Covering

My grandmother told me once of something what she did when she first married my grandfather a long time ago. She said that she was a virgin when they married and she was terrified about her wedding night. Because she had never been with a man before, and because they had been raised to dress very moderately, she was embarrassed to expose herself to my grandpa. She said that in order to make herself feel more comfortable about beginning that night with him, she wore two gowns to bed that night instead of one.

We might chuckle at her approach at intimacy with him, but in reality, the Bride of Christ does the same thing with her new Husband, Jesus Christ. Has anyone ever wondered why Jesus cursed the fig tree that day when He was traveling with His disciples? Remember that in the Garden of Eden, what did Adam and Eve cover themselves with when they sinned? Fig leaves, which happened to be the worst covering Adam could have chosen. In Adam’s Perfect state, he would never have chosen a fig leaf because he would have known that fig leaves shrink in the sun. However in his fallen state, he chose the worst covering that he could have, not realizing that through the Light of God he couldn’t hide himself from God anyway. Jesus cursed the fig tree that day because it was a simple of an improper covering for sin that would simply no do. Instead, He provided the Proper covering when He gave Himself for His Bride upon the Cross at Calvary.

Many believers have no problem coming to Christ and giving their entire past to Him, all of their former sins and faults. However, it’s come to our attention that there are generally three areas that Christ’s Bride struggles in her walk after she marries Him. Like my grandmother, she looks for a second covering, being embarrassed by her faults and insecurities, thinking that there must be some way to cover all of that up. If the Groom is intimate with His Bride, He already knows what is there and is not offended by any of it, rather He loves her in spite of them. This is the mark of a True Lover and Soul Provider.

Jesus doesn’t view us the way that we view ourselves. We see ourselves as blank and tattered piece of canvas material, He sees us as a finished work of art that is priceless and is not for sale. He calls us Precious and we can’t be snatched from His Capable Hands!

The Bride's Veil

This is the chapter that we have earnestly been awaiting, as there are so many things that we will be addressing. We’re going to refer back to our theme in the beginning of the book of being “the Bride of Christ” and Him being our “Husband.” We wanted to entitle this chapter, “The Deceived Bride,” just as Eve was deceived, because there are so many things that befall the Bride of Christ, keeping her from ever reaching her full potential in the Lord. We decided to go with the current title, realizing that the element behind the Bride being deceived, is that the Bride doesn’t know what she needs to know.

What Jesus has done for us at Calvary is more than just going to hang on a piece of wood, that we might have salvation. That is a great benefit of the Cross, but it definitely is not everything that He died to give us. When we identified ourselves with Christ and died, we became dead to everything that formerly kept us pained and bound when we were unbelievers. However, much of Christ’s Bride is not fully aware of what has really taken place on Her behalf. When we married Christ, He took away the “Veil” and kissed His Bride by giving her the Truth and Grace that would set her free and enable her to be the Chaste Virgin that He sees Her as being.

When we received Christ into our hearts, He became our Husband, we are now one with Him. Everything that Christ has, we have. He has become not only our Sole Provider, but also our Soul Provider.

Many Christians get saved, and think that the Cross of Christ was only meant to get them saved, and they believe that after their salvation experience, it is up to them to keep themselves clean, pure, and holy before God. This is not what Christ desires from His Bride. Christ’s desire is that His Bride come into the knowledge of what He has given Her, and that She will willingly receive His Gifts, using them along this journey.

In the Old Testament, the veil was seen as a separating wall between God and man. But in Hebrews, the Bible states that the veil was rent, giving us access to God and His Spirit through the broken flesh of our Savior, Jesus Christ. This is good news for the Church!

If we could imagine the Bride of Christ standing adorned in the wedding ceremony, we might see something very odd looking at today’s Church.

There is a point in many wedding ceremonies where the bride is passed from the father to the new husband, and the father takes the veil from in front of her face and places it behind her as he lovingly kisses her cheek. At this point the groom is able to look romantically into his bride’s eyes while he exchanges his wedding vows with her.

