The Gift of Righteousness

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 26, 1908

The Gift of Righteousness

The subject of the Sabbath-school lessons for the next quarter is “Great Reformatory Movements in the Light of the Threefold Message of Revelation 14,” and the topic of the lesson for April 4 is “The Fundamental Truth of the Gospel.” We hope this lesson will be given the careful study which it deserves.

In order that we may understand the way different historical steps in the development of the gospel, it is necessary that we should have clear and well-defined ideas as to the real essence of the gospel. This we may state simply and briefly: The gospel is God’s means for saving men from sin; he takes away sin by imparting his own righteousness; his righteousness is a free gift; this righteousness is not an abstraction, but a life, even the life of God in Christ Jesus our Lord; God gave Christ to be our righteousness, and that we might become the righteousness of God in him; we receive the gift of righteousness, just as we receive the gift of Christ,—by believing,—and we do not properly receive Christ unless we receive him as “the Lord our righteousness.”

Let us emphasize the great truth that righteousness is an absolute gift. For some it is hard to accept this doctrine even as a theory; for others it seems to be difficult to act upon it even after assenting to it as a part of their creed. It is so contrary to human thinking that we are not required to pay for it at least to some degree, either before or after receiving this most wonderful blessing. It would gratify our human pride if we could read the current price of righteousness in the market quotations, order what we need through some broker of good standing in the church, and pay for it with our own check. Then it would be ours without our being under obligations to any one. But no, among all the commodities and stocks and shares quoted on change, righteousness is not found. No broker deals in it, and indeed it is not likely that many of them possess it. Righteousness can not be purchased. It is a gift, an absolutely free gift, without money and without price.

Furthermore, we can not prepare ourselves by good works to receive the gift of righteousness, and we can not receive it by doing good works, and we can not pay for it by any good works which we may do after receiving it. We are not even saved by the good works which are wrought by faith, for all is the gift of God. We are not saved by keeping the commandments of God, but the righteousness which is of faith is manifested through keeping the commandments, and thus witness is borne to the genuineness of the righteousness which is received as a gift.

These are simple truths, and in no way extreme statements. The more we meditate upon these simple truths, the more clear will they become to us. We need not fear to yield ourselves wholly to them. There are no other teachings of the Scriptures which will contradict or modify them. They stand absolutely true. When we read of “the gift of righteousness” (Rom. 5:17), we may know that it means a gift; and when we read that Israel failed of righteousness because they did not seek it by faith but by works (Rom. 9:31, 32), we may know that righteousness can not be obtained by works.

But are not good works required?—Certainly, but not as a means of securing righteousness, and not as a price for righteousness. Are we not required to keep the commandments of God?—Certainly, but not as a means of securing righteousness, and not as a price for righteousness. Righteousness and life are both gifts, both from the same source and through the same channel, and they are both re-tained by obedience, but they are not ob-tained by obedience. This is a distinction which makes all the difference between righteousness by faith and righteousness by works. We obtain righteousness as a free gift through faith. We manifest and retain righteousness by keeping the commandments,—an experience which is itself a gift of God through the ministry of Christ, and therefore first and last it is wholly the gift of God, and not by works at all. We are saved by grace through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. We do well to ponder these words.

The message of righteousness by faith is not to be discredited because some who

formerly taught it with clearness and power have departed from right paths. Neither is this fundamental truth to be modified nor nullified, with the idea that by so doing others will be prevented from departing from right paths. The only salvation for anybody is to be found in the gift of the righteousness of God which is received by faith and manifested in a life of obedience to the law of God, while the righteousness and the faith and the power to obey are all and equally gifts of God. “Where then is the glorying? It is excluded.” “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”

These are the lessons which the teachers ought to make clear on Sabbath, April 4, and which the preachers of the gospel ought to make clear on every Sabbath. This is “the everlasting gospel” which has been proclaimed in all the ages of the past, and which is to be proclaimed anew in this generation “to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.”