IT’S CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT I NEED

by

Walt Hibbard

In brief, I think his article hit the nail on the head. Salvation is surely ALL of God. It is by His grace, extended to a certain chosen people (the elect), that people ordained to save. There is nothing that anyone of us can do to gain God's favor. The only favor and merit God sees is in His Son, Jesus Christ, for only He was sinless. All the rest of us are sinners and nothing that we do can assist in any way in saving us. Even the faith that we exercise in believing in Jesus is a "gift of God" (Eph. 2:8-9).  And only God can bestow that gift, too!

Good works, including baptism, in a believer's life, come about only as a result of God's giving us a new heart to believe. Regeneration bestowed by the Holy Spirit, therefore, must come first. Then from that new heart, the good works spring.

The Bible makes clear in Romans that the sinner needs "the righteousness of God." What's that? Well, it is a perfect righteousness, something that you or I will never have in

ourselves. We will always fall short, even after we are saved. "God's righteousness" is the actual righteousness of Jesus Christ. So is there someway that I, as a sinner, can have that

"perfect righteousness" bestowed upon me? YES, but only if Jesus Christ bestows HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS upon me! This has to be Jesus' "imputed righteousness," the righteousness that is "reckoned" or "placed to my account." Unless, I have THAT righteousness, anything I do have is simply NOT GOOD ENOUGH to get me into heaven! Christ says, "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

Then, when God actually bestows CHRIST'S RIGHTEOUSNESS on me, then and only then, am I capable of doing anything at all pleasing to God, the good works we are talking about. So good works or baptism have absolutely nothing to do with being saved. They come afterwards as God uses His people to help build Christ's Kingdom on this earth. Life can be really exciting and challenging, but it all has to start AFTER the Holy Spirit bestows Christ's righteousness upon a person, and that person is then accepted in the Beloved.

Sure, God looks at and even judges our good works, but these are only good works that come from a heart that has been given new life by Jesus Christ, whose perfect righteousness is the basis for all that follows after it.

So this is what I sincerely believe the Bible teaches. God has changed my life. He has given me Christ's perfect righteousness and that is the basis on how God looks at me. He sees Christ. He no longer sees me as a rotten sinner undeserving of anything from His hand. He sees me, with all my sins forgiven forever, past, present, future, and as His child. He will never leave me nor forsake me, and He will NEVER blot me out of the Lamb's Book of Life. He chose me! I did not choose Him! I'm so glad of that; otherwise, if it had depended on me in ANY WAY, I would be eternally lost. I rejoice that I am saved!!

~~Walt