Instead of removing the veil from her face, the Bride of Christ holds the veil fimly in front of her face, not allowing it to be removed. Wouldn’t this be awkward for everyone involved? Why would the she do such a thing? Perhaps she is embarrassed. Perhaps She thinks that He will not love her if He looks at Her and sees Her Imperfections. Perhaps she is unaware of His True Love for her.

Although this scenario may seem a bit silly, the truth is that this is how much of the Church treats Christ, her new Husband. We’re first going to describe the “Veils” that the Bride of Christ often uses to hide herself from her new Husband, keeping herself from ever really exposing her true self to the Lord.

The Word of Faith Doctrine

We like to call this doctrine the “what you say” doctrine. What it teaches is that since we were made in God’s Image, we must be “little gods,” as a result. “Since we are little gods,” we then must have the power to create with our words. Therefore, anything that we speak, we speak into existence and create all desired results and futuristic situations for ourselves.

There are many things wrong with this doctrine, but all stem from the same premise that any false doctrine does and that is: it excludes the Finished Work of Christ. The general rule of thumb for any believer should be, is to always look for Jesus and what He did at the Cross. It really only takes a simple twist or creasing of the Word of God to make it only partially true, instead of completely true. What is something that is only partially true? If something is partially true, then the statement being made is completely false.

What this doctrine states are some true things: We are made in the Image of God, but we are not the Creator, God is. Since the fall of man, every man has actually been made in the image of Fallen Adam, which is sinful. Sinful flesh can never make something good. Corruption breeds corruption, it does not breed incorruption. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit on it’s own. For instance, look at anything that man creates: does any of it last forever? No, rather it all falters, fails, rusts, falls apart, and disintegrates. There is nothing that man has ever created that last and lives forever.
If we have received Christ into our hearts and have been born again, then we would be made in the Image of God, because Christ is God’s Expressed Image. But in no way are we like God without Christ. This may seem like it is incredibly too technical, but we must understand these things before we try to build our belief something on upon something that is man’s doctrine and not God’s doctrine. Otherwise what we wind up believing and proclaiming is not complete true, but a lie.

There are scriptures that the propagators of this doctrine use to support their doctrine:

The first is often “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Yes, this is true. The Word of God also states in Ja 3:8 that no man can tame the tongue, which should let man know that even when he wants to say something that could bring forth life, he has no ability to do so. Now in Christ, we can pray things and God says that He will do it, because we are doing the “will of the Father.” What is the Will of the Father? Christ coming to this earth, and exchanging His Perfect life for us. In Christ we can do anything, because God is with us and there is nothing that shall be impossible for God. The key is, always be sure that Christ is the one doing the creating, because we can’t do anything without the Lord’s help. Here’s another example: Ever find yourself getting a cold and decide that you are not getting a cold? Did you get the cold? Yes, chances are you did. But if you were steady in your rebuking the devil, proclaiming God’s Word over yourself, and believing that you were not going to get sick, then why did you get sick? Don’t you have the power? When we say that it our power is in our own spoken words and not in what Christ has done for us, we are setting ourselves up for failure. We are no match for the devil. But the devil is not match for Christ. Our faith should be anchored in the Finished Work of Christ, and not in our personal ability to quote scripture or the quantity of faith that we think we have to do things.

Next, church people love to say, “We need to call those things that be not as though they were!” This is great if you are desiring to see your family saved, because the scripture that they are quoting in Rom 4:17 speaks of the world being God’s children (even when we weren’t His Children yet), because to whomsoever will receive Jesus, will have Him and all He has to offer His Bride. Unfortunately, many Christians that use this scripture think that there is power in quoting scriptures, as though because they said it, it will happen. In using this scripture, they always leave out the most important part, which states that it is God that calls things into existence, not man. The part of the equation that is still missing in this “creative words” doctrine is that they are excluding the only One that can make such things happen, which is Jesus! Jesus was and always will be the Middle Man between God and us. He is called our Mediator. Without Christ between God and us, God will not accept us or anything that we do.

