What does it mean when God says you are righteous?

19

You Are Righteous

I think that most of us have sought this out in our lives from others. I only ever sought this from my father. I was, to my dismay, an only child. My mother, in her younger years, had a bad heart. After having me, she was told that she couldn’t have any more children. From what I was told, she was the recipient of the second heart operation in my hometown.

As my dad exhibited uncontrollable fits of anger at times, my mother was more tempered in her approach to issues. She also liked to collect things, i.e., old records, coins, collectibles, etc. One day, when I was about seven years old, she came up to me and said, “This is yours.” It was a little booklet of stamps that was the prize contained within a cereal box. When I opened it, what I saw were beautiful used US stamps. One of which was of an upside-down airplane. This began what was to become years later a large collection of US and world stamps, about twenty books.

Besides this, I began collecting baseball cards, coins, and comic books. My dad was not too thrilled with this. He thought that these hobbies were a waste of time and money.

Another thing that I enjoyed as a kid was sports. My dad, being the oldest of seven siblings, was forced at a very young age to work and help provide for his immediate family. Engaging in sports were a foreign concept to him.

While I admit that my father worked and provided food and shelter for the family, I didn’t enjoy his company. We had very little in common. It seemed that no matter what I did, I sought one thing from him, as I’m sure many of us have desired from others, but to no avail.

When I entered high school, then college, and ultimately the world of work, I continually sought this one thing until one day I found someone, or instead, He found me, that provided what I’d longed for all of my life. What was it, you ask? Please turn in your Bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians.



2 Corinthians 5:21

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

God the Father has made him (Christ) to be sin, a sin offering, a sacrifice for sin for us, who bore the punishment due to them, suffering in our stead so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (in union with Christ by faith). What does it mean that we’ve been made the righteousness of God in him?

Being made righteous has many meanings. And here they are.

Christ’s righteousness is imparted to you in the sense of His having fulfilled all the righteousness of the law for us as our representative.133 It signifies here the salvation of God, as comprehending justification through the blood of [Christ] and sanctification through his Spirit.134 [We’re] made righteous in the sight of God; that is, [we’re accepted as righteous] and treated as righteous by God on account of what the Lord Jesus has done.135

There it is. Do you understand what I was searching for? If you still don’t know, I have one more definition of what it means to be made the righteousness of God in Christ. The righteousness of God is taken here to denote —not that which is given [to] us by God, but that which is approved of by him.136

What I sought was approval. God is now my ardent supporter as He is yours. At salvation, He’s placed within you, i.e., in your spirit, all of which He supports, which will help you fulfill the spiritual journey that He has set before you. Give praise and thanks to God.

Have you ever had the desire to want to own something since you were a little kid? Did this ever come true ? Did you know that there’s one desire that holds true for God? What is it, you ask? It’s waiting for you to discover it in what follows.



Endnotes

133Jamieson, Faucet, and Brown Commentary.

134Adam Clarke’s Commentary.

135Barnes’ Notes.

136Calvin’s Commentaries.