Righteous In Christ Alone!

How shall I be right with God?

If that is not the question that lies in the pit of your heart, thereby you know the folly of your own sinful flesh. You are not living in reality. Your heart is deceived. You refuse to reckon with reality – God and sin.

To a believer in Christ Jesus, one in whom the grace of God has worked, to him this is the vital question. Peace in every circumstance in life can be found only in the truth that he is righteous before God in Christ.

How am I to be right with God?

The gospel of Christ answers: In the righteousness of Christ alone. His perfect, complete, finished work upon Calvary’s cross, accredited to me by the grace of God and embraced by faith (also the gift of God), is all of my hope and my standing before God.

The Bible never wearies to tell us of this. In Revelation 19:8 we have this picture of those who stand before God in glory. We are told that they are arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. The cry and earnest desire of the apostle Paul in Philippians 3:9 was that he be found in Christ, not having his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. We read in Romans 3:24, “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

The believer is righteous in God’s eyes on the basis of the work of another, solely upon the work of Christ. In the death of Christ on the cross the debt of sin for all those whom He represented is paid. He earned for them eternal righteousness.

This is the gospel. This is the good news, the only good news. And it is sure.

Because it is the gospel and the only truth, it will always be attacked and distorted. Adam and Eve already attempted to cover their nakedness by their own works – their fig leaves. The Pharisees in Jesus’ day clasped their robes around them and boasted that they were able to keep the law. So also today, in the Christian church and under the guise of the name Christianity, there is the creation of a contradictory system of works, the saying of prayers and all types of other deeds that supposedly are able to work salvation for a soul. Always the idea of man is that “my standing with God is a matter of my doing, my resourcefulness, my stock, my prayers, my deeds.” And the gospel of God comes to it all and condemns it all and says to us today, “If you hold up before God as the basis of your acceptance with Him anything other than Christ’s finished work as the reason of your acceptance, you are unrighteous in His sight.”

Isaiah 64:6 says, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Galatians 5:2-4
“Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing…. Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law.

The great reality confronting you is the living God and your sin before Him who is holy. The great question is, how are you going to stand before Him. That is the issue in your life. Whether by grace you reckon with it, or whether in your own blindness you shove it aside makes no difference. That is the great issue. The great issue for you is not, “What of tomorrow? Will I get married? Will I be happy? Will I grow up? Will I escape my present troubles? Will I be able to cope?”

That is not the primary question for you. The primary question is this:

How will you be right with God?

The business of the gospel and the business of the church is not, first of all, to address all kinds of questions which people place number one on the list. People today place questions that they say are number one confronting mankind. Now the church also takes up this list and begins to make pronouncements upon them. Oh, no! The gospel confronts you with the most basic and solely important question:

How are you going to stand before God?

Not, first, how are you going to stand before men?

Not, first, how shall all men come together and agree?

Not first of all, what about the husband/wife relationship, what about the parent/child relationship?

Oh, yes, all of these things are important. But you cannot even see your way clear to answering those questions until the most urgent problem in your existence is answered. That is to be found, not in your relationship to all kinds of other people and to other things in the world, but in your relationship to God. That is the question. And if you do not answer or face that question, you live in delusion – your own proud delusion. You ignore God.

You must face the question. All other questions and concerns, of all trials and sorrows in your life which may be breaking your heart, will pass. Your fears may never materialize today. The agonies that you face today may fade away. And everything in your life will fade away because you will go, ultimately, to the grave. Then, the Bible tells you most solemnly, you shall stand before God. This is the question. Whether you believe in God or not, you will and must face this question:

How will I stand before the only and living God?

For you – old or young, married or single, distraught by concerns or carefree – that is the question:

How will you stand before God?

And the gospel is the only answer. There is one answer to that question, one alone. We can be righteous before God only in Christ. By being found in Him, not having our own righteousness, but the righteousness which is of Christ. That righteousness which is not of ourselves but is the gift of God. Now get it straight. That is the gospel: Christ alone. By grace alone, Christ in His work has done all to obtain the salvation of His people. We stand in Him before God, or we will be condemned before God.

Human nature – all the way back to Adam – has always resented and resisted this truth. Satan opposes it and does his devilish best to ensnare men in the proud thought that by their works they are going to obtain something before God. But it is not so. It is alone in Jesus Christ. When Christ saves, certainly the child of God is brought to repentance, faith, good works. All of these things are certainly necessary. They are the thankfulness, they are the life of the believer. But none of these things make up our righteousness before God.

God, by grace, supplies the righteousness of Christ to us. In His capacity as the eternal Judge, freely of His grace, He gives to His children the complete and the perfect righteousness of Christ in an irreversible verdict from His own throne of justice.

This is the gospel. And our calling is to hold fast to this gospel. This gospel is always in the minority. For the gospel DE CLAREs that it is only of God and that it is only of grace. You see, the truth of righteousness in Christ alone is the truth that shatters human pride. It is not of you, but it is of God. For “of him (of God) are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31).

(We know why the gospel of works is popular. It tells me what I want to hear. It tells me, “You can do it. You can make it.” I hear the old lie of the serpent: “Ye shall be as God.”

But the gospel of Christ, the gospel of grace, humbles men so as to exalt God. All the world is guilty before God. You cannot save yourself! By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight (Romans 3:19-20).

It is in Christ.

But, you see, this glorious gospel is the truth. And it saves the vilest of sinners in God’s sight. We cling to this gospel because it is salvation.

Upon what do you rely?

When you come before God and face Him in eternity, to what are you going to appeal?

As God looks upon you and sees through you, what will you say?

How will you justify yourself?

Will you look to something you are of yourself, something you did, something somebody else on earth did for you?

Are you going to look to your prayers?

Are you going to look to your repentance?

Are you going to say, “On the basis of this that I did, save me”?

Are you?

There is but one plea – the plea that God places in our mouth by grace. The plea that He loves. It is a sure plea. It is eternal life. Righteous in Christ alone, by the mere grace of God alone!

There is a very beautiful poem that I like so much. It goes this way:

Not the labors of my hands could fulfill Thy laws demands;

Could my zeal no respite know; could my tears forever flow;

These for sin could not atone. Thou must save and Thou alone!

But this is peace. This is peace in every situation and circumstance of life. Look at the apostle Paul’s life. He was surrounded by troubles, trials, and tribulations, more than you can remember. But yet, in the midst of those things, he could say, “For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.”

He was able to say, “The light affliction which is but for a moment works a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

He was able to say, “I am persuaded that neither life nor death, angels nor principalities, will be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Here is a man who, in this world, had everything against him. But yet, his peace and his joy remained the same.

Why?

Because he knew the answer to the question:

How am I righteous before God?

In Christ.

How can we stand up today in this world?

Only one way. Hear the gospel – overwhelmed of heart, burdened, guilt-ridden – hear the gospel: Righteous in Christ alone.

Christ, by grace, hath clothed me in His own righteousness. Out of mere mercy He promises that He shall present me without fault before the presence of God with exceeding joy. This is the way. Heaven’s gate opens to one voice. Father’s house is purchased by one price: Christ alone!

Let me put it urgently.

If you had to stand before God now, or in the next moments, or tonight, what would you say?

Do you feel that you could trust your own efforts or the efforts of men or the efforts of saints for you?

Turn away from it!

Only His blood and righteousness. Then hear the greatest words that were ever spoken, the words of the Savior to a publican who could not even look up to God but smote his breast crying, “God be merciful to me the sinner” (Luke 18): “This man went down to his house justified.”

In Christ alone.

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