God demands perfection. If you’re imperfect like me, then this is a big problem.

The good news…Jesus has overcome that problem.

Romans 3:23 is clear that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Did you catch what it takes to be called a sinner, to be imperfect.? All it takes is to fall short of the glory of God. That’s it. And the truth is that we are all guilty, none of us are as perfect and righteous as God!

Thankfully the story doesn’t end there! Romans 6:23 also tells us that “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God did what we couldn’t do by sending his Son to die in our place!

Jesus did perfectly obey. He was perfectly righteous. He never earned the “wages of sin”, which is death.

Divine Accounting

When we trust in Jesus for God’s forgiveness, that’s another way to think of faith, we are forgiven of our sin. The way God does this, according to Romans chapter 4, is by counting the righteousness of Christ to us. The word counting here is an accounting term that carries the idea of crediting to one’s account.

So when we trust Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, the perfect righteousness of Jesus (who didn’t deserve to die) is credited to us! This is incredibly good news.

The Big Question

But here is the question that is before us all…do I now have to contribute to that righteousness? Is the only way to stay righteous before God by being perfectly obedient to him now?

Ephesians 2:10 is clear that God prepared good works for us to do. Galatians 5 shows us that we are to live according to God’s character by being loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self controlled. Are these the things we have to do?

Do all of these add to the righteousness that God has given me in Christ? Here’s another way to think of it…does Jesus provide me with forgiveness and then I work to become a good person?

A Freeing Answer

I think we find the answer to this question in Galatians 2, and it’s wonderful. Starting in verse 11 we see a conflict that arose between Peter (called Cephas there) and Paul. The problem was that Peter was living according to the Jewish law and not in the freedom that he had as a Jesus follower.

But in verses 15-16 we see the heart that Peter had as he lived according to all of the Jewish laws…he was seeking to be “justified” by his actions. He was seeking to add his righteousness to the righteousness that God had credited to him by faith. Paul very clearly tells him that no one will be justified in this way. Justified is a legal term that has the idea of being proved innocent, that is to say that one is proven to have not done something wrong.

Paul isn’t forbidding righteous living. He isn’t telling Peter he doesn’t have to obey. He isn’t giving Peter a free pass to sin with no consequence. Rather, he is telling Peter that he has no ability at all to add any righteousness to what God has already credited to his account in Christ!

Paul goes on to share a very famous verse verse with us…

The very next verse, verse 21, goes on to say that Paul isn’t trying to “nullify the grace of God.” He is saying that we all only have one source of righteousness that makes us acceptable to God. Either that source is Jesus Christ, or that source is our efforts, called works. But this draws us back up into verse 16 where we are reminded that “by the works of the law no one will be justified.”

Conclusion

What this means is that either Jesus provides all of my righteousness or I do. He has rightousness to offer though, while I have none. His righteousness can save me, but mine cannot. We do not add one drop of righteousness, and thereby improve our standing before God, by obedience. We simply live according to the righteousness of Jesus that has been credited to our account already!

We don’t depend upon our works for God’s approval, we live according to the approval of God that we already have.

Obedience is still required. We have to live according to our new nature. We will still struggle with sin as long as we live in the flesh. But here’s the good news…sin can only bring death and sadness. Christ righteousness gives us life and our obedience keeps us out of that which can only make us miserable. Our obedience doesn’t add righteousness, it protects us from what can only harm us.