RIGHTEOUSNESS

The Gift That Cannot Be Earned

Introduction: A Righteousness We Cannot Manufacture

There is a righteousness that God requires of every man and woman — and there is not a single human being on the face of this earth who can produce it by their own effort. You cannot pray yourself into righteousness. You cannot work your way into it. You cannot accumulate enough good deeds to tip the scales in your favour. Some have thought that if the good in their lives outweighs the bad, they will somehow be acceptable to God. But that is not the standard Scripture sets, and it is not the kind of righteousness God is after.

Righteousness is not a human achievement. It is a divine gift. And it comes to the one who believes — not the one who performs. This is the great liberating truth at the heart of the gospel: God makes you righteous. You believe, and He grants it. The entire weight of producing what God requires has been lifted from your shoulders and placed on the shoulders of One who was more than able to carry it. That One is Jesus Christ.

Part One: Preaching the Lord’s Death — The Communion and Its Power

Before we can fully appreciate the righteousness that the death of Christ secured for us, we must understand the weight and meaning of that death. The Lord’s Supper — the breaking of bread and the sharing of the cup — was not given to the church as a ritual to be performed mechanically. It was given as an act of proclamation. The Apostle Paul received this directly from the Lord:

1 Corinthians 11:23–26  For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.

The word translated “shew” means to announce, to declare, to preach. Every time you partake of the communion, you are preaching the Lord’s death — to yourself, to the angels, to the devil, and to the world. You are declaring the foundational event upon which your entire standing before God rests. This is why the communion is not merely a religious ceremony. It is an act of spiritual proclamation that can stir the faith of the weakest saint and remind the principalities of darkness of the victory that has already been won.

It must be understood that Jesus did not die because the wickedness of men was stronger than Him. He did not die because He was helpless before His persecutors. He Himself declared that no one took His life from Him — He laid it down. He laid it down willingly, deliberately, and purposefully. He died a vicarious, substitutionary death. He gave Himself up for us, so that we might live. Every time the bread is broken and the cup is raised, this great truth is being declared afresh: He died for you, so that you might live.

Part Two: The Grace of the Great Exchange

The death of Christ was not merely a transaction completed on the cross and then finished. It was the beginning of a substitutionary work that moved through death, burial, and resurrection — a total exchange in which He took what was ours and gave us what was His. The Apostle Paul captured this in a single verse of breathtaking simplicity:

2 Corinthians 8:9  For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.

For your sakes. Those words must not be passed over. He did not become poor as an abstract theological transaction. He became poor for your sakes — specifically, deliberately, with you in mind. And the purpose was not that His poverty should become your permanent condition, as though God’s mercy ends at the cross and leaves us stranded. The purpose was that through His poverty, you might be made rich. He took your place of destitution so that you could occupy His place of abundance.

This is the principle of substitution that runs through the entire gospel. He was delivered to death on account of our transgressions. But He was raised from the dead for our justification. When He died, we died in Him. And when God raised Him from the dead, we were raised with Him into a new life. The Apostle Paul declared what this new life means for every person who steps into it:

2 Corinthians 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

This is not poetic language for a slightly improved version of the old life. This is the declaration of a new creation — something that did not exist before, brought into being by the life of God. Because of His death and resurrection, it is possible for a human being to be genuinely born again, to receive a new nature, to have a new life in Christ Jesus.

Part Three: Believing Unto Righteousness

The question that every honest soul must eventually face is this: how does a person appropriate what Christ has done? How does the death and resurrection of Jesus become effective in an individual life? The answer is both simple and profound, and it is stated with unmistakable clarity in the tenth chapter of Romans:

Romans 10:9–10  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

With the heart man believeth unto righteousness. Not with the mind. Not with the intellect. Not with religious performance or moral achievement. With the heart — that is, with the spirit. You believe, and God grants righteousness to your spirit. Righteousness is not something you work towards; it is something you receive through faith. And receiving it changes everything.

This is why faith is not merely a human capacity like intelligence or skill. Faith, hope, and love are characteristics of the human spirit — they belong to the inner man, the real person. When you believe with your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, and when you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, you step into the righteousness that God Himself provides. You cannot make yourself righteous. You cannot work yourself into it. But God can make you righteous, and He does so the moment you believe. This is the grace of the gospel.

Part Four: The Battle in the Unseen Realm — What Happened After the Cross

The work of Christ did not conclude with His death on the cross. Between His death and His resurrection, something of cosmic significance took place in the realm of the spirit. Understanding it is essential to understanding the fullness of what Christ accomplished on our behalf.

On the cross, God laid upon Jesus the totality of human sin. He who knew no sin was made sin for us. In that moment, the Father turned His face away. Jesus cried out: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He was alone — because He had become the representative of fallen, sinful humanity, bearing everything that separated man from God. He was then taken to the realm of the dead, where Satan and his forces believed the victory was finally theirs.

But what happened in that realm defied every expectation of the enemy. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Colossian church, gives us a glimpse into what transpired:

Colossians 2:15  And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

The word translated “spoiled” means he stripped them, he disarmed them. The margin of Scripture says He threw them off from Himself — suggesting that they were grappling with Him, pressing upon Him, attempting to hold Him down in death. But Jesus threw them off. He stripped them of every weapon in which they had trusted. And then He made a public spectacle of them — He made a show of them openly, before all of hell, triumphing over them. There was a battle in the unseen realm, and Jesus won it decisively.

The writer of Hebrews explains the eternal significance of this victory:

Hebrews 2:14–15  Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Through death, Jesus paralysed the one who had the power of death. Satan was the one who held that power. But now, by dying and descending into that realm, Jesus engaged Satan in his own territory — and defeated him. He liberated all those who had spent their entire lives in bondage to the fear of death. This is not metaphor or symbol. This is the declaration of Scripture concerning an actual event with actual consequences for every human being.

