November 4

The righteousness of the righteous. - Isaiah 5:23.

“THERE is none righteous, no, not one.” Such was the testimony of God himself when he looked down from heaven on the children of men; not when he looked down before the flood, when it is said, “The wickedness of man was great,” but after so many means had been employed to reform the world. We may be imposed upon, we are often led to form erroneous conclusions, but his judgment is always according to truth. Whatever good opinion we may form of our fellow-creatures or of ourselves, this is the testimony of God concerning us. We are “transgressors,” and are “under the law,” and “under the curse;” and universal observation and experience accord with the testimony of God, that “there is none righteous, no, not one.” Yet the Scripture is perpetually speaking of the “righteous;” and if there were no such characters to be found, nothing could be said concerning them. The case is this.

There are none righteous by nature; but there are some righteous by grace. There are none possessed of an inherent righteousness of their own; but there are those who are righteous by a righteousness derived from God. Of this the Apostle speaks: “That I may be found in him, not having mine own righteousness.” He tells us that “Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, did not attain to the law of righteousness; and wherefore?” says he, “because they sought it not by faith;” but “they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, had not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.”

There is a twofold righteousness, however, spoken of in the Scripture; the righteousness of justification, and the righteousness of sanctification. These are inseparable, though distinguishable. The one is a change of state, and gives us a title to heaven; the other is a change of disposition, and produces a meetness for heaven. As says the Apostle: “If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, old things are become new.” With regard to the righteousness of sanctification, it is not yet complete. So far from it, “there is not a man that liveth and sinneth not.” We are taught by our Saviour himself to pray for our daily pardon, as well as for our daily bread. This righteousness is so prevailing in the subject of it as to discriminate even to character; and when a Christian falls, he is acting out of character. In due time it will be complete, complete as the righteousness of justification.

Now, as he has a new righteousness, he has new and right views, new and right feelings, new and right hopes; but all these righteousnesses have a mixture in them, but soon they will be pure and without mixture before the throne for ever. Oh, it is a thing worth dying for to drop this body of sin and death; to feel no more “a law in the members warring against the law of the mind;” no more to say, “When I would do good, evil is present with me;” to shake ourselves from our mortal dust, to put on our beautiful garments of holiness; to “meet the Lord in the air,” and be “presented faultless before the throne with exceeding joy.”