Another very commonly used scripture by “word of faith” preachers is Rom 10:8 which states, “But what do you say, the word is near to you, even in your mouth, and in your heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach.” The “word of faith” is talking about the “Finished Word of Christ” at Calvary, not the words that we speak.


There is another aspect of this doctrine that involves less scripture, but still the outward professions of faith. We were flipping through Christian television recently and stopped to hear what this female preacher had to say. She and her daughter pastor people and are constantly selling things on their show, claiming that because they have prayed a certain prayer of blessing over this blanket (or whatever product they are peddling), the purchaser will have certain blessings from God as a result of buying if from them. It is ludicrous what they are doing, because unsuspecting Christians that are not well grounded in the Word of God will buy that blanket, thinking somehow that either the blanket or the words of that woman will be the thing that brings them victory in their life. We can put our faith in that object or that woman, but the object doesn’t save and neither does that woman. All that this really does is destroy the faith of those that believe in what these preachers are peddling. It’s deceptive what they are doing, because in no way is Christ even mentioned in this transaction. The only blessings that we can receive, are through Christ and what He did at the Cross. There is no other method! If we need healing, we’re healed by His Stripes. If we need blessing, we have it because He became the Curse for us, (Gal 3:13).

During the same sermon, we heard this dear lady talking about sin and how to overcome the devil. Her idea of how to overcome the devil was to “not commit” certain acts of sin. Then at the end of her sermon, she had her church write down two of their re-occurring sins on a piece of paper, tear them up, throw them on the floor and stomp on them while proclaiming a certain scripture. Folks, this sort of thing does not give the child of God victory. Again, the most important person was left totally out of this summation of steps, which is Christ and what He has done for us at the Cross. If a person is born again, then they are Christ’s. If they are Christ’s, He bought for us all that we need and is our sole Provider. We don’t need these silly self-remedies, when we have the One with every answer to our every dilemma living inside of us. God is not some distant being up in the sky that we have to do stupid things outwardly in order that we get His attention. He has not left us here to our own devices, but rather gave us more than just a man when He gave us Christ. He gave us the Spirit of Life that comes to live in our hearts, which does all of the work that we need. If we are committing certain sins, we need to continue believing that Christ erased it all at the Cross and we have Him in our hearts. We shouldn’t love sin; in fact we should hate it. But when we see our constant failures, (and we will, because we are still human), we need to receive God’s Grace, that’s what it is for. We are to know that He loves us and accepts us, because He accepts Christ in us. God knows what we have need of, He will take that thing out eventually, we don’t need to get our hands involved in His Finished Work. God doesn’t need our help.

It’s all right to pray and speak the Word. There is nothing wrong with claiming certain scriptures to be special to us in our personal walk with Christ. But Christianity is not a self-help program. It is a place where we depend solely on Christ and what He has done for us. Child of God, know that you are not by yourself anymore, you can rest in Him now.

False Doctrines

One of the greatest tools of the enemy is to inject false doctrine into the spiritual diet of believers. If we were to begin to replace healthy goods in our diet with fast food, one might not think this could affect their health very much. Over the course of a month of eating three square meals a day of only fast food, instead of healthy home cooked meals, one would see a vast difference in their body mass, functions, mood and personality. We would probably even find that although our body still functions while eating this food, it is not functioning in the manner in which God created it to. When we eat what God has created, it’s easy to see that the Creator knows what works best for what He has made. The reason that we use this analogy is not to invoke our opinions about eating well or having a healthy lifestyle, but rather to explain something that we naturally understand to present a spiritual though.

God knew what we would spiritually need to eat in our daily life, that we might be able to function in Christ’s Body in the manner He designed. Instead, what man has done has created spiritual fast food and it is being fed to God’s children through the airwaves on a consistent basis. That’s why Satan is called the “Prince of the powers of the air” (Eph 2:2). He is skilled at getting preachers to mess up scriptures, evoking false ways to God by any means other than the Finished Work of Christ. We’re aware that we are using terminology that some might not be accustomed to, (the Finished Work of Christ), but we say that to prove a point. What we need to have in our spiritual diet, is preaching that explains the transaction that took place at Calvary, what it means, what it purchased us not only for the next life, but this life as well! Instead the food folks are devouring may appear to be keeping them spiritually alive, but in reality, Christians are suffering spiritual heart attacks, and some are malnourished.