The risen Christ Himself confirmed the outcome of that victory:

Revelation 1:18  I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

The keys of hell and of death are no longer with Satan. They are with Jesus. Satan cannot force anyone into hell. He cannot kill anyone by his own authority. His only weapon now is deception. He can only make men kill others, and he can only deceive — but the keys of death and hell are held by the One who conquered him. This means that when a believer stands in the name of Jesus, they stand in an authority that Satan is legally powerless to resist.

Part Five: The Name Above Every Name

Because of His obedience — His willingness to empty Himself, to take the form of a servant, to become a man and go all the way to death on a cross — God exalted Jesus to the highest place. What He surrendered in humility, God restored and multiplied beyond measure. The Apostle Paul unfolds this with incomparable beauty in the second chapter of Philippians:

Philippians 2:5–11  Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The obedience of Christ answered the disobedience of Adam. By the disobedience of the first man, sin entered the world and all were condemned. But by the obedience of One — Jesus Christ — many are made righteous. The exchange is complete. The name He now carries is above every name that exists in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Every knee — without exception — will bow to that name. This is the authority in which the believer stands. This is the name that the church has been given to use. It is not a religious formula; it is the name of the One who defeated every power in the universe and was then exalted above all of them.

When Jesus arose and came among His disciples, His greeting was not the word of someone who had barely escaped from the grave. It was the declaration of a conqueror. He said: “All authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” The commission to go into the world was issued from a throne of absolute authority. It was backed by the full weight of a name above every name. And the Acts of the Apostles records what happens when that name is proclaimed with faith:

Acts 4:12  Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

Part Six: You Have Eternal Life — Know It

The righteousness that Christ secured for us is not the end of the story. Bound up with it is something even more extraordinary: the impartation of the very life of God into the human spirit. The Greek word is Zoe — not the biological life that every human being possesses from birth, but the eternal, uncreated life that belongs to God Himself. This is what Jesus brought. This is what the new birth gives. And the Apostle John was emphatic that believers should not merely hope they have it but know it:

1 John 5:13–15  These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

John was writing to people who already believed — and yet he was urging them to know what they had. This is the great tragedy of much of the Christian life: people carry a reality on the inside that they are entirely unaware of on the outside. God’s own life — the life that destroys sickness, that repels disease, that overcomes death itself — is in them. But because they do not know it, because they have not been awakened to it, they continue to live as though they were simply natural men and women with a religious label attached.

John says: I want you to know. Not merely to sing it, not merely to preach it as a doctrine, but to be genuinely, consciously aware that the Zoe of God is in you. That life is a sickness repeller. It is a disease destroyer. The Apostle Paul declared of the same reality:

Romans 8:11  But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. The same Spirit that moved through the tomb on that resurrection morning and brought life to dead flesh — He dwells in the body of every born-again believer. And He will quicken — give life to — your mortal body. The question is whether you know it. Whether you are living in the awareness of it. Whether you are walking in the light of who you are in Christ, or whether you are walking in the darkness of ignorance about your own divine nature.

Part Seven: Asking in Confidence — The Believer’s Right Before God

The confidence that John speaks of in the fifteenth verse is not arrogance — it is the settled assurance of a child before a Father who has withheld nothing. There is a misreading of this scripture that has paralysed the prayers of countless believers: the idea that “according to his will” means you must first determine whether God wants to do a particular thing before you ask. That is not what the text is saying.

John says: if we ask according to His will, He hears us. The focus is not on the content of the request — whether what you are asking for is consistent with God’s purpose — but on the manner of asking. To ask according to His will is to ask in the name of Jesus, to ask in faith, to ask without wavering. That is the will of God regarding your method of prayer. And when you ask that way, He hears. And when you know He hears, you know you have the petitions you asked of Him. The Lord Himself confirmed this:

John 15:7  If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

Ask what you will. Not “ask what I decide to permit.” Not “ask, and if it is my will, I may respond.” Ask what you will, and it shall be done — the Greek word suggesting that if the thing does not yet exist, it shall be created, brought into being, fabricated by the power of God. The condition is abiding in Christ and His words abiding in you. When that relationship is real and living — when you are genuinely rooted in Him and His word has genuinely rooted in you — then what you ask flows from who you are in Him, and He brings it to pass.

God is not a reluctant benefactor who has to be persuaded into action. He is the One who initiated this entire arrangement. He is the One who told us to ask. He is the One who said: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. He has the liberty to make these promises because nothing the human mind can conceive or request is beyond His ability or His willingness to perform. He is not dealing with a God who might be stretched by your request. He is God Almighty, and He has invited you to ask.

Conclusion: Walk in What You Have

The message of righteousness is the message of what God has done in Christ Jesus and what that makes available to every person who believes. You did not earn righteousness, and you could not have. God granted it to you the moment you believed — a gift of grace, received by faith. With that righteousness came a new creation, a new nature, and the indwelling life of God Himself. That life is the Zoe of God — eternal, indestructible, disease-destroying, death-defeating life. It is in you. And God wants you to know that you have it.

The enemy you now face has been disarmed. His weapons have been stripped from him. His power of death has been paralysed. The keys of hell and of death are not with him — they are with the risen Christ who lives in you by His Spirit. When you stand in the name of Jesus, you stand in the authority of the One who triumphed publicly over every principality and power. When you pray, you come before a Father who hears you and who has invited you to ask what you will.

Do not live beneath what you have been given. Do not settle for a borrowed faith that depends entirely on the prayers of others to sustain it. Know what you have. Walk in the light of the divine nature that God has made you a partaker of. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You are a new creation. You have eternal life. And the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. Live like it.