A righteous man - Q&A

The Bible often talks about the righteous man, what God will do for him, how things will go for him, etc. But what really is a righteous man?

The answers to all of these questions can become sort of confusing. The reason for that is that they all have two parts. The answers are paradoxical, but beautiful, because these questions-and therefore the answers-concern God's character, and the gospel itself.

What really is a righteous man?

The Bible says that no man is righteous, no, not one (Romans 3:10). That being the case, we could say the righteous man is non-existent. Yet, Abraham "believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness". So there's a mysterious presentation of grace toward believers. God favoured Abraham. Abraham did not do anything to merit God's love and affection. God simply placed His favour upon this man.

In Christ we are seen as righteous, for He is the Righteous Man. Emmanuel, God Incarnate, Love-in-the-Flesh. He has provided the way for us to be seen as righteous.  He has paid the price for our unrighteousness.

How can you be righteous so you receive favour from God? 

You cannot, by yourself. Outside of Christ, we can do nothing. All our self-invented righteousness is nothing more than dirty rags constructed in the idol factory of our hearts. We are tainted by and with sin. We cannot hope to please God by doing anything righteous.

And yet, in Christ Jesus, there is nothing that we could do to lose the favour of God! He sees us through Christ Jesus, washed in His blood, clothed in His pure garments. We are loved by God so much. He forgets our sin. He casts our unrighteousness into the depths of the sea. He has separated us from our sin as far as the East is from the West. This is marvelous grace. It can hardly be fathomed.

Is any Christian righteous? 

In himself, no. In Christ, though, we are seen by God, as righteous as we can be. The righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us. This means that we are viewed right now, at this moment, as perfectly righteous, even while we as yet struggle with sin.

But he certainly doesn't always do righteous things? 

No indeed! We cannot escape our sin while we live on this earth. Yet there's the beauty of grace: it has never been up to us to earn our salvation in any way. God has brought us, saved us, adopted us, clothed us, fed us...Jesus has done all things for us. We have only to rest in Him. We ought to battle sin, and I think that as we grow in grace we grow in the desire to escape sin, and grow in the hatred of it, but we can praise God and rest in the fact that even while we do unrighteous things, Christ has paid the full price. We have no more debt. He has paid it all. It is finished!