GOD’S WORD FOR MAY 2 ~ ~ 2 Corinthians 5:21 ~ ~ “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Continuing in chapter 8 of Andrew Murray’s classic and beloved book, “Abide in Christ.”

“As Your Righteousness”.

And this experience (trusting Christ for salvation) sheds its light again upon Scripture.  It leads the new Christian to notice what he had scarcely remarked before, how distinctly the rightness of God, as it becomes ours, is connected with the person of the Redeemer.

Jeremiah 23:6 says, “…This is His name whereby He shall be called, “The Lord Our righteousness.”

Isaiah 45:24 ~ “In the Lord have I righteousness and strength.”

Philippians 3:9 ~ “That I may be found in Him, having the righteousness of God.”

He sees how inseparable righteousness and life in Christ are from each other: 

Romans 5:17-18 tells us:   “For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.   Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.”

Then the Christian understands what deep meaning there is in the key word of the epistle to the Romans 1:17:  “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

The believer is not now content with only thinking of the imputed righteousness as his robe; but putting on Jesus Christ and seeking to be wrapped up in, to be clothed in Himself and His life, he feels how completely the righteousness of God is his, because the Lord our righteousness is his.  Before he understood this, he, too, often felt it difficult to wear his white robe all day long;  it was as if he especially had to put it on when he came into God’s presence to confess his sins and seek new grace.

But now the living Christ Himself IS his righteousness, that Christ who watches over and keeps and loves us as His own; it is no longer an impossibility to walk all day long enrobed in the living presence with which He covers His people.

Such an experience leads still further.  The life and the righteousness are inseparably linked, and the believer becomes more conscious than before of a righteous nature planted within him.  The new man created in Christ Jesus is “created in righteousness and true holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24).

“He that does righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.”  (1John 3:7).  The union to Jesus has effected a change not only in the relation to God, but in the personal state before God.  And as the intimate fellowship to which the union has opened up the way is maintained, the growing renewal of the whole being makes righteousness to be his very nature.

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