In this day and age, many people put way more trust in a doctor than they do in God for their physical healing. As though that is not bad enough, we do the same thing spiritually. Instead of relying totally on Christ and what He has done for us, we’re looking for the fast food version to get the outward results that only the Holy Spirit can do inwardly in our hearts.

Christ died to give us everything back that we lost in the garden after the Fall of Man. Our goal is to expose the ways that we are always trying to earn what God has freely given us, and how we don’t have to earn what is a free gift.

Self-Righteousness

We don’t really like discussing this topic in our “righteousness” chapter, but feel as though we would do a great injustice to the reader if we left it out. While not a very positive subject, it is positively one of the biggest hindrances to mankind and his walk with the Lord.

Our desire is not to glorify the evil works that some might have in the world, but rather to show people what the true Way is to victory. We discussed earlier in our “blessed are they which do hunger” section about Phariseeism and how Christ’s righteousness is the type of righteousness we are to obtain. We are not going to revisit that angle of this topic, but rather to explain how self-righteousness will keep people from getting into the Kingdom of God and of Heaven.

We’re going to discuss the story of Cain and Abel from a perspective that is seldom taught. Many Christians have seen this story as one that is preached to teach people about how murder is wrong. While that could be true, that perhaps could be simply a surface understand of the scripture that requires more digging in the Word. The truth is, we don’t need a story like Cain and Abel to tell us that murder, hatred, and jealousy are wrong in the sight of God. Anyone can identify that those types of behavior are “ungodly.” So then what could God be trying to tell us through this story?

Let’s discuss the main characters and elements of this story and see if we can’t find what God could truly be attempting to reveal to His readers. First, we’ll discuss some of the similarities and differences between Cain and his younger brother Abel.

Both Cain and Abel are sons of our first parents, who have fallen from perfection in the Garden of Eden. They both have noble professions, bringing forth some sort of product of their labors. They also have openly confessed to God that they are sinners, hence the reason that they bring forth an offering unto the Lord. Each offering is brought before the Lord in hopes that God will accept what they have as a covering for their sins. Based on what is brought before Him, God decides whether to consume and accept the sacrifice or not. God loves them both equally, for He is not a respecter of persons, (Ac 10:34).

Now that we know that God isn’t playing favorites, we need to discuss the individual offerings that are brought before the Lord as a sacrifice for their sins. Allow us to paint a picture for each scenario:

Cain is a farmer and has set aside the very best of his crops to give to the Lord for his sacrifice today. As the altar stands in the distance, perhaps Cain prepares his fruit and vegetables before bringing them to the Lord. We can see Cain washing and shining each individual piece of his offering, in effort to impress the Lord with his sacrifice.

He brings his fruit of the land to the altar of the Lord. He thinks of all of those long hours laboring in the heat, feverishly working to bring forth something worth giving to God. We could even go so far as to say that maybe when he offered it, he cut the fruit open as he laid it out upon the pieces of wood, so as to show the Lord that the fruit was not rotten on the inside. As Cain steps away from the altar, he wipes the juice from his food off of his hands and waits to see if God will accept the works of his hands.

God does not accept it and Cain is wroth, not understanding why.

Abel stands afar off with his lamb tied to the rope that he holds. He has spent the day washing and grooming the first of his flock. Perhaps Abel has even named this loving little creature, as it is easy to get attached to such animals. Abel steps up to the altar. In one hand he holds this innocent victim that has done nothing wrong, of whom he loves very much. He thinks of all of the days and nights that he kept this little guy safe from the snare of wolves and such predators. In the other hand, he holds a knife in which to slay the friend that he has grown to love.

He cuts the throat of this innocent little animal, in horror by the blood that pours out upon the altar and possibly even squints as the lamb screams as he kills it. Abel then walks away sobbing, identifying that the lamb he has just slain was because of his own personal sins. As he stands waiting, he looks down to see his blood stained clothes and is sadly reminded of the price that was paid to cover his sin.

