Self-Righteousness or the Substitute? 1

Self-righteousness is the hardest idol to be rooted out of the heart of a sinner. Man has a devilish pride that comes from the fall from God in the Garden of Eden that he would, if not wholly, yet in part at least, glory in being the cause of his own salvation. Arrogant self-righteous man goes about to establish a righteousness of his own, and will not wholly submit to that all-sufficient Righteousness which is of God through Jesus Christ.

Here is God’s love to man: what man could not do, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, undertook to do for him. And that God might be just in justifying the ungodly, Jesus thought it not robbery to be equal with God; yet He took upon Him the form of a servant, even human nature. In that nature Christ Jesus obeyed the law of God perfectly, He fulfilled the whole moral law in our stead: and also He died a painful death upon the cross, and thereby became a curse for, or instead of, lost and miserable sinners. As God, Jesus satisfied at the same time that He obeyed and suffered as man; and being God and man in one person, He wrought out a full, perfect, and sufficient righteousness for all who will take Him as their Savior.

The meaning of the word “Righteousness” is often misunderstood by religionists. It implies the active as well as the passive obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ not only died to pay for our sins, but He lived a sinless and holy life; He not only suffered, but obeyed for, or instead of, poor sinners. And both these (His sinless life and atoning death) jointly make up that complete Righteousness which is imputed freely to the believing sinner. You must be convinced by the law of God of the insufficiency of your own righteousness, and consequently of the absolute necessity of looking out of yourself to another (the Lord Jesus) for a better and perfect Righteousness, that you can depend on for eternal life.

You must make a critical decision either to trust your own imaginary righteousness in some way or fashion and damn yourself, or entirely trust to God's Righteousness - The Lord Jesus Christ Himself.  Christ Jesus is the Righteousness you need to get past the coming White Throne Judgment.  Any reliance upon your dreamed-up righteousness will land you in the lake of fire eternally.  It's your choice, make the wise one - trust to Christ alone.

If you have ever broken one of the least of God’s commandments in the least degree, you have sinned and have become liable to the curse of God; for “cursed is he (saith the law) that continueth not to do all things that written in this book.” You need an imputed Righteousness from Christ. That is, Righteousness that comes from without, not from within. You need the Righteousness that comes to you as a free gift from the hand of God.

If the whole personal Righteousness of Jesus Christ be not the sole cause for a sinner’s acceptance with God, if any work done by or foreseen by man, was in the least to be joined with it, or looked upon by God as a cause of acquitting your soul from guilt, then you would have somewhat whereof you may glory in yourself. But with the work of the Cross being complete, boasting is excluded in the great work of Redemption.

Suppose I was to come and tell you that you must intercede with dead saints, for them to intercede with God for you; would you not say, I was insane. I suppose you would. And why? Because, you would say, the intercession of Jesus Christ was sufficient of itself, without the intercession of saints, and that it was blasphemous to join their intercessions with His, as though Christ was not sufficient. Suppose I told you that the death of Christ was not sufficient, without your death being added to it; that you must die as well as Christ, join your death with his, and then Christ's death would be sufficient. You might then with indignation throw dust in the air and justly call me a "preacher of heresy." No sinner has any righteousness that will ever please the living holy Creator God, period, exclamation point.

Why then will you not believe solely on the Lord Jesus Christ for your righteousness? If you do not, your eternal portion must be in the lake of fire and brimstone forever and ever. Since you will reply upon works, by your works you shall be judged. Your works shall be weighed in the balances of God and be found wanting. By your works, therefore, you shall be condemned. And you, being out of Christ, shall find God, to your poor wretched soul, a consuming fire.

Were you ever made to abhor yourselves for your actual and original sins, and to loathe your own righteousness; for, as the Isaiah the prophet perfectly put it, "your righteousness is as filthy rags? Were you ever made to see and admire the all-sufficiency of Christ's Righteousness, and drawn by the Spirit of God to hunger and thirst after it? Could you ever say this, “My soul is athirst for Christ, yea, even for the Righteousness of Christ? O when shall I come to appear before the presence of my God in the Righteousness of Christ! Nothing but Christ! Nothing but Christ! Give me Christ, O God, and I am satisfied!”

You will shortly be ushered into Eternity by Time. Will you be able to stand in the Day of Judgment? Where will you flee at death? Yet a little while and time shall be no more, and then what will become of you, if the Lord be not your righteousness? Can you bear to think of being damned by Christ? Can you bear to hear the Lord Jesus say to you, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”? For God’s Justice must be satisfied; and unless Christ’s Righteousness is imputed and applied to you here, you must hereafter be satisfying the divine justice in hell-torments eternally.

Are you wandering far from Jesus today in the path of sin and shame? You must seek God for salvation. The only thing you have to take with you is your sins. You have nothing else to call your own. You have no goodness or righteousness to commend you to God. Don’t try to remember some good deed in your past life, or try to clean up your act before going to the Cross. That will not impress the holy Judge of all the earth. All of your ‘so-called’ good works combined could never pardon one of your sins.

