Understanding our righteousness...

"The first attack of the enemy will always begin with an attack on your identity"

"True righteousness comes only through faith in Christ..."

Our righteousness….

Q. What did you do to become a sinner?

A. You didn't do anything to become a sinner… you were born a sinner

Q. What did you, or do you need to do to become righteous?

A. Nothing, when you are born again, you are born righteous!

For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous… (Romans 5:12-21)

Jesus was made to be sin without sinning so that we could be made righteous without doing right

Righteousness is a gift... We were made a sinner not because we sinned but because (ONE MAN) Adam sinned… WE WERE MADE RIGHTEOUS not because we did right but because one Man Christ was righteous…

Infants in righteousness...

For everyone who continues to feed on milk is obviously inexperienced and unskilled in the doctrine of righteousness… Hebrews 5:12-13

We are still spiritual infants (immature believers) until we truly understand the doctrine of righteousness by faith and not by works

The apostle Paul reminds us that when we are born again, we are no longer dominated by sin, because we are no longer under the power of the law but under the power of grace. This means that we can now choose not to sin, as the power that previously made it impossible for us not to sin is now broken. We are no longer bound by the curse of the law and its grievous penalties (Romans 6:14-15)

Q. Seeing as we are now under grace and no longer under the penalty of the Law, should we allow ourselves to sin?

A. Absolutely not! Grace gives us the power to live right, it is God’s power giving us the ability to get results by no merit of our own. Grace teaches us to deny ungodliness (Titus 2:11,12)

If we are still having sin problems, it usually comes from trying to fix the old man and tame him to make him walk right… (Galatians 3:1-3 / Romans 7:17-25) . We need to STOP trying to make the old man do right… We can’t fix the old man! We need to put the axe to the root of the tree (Matthew 3:10)... that is to reckon the old man DEAD. As a born again believer we must stop trying to pour new wine into old wineskins (Luke 5:37)

After being born again, the first work of the Holy Spirit is to bring us to a place where we are ready and willing to let go of, (or die to) our self effort

This is the real death that needs to take place before we outwardly reach Galatians 2:20, before we can live the resurrection life in the power of His resurrection (Galatians 2:20)

We have to come to terms with the real death of the old carnal nature (self led life or carnal man), and live the new spiritual life (The new life in Christ). The life we used to live no longer exists… it is finished (Romans 6:6-12)

The old narrative has to be accounted as dead (inactive) so that we can create a new narrative and discover the character of the new spiritual man.

The Trap of self righteousness

For if justification (righteousness, acquittal from guilt) comes through [observing the ritual of] the Law, then Christ (the Messiah) died groundlessly and to no purpose and in vain. (Galatians 2:21)

Our entire faith rests upon the understanding that if we acknowledge and confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in the truth that God raised Him from the dead... this only, is what we need to do to be saved. This is a ‘day one’ basic Christianity lesson. However, there are many professing to be born again believers that are not sure of their righteousness, their salvation, or indeed the meaning of Salvation. This should never be so?

Salvation from sin happened the moment we believed.... (Romans 10:8)

Sanctification of self, works progressively into our outward lives as we continue to believe (Philippians 2:12-13)

We need to recognise that if the unrenewed mind (old software) is still giving out outdated instructions, this will cause us to continue sinning... Once born again our newly renewed spirit instantly becomes wholly righteous, therefore in our born again spirit, we are now also already holy, already healed and we already have all the power we will ever need. We simply need to work it out (from our spiritual nature into our outward natural lives.

Ephesians 2:8-9 makes it clear that our salvation, righteousness and holiness has nothing to do with the works that we do, and that our salvation and righteousness comes only by putting our faith in that which Christ has already done on our behalf. If we are still thinking, believing or acting like our own self initiated acts have anything to do with our right standing with God, we are still operating under the old covenant. But God has given us a better Covenant, declaring that it has now become a sin of self righteousness to continue living by the old covenant. This is because by so doing, we are declaring that Christ and His blood was not enough! (Galatians 2:21)

If we fail to renew our minds to our new identity in Christ, we will also fail to correctly deal with self effort and almost inevitably end up in a cycle of sin

The Cycle of Sin

When we are born again, we are saved from both sin and from self. Sin was dealt with at the cross, and though we are usually willing to let go of our sin, If instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to empower us, we continue to allow self effort to lead, Self (in a last effort to continue its life), will now attempt to do good...and therein lies the root of our problem!

Most new believers usually employ self effort in an attempt to stop their sinning. This usually results in much frustration as although this may work for a while, it is not possible to live sin free in our own strength and therefore a return to sin is inevitable. This is the route all new believers take when they have not fully understood their new identity in Christ.

This problem is further compounded when by the same self effort, we employ self to perform the good works we now seek to do. However, we would do well to understand that self effort can perform works of both good and evil, and that self righteousness is only another face of the same evil of unrighteousness! This being so, the more we allow our self to do good, is the more we encourage the exercising and strengthening of our ‘self nature’ which inadvertently builds up self to the point that it is emboldened to sin once again… and so the cycle begins!

Click the links below for additional media and materials relating to this topic...

Lyric Video

Positive Confession

Study Notes Overview

Our Identity In Christ (Part I)

Our Identity In Christ (Part II)

Our Identity in Christ (Part III)