Fire came down from Heaven and consumes the lamb that Abel has offered. Abel is now accepted of God because the sacrifice has been received.

In case the reader has not realized by now why God accepted one and not the other, we will briefly explain what has just happened. Cain labored hard to bring forth something that he felt God would accept, but all of his hard work was woefully inadequate. He did many good works in God’s name, but instead the Lord said, “depart from me, ye who works iniquity, I never knew you,” (Mt 7:23). Why? Cain and Abel were no doubt shown he way to be able to have fellowship with God. The reason that we know this is because they are bringing an offering to the Lord. God laid out the foundation by which we might be accepted by Him way back in Genesis 3:21, when God killed an innocent animal to make a proper covering for man’s nakedness. Even though we are shown no evidence of Adam and Eve ever offering anything to the Lord for their sins, we see that Cain and Abel were taught what God would accept for sin.

Cain knew what was acceptable to God, but instead he wanted to offer what his own works and not something that required blood. In Cain’s offering of fruit, it required no innocent victim to die for his sins. The juice of his offering didn’t stain his clothes like that of Abel’s offering. By this we mean that there was no identification with his fruit that he offered to God. By Abel offering his animal, he showed that he had faith in God’s prescribed order for redemption, which one day would be Christ Jesus on the Cross.

God even approached Cain about his offering and gave him a chance to change his mind. All Cain had to do was offer up the blood of Jesus that was to come, but he thought that he could make his own way into Heaven. Because of the blood, not only was Abel’s offering respected by God, he was accepted by God as well. God doesn’t respect people, but he respects His “Beloved Son in Whom He is well pleased.”

The only way that we cannot make it into Heaven is to offer to God anything other than Christ and Him Crucified. Our works will never earn us anything in Heaven; rather it is our faith in Christ’s Finished Work that gives us access to God and Heaven.

Imputed Righteousness

What does all of this have to do with Imputed Righteousness? Without understand that Jesus is the Source by which we receive anything from God, we are attempting to biblically show how Abraham was “counted as righteous” before God.

What imputed righteousness is where we are “declared, reckoned, or considered” righteous in the sight of a Righteous and Holy God. Once we have received Christ into our hearts, we are now by that simple act of faith, declared righteous before God now. It’s not by our own righteousness, but by what God brought through the loins of Abraham and Isaac, which was Christ.

In Charles Lincoln’s, “Message of the Cross,” he refers to what we have just described as “positive righteousness” and defines it as; “the righteousness imputed to the believing sinner by the perfect, sinless life of Christ, who is our representative man.”

Lincoln then states that the next form of righteousness that we simultaneously receive from God is called “negative righteousness” and is explained as “the righteousness imputed to the believing sinner by the removal of the sin debt, which was paid for on the Cross.”

King David spoke of what this would be when he said, “Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputes not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile” (Ps 32:2). The Apostle Paul quotes this scripture a little differently when he says, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.”

This means that not only has God implanted His Spirit and His Righteousness in us; He has also taken out our sins. We are given a righteousness that was not our own, we are also cleansed of all of our unrighteousness! Understand that we cannot be a possessor of both righteousness and unrighteousness. We can’t be contrary to ourselves, because Christ is not divided. We are the Body of Christ, therefore we bare in our Body the righteousness of Christ and no longer the unrighteousness that we once did. This is how we are the “righteousness of God in Christ!”

Faithful Abraham

There are two biblical examples that God gives us pertaining to imputed righteousness.

Rom 4:22-24 Abraham receives righteousness because he “believed God.” It’s important to understand what Abraham believed God for, because that simple statement really doesn’t mean much within itself. What we mean is that anyone can believe God, just like anyone can pray to God, or speak openly about God, there is really no power in our relationship to God alone. With every scripture that we use in professing our faith, we need to be sure that within that profession we also possess Christ. It is through Christ that we receive God’s Power, Authority, Righteousness, and virtually every blessing that comes from above. We can’t even approach God without Christ.