Man has been trying 6,000 years to impress God with his goodness, and but he has utterly failed, and you will fail as well. God has made the Gospel and salvation simple, but man makes it something distant and difficult. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, came to save the lost, not for those who are partly lost. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Sinner cannot partly save themselves. If you are not wholly a sinner, you will be turned away from the mercy of God. God’s word, the Holy Bible, says you are wholly a sinner, and you must deal with God as such, for ‘the whole’ need not a physician, but they that are sick.

If you are not wholly a sinner, you don’t wholly need Christ, for He is an out and out Savior to out and out sinners; He does not help you to save yourself, nor do you help Him to save you. He does all for you, or nothing. A half salvation will only do for those who are not completely lost. The Bible says, “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” Jesus did it all “His own self.” Hebrews 1:3 says, “Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Self-righteousness is removed by the gospel in its freeness, the good news of pardon to the sinner, without merit and without money, solely through the Blood Atonement of Christ Jesus.

No preliminary goodness or preparatory feeling is needed to come to Christ. Christ died for the ungodly. God justifieth the ungodly freely by His grace. If you are only a pretended and fake sinner, then therefore you only need a pretended and fake Savior. Real sinners are provided the real Savior. Jesus Christ is the Savior of great and real sinners, who are deserving of nothing but utter damnation. Look to the wounds and blood of Jesus alone. The Cross of Calvary is the only place where God deals in mercy with a sinner. There you will find the Precious Blood that washes sin away, and the righteousness which clothes and beautifies the soul.

Righteousness that comes from you is self-righteousness and a damnable thing that will bring upon you swift destruction, but pure Righteousness belonging to another, Jesus Christ, reckoned to you by God as it were your own, is called imputed Righteousness will bring the lovingkindness of God to your soul. God imputes His Righteousness to sinners without works. Imputed righteousness must come first. You cannot have the true righteousness within till you have the righteousness that comes from without, the
righteousness that comes from God himself; and to make your own righteousness the price which you give to God for that of His Son, is to dishonor Christ, and to deny His cross and finished work.

God offers to sinners an immediate pardon, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by the great work of Righteousness finished for us by the Substitute – the Lamb of God. Your only qualification for obtaining Christ’s righteousness is that you are unrighteous, just as a sick man’s qualification for the physician is that he is sick.

If you need salvation, you must go to Christ for it. You will then get just what you need, because God delights in saving sinners and helping the poor and needy. If you need pardon, go to the Cross for it, and you can obtain a free pardon without merit or money. When you have nothing to pay, God will frankly forgive you and pay your sin debt in full. You must despair of your own good works and say to the Lord Jesus, “You are my righteousness, and I am your sin. You have taken on You what was my sin, and given to me what is yours (Righteousness). What I was, You became (sin), that I might be made what I was not (righteous). Christ dwells only with guilty sinners that need Him.

The gifts of pardon, peace, and eternal life are all Divine gifts brought down from Heaven by the Son of God, presented personally to each needy sinner by God the Father. They are not to be bought, but received; as men receive the sunshine, complete and sure and free. They are not to be earned or deserved by exertions or sufferings, or prayers or tears; but accepted at once as the purchase of the labor and sufferings of the great Substitute.

They are not to be waited for, but taken on the spot without hesitation or distrust, as men take a gift from a loving friend. They are not to be claimed on the ground of fitness or goodness, but of need and unworthiness, of poverty and emptiness. Salvation comes not from doing, but of believing; not of doubting, but trusting. You must forsake your own plans and ways, and your own devotions and doings. The peace you are working for will never come until you rest your soul on the ‘one and only resting-place’: the Blood and Righteousness of Christ Jesus.

Your hopes must be destroyed and carried away, and then God’s hope may be built in your heart. The Gospel is the good news concerning Jesus Christ who died and was buried and rose again. The thirty-three years between the cradle of Bethlehem and the cross of Calvary contains the entire breadth of the good news. His virgin birth, sinless life, bloody atoning death, and resurrection contain all you need to know for peace with God. Dear sinner, look to the future which lies before you. What will it be? Dark or bright? Your life is but a vapor. You need to make sure you have eternal life. It is within your reach today. You must rest upon what Jesus did ‘for you’ to have a safe and happy Eternity.

Are your good works good enough to take you to Heaven? Are you doing your very best? Do you not know any good works better than your own? I know of some. Are not the works of the Lord Jesus Christ better than yours? He was God manifest in the flesh, and He was sinless and without spot or blemish. Are you better than Him? I doubt it. God is willing to take the works of Christ instead of yours that will not do before a holy God. God is willing to take all what Christ has done and suffered instead of what you have done or could do or suffer; and to give you what Christ has deserved, instead of what you have deserved (hell fire).

You have can receive Christ’s works (His Righteousness) by simply believing the Gospel. The Lord Jesus Christ lived, died, was buried in a tomb, and then after three days He rose again from the dead – all for sinners just like you. The Bible says, “through this Man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by Him all that believe are justified from all things.” You must entirely trust in another’s works, not your own. Christ died “for us.” He did for you what you could not do for yourself. Christ did what you should have done; He bore what you should have borne. He was nailed to your cross, died the death you deserved, paid your debt – all this to bring you to God freely, and to make everlasting life yours.