RIGHTEOUSNESS AND LIFE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 10, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 40.

RIGHTEOUSNESS AND LIFE.

Man’s normal, or healthful, life is that of righteousness. God created man to do his will, and so glorify his name; for he created all things for his own pleasure (Rev. 4:11), and it is not God’s pleasure that man should sin and die (Eze. 33:11). If man from the beginning had obeyed God, he would have lived forever; for it was only in disobedience that death came. Gen. 2:17.

The perfect rule of man’s life was God’s holy law. “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” Eccl. 12:13. The healthful, normal life, therefore, was that which was manifest in the observance of God’s commandments. This is also expressed in Rom. 10:5, and other scriptures, “That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.”

This law, which expressed the whole of man’s duty, is the reflect of God’s character or the expression of his righteousness. Two or three passages will make this plain. Says the psalmist: “All thy [God’s] commandments are righteousness.” Ps. 119:172. The Lord, through the prophet Isaiah (51:6), says, “My salvation shall be forever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished;” and what this righteousness is he reveals in the next verse: “Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law.”

On the other hand, it is declared that “all unrighteousness is sin” (1 John 5:17), and “sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4), the Decalogue, the law which says, “Thou shalt not covet” (Rom. 7:7). As, therefore, all unrighteousness is sin, and sin is the transgression of the law, it follows that the law comprehends all righteousness and prohibits and condemns all sin. And this the apostle declares when he says: “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Rom. 3:20. As the law condemns all flesh (see also Rom. 3:9, 10, 19, 23), it therefore follows (1) that it prohibits all the sins that all have committed; and (2)

that none are living in harmony with the normal, or healthful, law of their being. And as in the way of righteousness alone is life (Prov. 10:16, 17; 12:28), so in the ways of sin, or unrighteousness, must be the opposite of life, or death. If man could start in life a perfect physical being, live according to a perfect law, with perfect surroundings, he would live on indefinitely; but the moment he transgressed the law of his physical being, he would become diseased, and the legitimate end of disease is death.

It was just so with Adam. He transgressed or perverted the higher law of his being, that which included in it all lower laws. He sinned against God. The perfect rule of his life was broken, and spiritual disease took its place, the inevitable and logical result of which is death. And so the Scripture declares: “The wages of sin is death.” Rom. 6:23. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Eze. 18:4. “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15. This is the inevitable law, or tendency, of sin. Its beginnings may seem to the uninstructed and careless like righteousness, but they are simply death in embryo. “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

But this sinful, diseased condition is the inheritance of all men. What Isaiah says of Israel may be said of all: “The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores.” Isa. 1:5, 6. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Rom. 3:23. All, therefore, in sin have death; all, in their natural state, are tending to death.

How can man be saved from this inevitable death? How may he become a living creature instead of a dying creature? He can not accomplish this of himself, for he is a sinner, sick, and doomed to death. All that he could do were he to render perfect obedience to the law, would be present duty. His whole past remains uncanceled; and, further, the normal law of his being has been transgressed; he is below his primal level, and his perverted faculties and powers can not fulfill the law, any more than his conscience, benumbed by sin, can appreciate its holiness. He has but one hope, and that is through Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Repentance toward God, or, in other words, renunciation of all sin, complete submission to God’s will, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, reconciles us to God and gives us peace. Acts 20:21; Rom. 5:1. God no longer counts us as enemies, but as friends. He not only takes away the sins of the past, but he takes away also that from which the sins sprang, which caused the enmity, the carnal mind, and the unregenerate heart. Eze. 36:26; Rom. 8:4–9. We are no longer at enmity with the law of God; we love it. We are no longer condemned, but justified. But how is this done?—That we do not know; it is one of the mysteries of the power of God. We do know, however, by what means. Faith in the promise of God clothes us with the righteousness of Christ, without works on our part; for of ourselves we could do no works acceptable to God. Springing from a sinful heart, the works would be sinful. The infinite fullness of Christ supplements man’s infinite need. “But now the righteousness of God without [the deeds of] the law is manifest, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God [and all believing], being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Rom. 3:21–24.

The believer is no longer a sinner in God’s sight; the eye of Infinite Perception sees upon him only his own perfect righteousness. He looks not upon a heart which hates his holy law, but a heart which loves it, even as did his Lord, in whose heart was God’s law. Ps. 40:7, 8. For notice that the righteousness with which God invests the believing sinner is the righteousness which the law approves or witnesses to. It is the righteousness of God, found abstractly in his holy law, and concretely in our Lord Jesus Christ. The law is the rule, and Christ is the example, of God’s infinite righteousness. And the law of life in Christ Jesus makes the sinner free from the law of sin and death. See Rom. 8:1–3. Will he then keep God’s law?—He can not do otherwise. The transgression of any precept of that law would cause him intense pain and sorrow of heart. The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Rom. 8:4.

But what does this righteousness bring him?—Life; for “by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” Rom. 5:18. This is the purpose and power of God’s free grace, “that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” Verse 21. Having righteousness, therefore, man has life. That righteousness is wrought in him through the power of the word and the Spirit of God. 1 Peter 1:23; John 3:5; Rom. 8:11. And that “Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Rom. 8:10. It was for the reason that Christ was righteous that death could not hold him in bondage. Acts 2:24.

God’s infinite righteousness is a manifestation of his infinite power. This infinite power, manifest through his Spirit, works in us the same righteousness through faith. This righteousness being ours, eternal life is ours. “The Spirit is life [in us] because of righteousness.” “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” 1 John 5:12. See John 3:36, and many other texts. This life is the life of the indwelling Spirit of God. Man may die, but his Lord has passed the portals before him. As death could not hold the all-righteous One, so it can not hold him on whom Christ’s all-righteousness rests. His righteous character before the throne of God is a check for eternal life at the resurrection, signed and sealed with the blood of the everlasting covenant.

For what should we seek—the righteousness or the life?—The righteousness. Having this, we have all. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.” “O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.”