DO YOU KNOW GOD’S RIGHTEOUSNESS?; IT’S WHAT OURS MUST BE FOR ETERNAL LIFE- Ps.9:8

When the Psalmist in Ps.9:8 wrote, “And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.” We are being told that when God judges the world His judgement will be according to our relationship with Him. Which is our righteousness. Our righteousness is the wedding garment the man in Mt.22:12,13 was thrown out of the wedding for not having on.

We too will be judged in regard to that relationship. As Paul taught in 1Cor.3:11-15 if we have believed in Jesus for eternal life we will be saved. If we have not believed in Jesus for eternal life we will not be saved. Any works we have done will only serve as the means to determine rewards. Not for determining salvation.

When most people think of righteousness they think of good works because they have been taught the Bible according to the systematic theology of the doctrine of original sin and sin nature.

So that it is something that someone does that makes them righteous. Like what Jesus did by keeping the law perfectly was His righteousness. And doing this in our place to be able to impute it to us when we trust in Him.

Augustine, whose teachings most evangelical Protestants as well as Roman Catholics base their theology on, had this to say about man’s righteousness. “The so-called innocence of children is more a matter of weakness of limb, than purity of heart.” This is why he taught that babies who die go to hell.

He also said, “Now, justification in this life is given to us according to these three things: first by the laver of regeneration by which all sins are forgiven; then, by a struggle with the faults from whose guilt we have been absolved; the third, when our prayer is heard, in which we say: ‘Forgive us our debts,’ because however bravely we fight against our faults, we are men; but the grace of God so aids as we fight in this corruptible body that there is reason for His hearing us as we ask forgiveness.”

Do you notice something missing from Augustine’s view of what justifies a man? And what he replaced this with? What is missing is what the apostle Paul defined as justification. The Bible never says a man is justified because his naughty behavior, his bad works, are forgiven. Not once.

In fact, Paul taught that a man can not be justified by the works of the law. Yet here Augustine is basing our justification on forgiveness for not keeping the law. As if had we kept the law we would not need justification. Because we would be justified by its keeping.

What we see in scripture is something completely foreign to what the doctrine of original sin and sin nature teach, especially in the New Covenant. What we see there is that justification is “by the faith of Christ”. And we also see that the righteousness/justification many Israelites tried to achieve was “filthy rags”. Because they tried to attain righteousness by works of the law.

And since justification and righteousness are the same word in the Greek, Gal.2:16 can rightly be translated that a man is righteous by the faith of Christ. And as Paul says in Gal.2:16 righteousness is not by works of the law. Which includes any law keeping Jesus did, and the sacrifices required for sins defined by the law.

This is why those who have been deceived by original sin and sin nature doctrine can not understand what true Biblical righteousness is. Because they believe it comes from their faith in Jesus’ sinless perfection by keeping the law perfectly. And that sinless perfection being imputed to them by their faith. While the Bible teaches righteousness is by believing in Jesus just as Jesus believed the Father.

This then is why in Gal.3:21 Paul says that our righteousness is our relationship with God. Because Paul said here “for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” And since Jesus said in John17:3 that life is knowing Him. Then righteousness for us is knowing Jesus. Righteousness is our relationship with Jesus which is eternal life.

That being true, then what is God’s righteousness? Is it different from the righteousness we have as believers in Jesus? Is it His works? If it is then His righteousness is the kind that God Himself calls “filthy rags” in Isaiah64:6. Is it His being the Creator and sinlessly pure that makes Him righteous? If it is then His righteousness is again not the righteousness that God tells us in His word that for us equates to eternal life.

God’s righteousness is consistent with what the Bible calls the righteousness of faith. This is the only kind of righteousness that truly makes one righteous. Whether we are talking about God or man. And is the only righteousness that makes men righteous, and defines God’s righteousness. Because this righteousness is defined as relationship.

Before anything was made that has been made there was what the Bible calls the Godhead. These are the 3 persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that make up this Godhead. Which is our Creator. Jesus tells us about this relationship in John17:21-23.

Here speaking of men who will believe Jesus said, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

22 And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:

23 I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”

See where Jesus said that it is love that makes the Godhead one? He was showing them and us(vs.20) in these verses that love is the condition for righteousness. And that condition being met is a relationship wherein love is the glue that makes up the Godhead. And is also the glue that joins us to each other and that Godhead.

This is why in Gal.3:21 where Paul was explaining the true righteousness that is eternal life he asks, “Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.”

In other words Paul was saying that the law was not given to Israel to provide them with eternal life. It was given for a different purpose. And that once that purpose was met in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection the law serves no more purpose. So that righteousness must be derived through other means.

This was that the righteousness God requires for a man to have eternal life is that we trust in Him. That we love Him in return for the love He has shown us by joining with us in our mortality and death. So that when we believe in our heart He conquered death by His resurrection, and confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, we are joined to Him in eternal life.

This is why God requires the same righteousness from us that is His righteousness. The righteousness that makes the Godhead one. And that righteousness must be a choice made from our own free will to love.

And apart from free will there can be no love. Because love is freely given from God. And must be freely accepted by man for it to be the love of God Paul says in Rom.5:1-5 is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Being shed abroad as we choose to trust Jesus through tribulation, patience, experience, and hope.

So that which makes God righteous is the same thing that makes men righteous. What made Jesus righteous is the same thing that makes all men righteous. It is our love for and trust in God. And when that love is shed abroad in our hearts that love will be expressed toward one another as well.

The righteousness of God brings to mind John’s words in 1John4:7,8 where he wrote, “Beloved let us love one another. For love is of God and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love.”

This is a song I learned in church and sang often with a gospel music group I was part of many years ago. I didn’t realize then that this was a detailed explanation of what the righteousness is that is eternal life. But, it sure is.

As I showed before Paul wrote concerning this righteousness in Gal.2:16. He said, “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”

This “faith of Jesus Christ” Paul speaks of is His relationship with the Father. His always and at all times while living as a man here on earth trusting the Father saying “nevertheless not my will but thy will be done.”

Now we can see what the Psalmist in Ps.9:8 meant when he wrote, “And he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness.” We are being told here that when God judges the world His judgement will be according to our relationship with Him. Which is our righteousness. It is our wedding garment.

We will be judged in regard to that relationship. If we have believed in Jesus for eternal life we will be saved. If we have not believed in Jesus for eternal life we will not be saved.

This is what we are saying when we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus. And believe in our hearts that He has raised from the dead. This is what saves us. Our trusting in Jesus just as He trusted the Father. This is the righteousness that is ours that Paul calls “the faith of Christ”.

When you do this Jesus told us in John3:1-8 God creates a spirit in you that makes you His child. And Paul says in 2Cor.5:17 that we become a new creature. A spiritual man that never existed before until Jesus came. Died, and rose again. Fulfilling the mystery Paul said in Eph.3 was never revealed to anyone before the apostles. The mystery Paul called “the dispensation of the grace of God”.

If you will do this you will be born from above. Made a child of God and heir to His kingdom. You will have the same righteousness that God has. This is why Jesus came. To show us the way, and to become the way to the Father. The way to eternal life that is believing in Him for eternal life.

Do this… and I will see you there or in the air!

This message can also be heard at: https://rumble.com/v7etpq6-do-you-know-gods-righteousness-its-what-ours-must-be-for-eternal-life-ps.98.html