The Lord our Righteousness

'The Lord our Righteousness'

— Jeremiah 23:6

There are some who teach that Christ was the sinner’s Substitute only in his sacrificial work upon the cross. We are told that the righteous life of our Lord Jesus Christ has nothing to do with our redemption and salvation, that his righteousness as a man had no merit and efficacy for his people, but that it only made him a suitable sacrifice for sin. This doctrine is contrary to the plain statements of Holy Scripture. Paul tells us that “As by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (Rom). 5:18-19).

The righteous life of our Lord Jesus Christ was as necessary for our redemption and salvation as his death. In order for God’s elect to be saved, accepted with God, our sin had to be put away and we had to be made perfectly righteous. In his life of obedience as a man, Christ perfectly obeyed the law of God as our Representative and Substitute. The law of God requires not only that we be without sin, but also that we be completely obedient to holiness, that we love God with all our hearts, souls, minds and beings, and our neighbors as ourselves. This righteousness Christ has performed for us as our Substitute. In him we obeyed the law of God perfectly. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.’ When God imputed the righteousness of Christ to us, he was ‘made unto us righteousness'; and we have been made the righteousness of God in him’.

This righteousness which Christ performed is the only righteousness God will accept. It is the only righteousness there is, and we must have it. This is that ‘holiness without which no man shall see the Lord’. We delight to renounce all personal righteousness and call him ‘the Lord our Righteousness’. Having established righteousness for us, Christ was ‘obedient unto death, even the death of the cross’, as our Substitute; and by his death he put away our sins.