TWO KINDS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

TWO KINDS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

At this juncture, I deem it fit to state that there are two kinds of righteousness, one is a reward; the other is a gift. I am going to explain the both of them with examples of people who got the reward or the gift.

The first kind of righteousness I want to explain is the reward kind of righteousness or what I will call “our righteousness”. This righteousness is gotten as a reward of a work done. It is the wages paid for labour. It is credited into our accounts when we are able to do righteous works. It is something you deserve because you’ve worked for it.

⁷ Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. {1 John 3:7}

You may want to ask: Does it mean if I do righteous works, I will be righteous? Well yes you will but you need to know that it is temporary. You are only paid for that work just as workers are paid monthly only for the work of that month. It is temporary because, you need to keep working to keep getting the reward of righteousness. The day you cannot work because of the weakness of your flesh, you will not be paid and you become unrighteous for that day. And if the trumpet sounds on the day of your unrighteousness, you are heading straight up in Hell.

Again, the day you become unrighteous because your short comings led you to fall into sin, you lose your confidence. A sense of condemnation overwhelms you due to your guilty conscience and fear sets in. Once the spirit of bondage to fear takes over you, you become handicapped and can’t do anything for the kingdom. You become useless and unqualified. You can’t even pray for a sick person, neither can you go out to preach because you feel God will not answer your prayers. You shrink away from God’s presence in fear until the guilt gradually disappears.

You bounce back again when you are able to resume work by keeping rules and regulations. Of course you get paid and you feel righteous once again. Now you feel qualified to pray for the sick and preach the gospel. You can now go for choir rehearsals and sing on Sundays without the fear of “thus says the Lord”. Your confidence is back. You see, the truth is that you are putting confidence in the flesh. You think that you can heal the sick by yourself because of righteous works. It is no longer about God but about you. Your belief is in yourself not in God. This reward righteousness is unstable. One day you are up, the next day you are down. Righteous today, unrighteous the following day.

The reward righteousness is yours if and only if you are able to keep God’s commandments.

²⁵ And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as he hath commanded us. {Deuteronomy 6:25}

Notice from the above verse that the children of Israel will be righteous only if they will do ALL the commandments. What! Are you kidding me? Is it possible to keep all the commandments? The answer is NO, if you want to obey all by yourself. No man ever did, not even Moses who brought the law. He broke it no sooner than he received it. He slashed the tablets of stones on the ground and they broke into pieces. The children of Israel broke the commandments even before Moses could come down from the mountain. To depend on adherence to the laws of Moses for righteousness is to come under a curse.

¹⁰ But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under his curse, for the Scriptures say, “Cursed is everyone who does not observe and obey all the commands that are written in God’s Book of the Law.”^[d] 11 So it is clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. For the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”^[e] 12 This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says, “It is through obeying the law that a person has life.” {Galatians 3:10-12 NLT}

Can’t you see that you are under a curse if you want to be righteous by depending on works? The reward-righteousness is only available if you can obey all the commandments. If you fail one you have failed all. The man who keeps nine and fails one is as guilty and unrighteous as the man who keeps one and fails nine.

¹⁰ For the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as a person who has broken all of God’s laws. ¹¹ For the same God who said, “You must not commit adultery,” also said, “You must not murder.”^[e] So if you murder someone but do not commit adultery, you have still broken the law. {James 2:10 NLT}

In fact you are doomed to failure and utterly cursed if you depend on self- righteousness. There is an obvious impossibility of carrying out such a moral program and no man can become righteous by this plan. You can’t have life by rule keeping because you will always break them. Sin is a transgression of the law and once you transgress a law you die. The wages of sin is death. The children of Israel died in their numbers in the wilderness because they transgressed God’s laws. If they couldn’t keep the laws, then you also cannot keep the law.

It is obvious now that the reward-righteousness leads to death because it is unstable and short-lived. Everyone who depends on it is under a curse. It is self-centred and not God-focused. It is practically impossible to achieve, no matter how hard we try.

                                                                                                              

The second kind of righteousness is the gift-righteousness. You don’t labour for it. It is not a reward of what you’ve done neither is it credited into your account because you deserve it. This gift righteousness is imputed into us simply by having faith in Christ Jesus. It is an undeserved righteousness and abides with us even when we fail to keep the commandments. It is simply unmerited.

³ For the Scriptures tell us, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.”^[a]

⁴ When people work, their wages are not a gift, but something they have earned. ⁵ But people are counted as righteous, not because of their work, but because of their faith in God who forgives sinners. ⁶ David also spoke of this when he described the happiness of those who are declared righteous without working for it:

⁷ “Oh, what joy for those
    whose disobedience is forgiven,
    whose sins are put out of sight.
⁸ Yes, what joy for those
    whose record the Lord has cleared of sin.”^[b {Romans 4:3-8 NLT}

The gift-righteousness looks beyond our sins. It is not diminished by sin. Even when one transgresses the law, one is still righteous. This is because the gift-righteousness is not a reward for obeying the laws. It is imputed into us only by faith in Christ Jesus. It is Jesus focus and not self-centred. We cannot feel confident one day and feel fearful the next day. Our confidence is steadfast and we are always useful to the kingdom. We don’t walk around with guilt and condemnation. We are confident always because whenever we disobey out of our shortcomings, we are forgiven and our sins are taken out of sight. God doesn’t keep record of our wrongs because we have faith in Christ Jesus as our righteousness-Gift.

 ²² And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous. ²³ And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded ²⁴ for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. ²⁵ He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God. {Romans 4:22-25 NLT}.

We are certain that whenever the trumpet sounds we are heading straight for heaven. We are always righteous. We don’t become righteous one day and unrighteous the following day. This righteousness has nothing to do with our works of keeping the law. It is exclusively God’s gift to us. Anyone who will dare to believe God will also be counted as righteous.

 Everyone who believes is freed from the penalty of their sins because Christ Jesus took the penalty of our sins when He became the scape goat for our sins. When He resurrected, we were all declared righteous and no longer guilty of sin as long as we have faith in Him.

²¹ But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses^[i] and the prophets long ago. ²² We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.

²³ For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. ²⁴ Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. ²⁵ For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, ²⁶ for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.{Romans 3:21-26 NLT}

This righteousness-gift is ours not because of our obedience but because of Christ’s obedience. His obedience was all that God needed to declare us righteous because we always disobey. Now we have life because of His obedience. Even though we are guilty of many sins, He still declares us righteous. He gives us this righteousness-gift though we don’t deserve it. Is this not wonderful? It makes us want to love God more and more.

¹⁵ But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. ¹⁶ And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. ¹⁷ For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.

¹⁸ Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone.¹⁹ Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous. {Romans 5:15-19 NLT}

Having seen the two kinds of righteousness, you will now have to choose which one you want. Do you prefer to labour like the children of Israel and be paid the reward righteousness or you want to have faith like father Abraham and receive the gift-righteousness? Do you really want to struggle to obey God’s laws or you want to rest on Jesus’ obedience and be declared righteous? The choice is yours to make. As for me and my house, we will keep having faith in Jesus Christ and enjoy His righteousness gift to us.