Two Kinds Of RighteousnessSample

How God Made Us Righteous

How could God reconcile man to Himself—make man righteous again—and restore man to perfect fellowship? It could only be wrought by God’s own Son taking man’s place, meeting every demand of justice, and going down to the level of lost man. This Jesus did, and, after the claims of justice had been perfectly met, He was justified in spirit. 

When Jesus was declared righteous, justified, and made alive, then He was restored to perfect fellowship with the Father. After He was restored to perfect fellowship with the Father and could enter heaven as though He had never been made sin, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. He had made a perfect substitution for man. He had made it possible not only for God to justify man, but also to perfectly recreate him.

On these grounds, man was reconciled to God. Now he has a right to fellowship and commune with the Father—to stand in His presence as though he had never sinned.

Our standing with God is on the ground of faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, God laid upon Jesus our iniquities. “He hath made him to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Jesus was more than a sin offering. He was made unrighteous with our unrighteousness. He was made a sin substitute, bearing our sins; He descended into the place of suffering after He left His body and stayed there until every claim of justice against us had been satisfied. He took our place and went to the prison to which sinners are sentenced, and He suffered until every charge against us had been met.

Thus, we have the two kinds of righteousness: first, God declares us to be righteous; second, we are made new creations.

We become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) so that we are righteous by nature and righteous by faith. Now we can understand what Paul meant when he said, “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Why? “That we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (verse 5:21).

Having been declared righ­teous, having had this broken fellowship restored, the “peace of God, which passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) floods our beings. Now, we can stand in God’s presence without any sin consciousness and without any fear, because “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17).

Jesus Christ is righteous. He Himself has declared us righteous and made us righteous. This is the foundation on which our faith grows.