing battle with sin on earth. God’s righteousness transformed Paul’s life. Constantly amazed by God’s grace, Paul made sharing that wonder his life mission. Do you? 

1. Without righteousness: Romans 3:9-18 

2. Justification: Romans 4:25