The first place that the word “righteousness” appears in the Bible is in Gen 15:6: “And he (Abraham) believed in the LORD; and he (God) counted it to him (Abraham) for righteousness.” If we read the whole story, we find that Abraham was told by God that his seed that was to come through Isaac would bring forth children that were as many as the sand of the sea and the stars in the sky.

Jesus wasn’t even born at the time that this promise was given to Abraham, and yet Jesus is present! Jesus makes reference to this event when we told the Pharisees, “Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw and was glad” (Jn 8:56). Abraham was looking for the promised Messiah that was to come and redeem mankind. What God was promising Abraham as not only that He would bless him with Isaac, but that through the lineage of this promised seed, God would bring forth the Jesus Christ, the world’s Redeemer.

If we trace back through the genealogy of Christ in both gospel accounts, guess whom we will find listed in both records? None other than faithful Abraham! In Mt 1:1, Abraham is referred to as “the Son of David,” why? David was a King, and Jesus is the Messiah and it was known by the Jews that the Messiah would be a King like David was. Now let’s look to Lk 3:34, in the middle of this plethora of names is mentioned faithful Abraham. It was through this lineage by which Jesus is made a “Priest,” this is significant because He is referred to as our High Priest in the book of Hebrews. The reader may be wondering why the boring details about the lineage of Christ. The answer is simple; without Christ Abraham would have no promise at all! God could have promised Abraham a child that would come by faith, but if God had left the promise at that without bringing Christ through the loins of Isaac, we would have no portal to a place of “reigning and ruling with 4Christ” in the millennium (The Kingship of Christ Mt 1:1), and no High Priest to make the atoning offering and Final Sacrifice on our behalf (Lk 3:34).

When we sing songs in church and jump around to words like “the blessing of Abraham,” it should be by this knowledge that we can now use to more fully understand that this “blessing of Abraham” is about more than the widely promoted gospel of greed. Christ came to do more than just give us a house, car, and fame! In fact, those things should fall to the bottom of a huge list of better promises offered to us through this Beautiful Sacrifice.

So when we read, “Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness,” we now know that Abraham didn’t receive the promises of God because his faith was perfect, or great, or because of his perfect works. Abraham was just as messed up as one of us! His faith wasn’t perfect in his focus on God’s promise; remember that he had Ishmael before Isaac came along. So the promise didn’t become real based upon his perfect object of faith. Remember also that “faithful Abraham” also was a liar. He lied and said that his wife was really his sister, because he was really worried that some strange man was going to want his old, feeble, barren wife! The promised didn’t come based upon his doing of perfect works before God. How then did this promise come to Abraham?

Abraham is known as the “altar builder” of the Old Testament. Are we saying that God blessed Abraham because he built altars and made sacrifices? The reader should note that if Abraham as building altars before the Lord, there was something that he was going to be putting on that altar to offer to God for his sins. Abraham’s “faith” that is spoken of, was his faith in the sacrifice he was offering to God. This “sacrifice” typified the world’s Redeemer that would be the final sacrifice for all of humanity. Therefore, every time that Abraham built an altar and sacrifice to his God, he was outwardly showing God that his faith was in the lamb that “God will provide,” (Gen 22:8).

We are the “seed” that we as many as the “sands of the sea and stars of the sky.” God promised us a Redeemer, just like He promised Him to Abraham. It is by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus that anyone is able to receive the “blessings of Abraham.”

Justification By Faith

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH & IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS


What is “imputed righteousness?” It is a doctrine that has been nearly forgotten and is seldom taught in today’s churches. Jay Wegter said the following about a well-known “Cross Preacher” in the early 1900’s named A.W. Tozer:

“Tozer understood the value of justification for daily living. He extolled the liberty God supplies in justification. He reminds us that when justification is appropriated, the believer is liberated from sterile legalism, from unavailing self-effort and from the paralyzing fear of condemnation. Tozer adds that the doctrine of justification in Christ is not simply a legal declaration, it is an ongoing revealer of the infinite riches of the Godhead.”

It partners with another doctrine that is rarely mentioned as well called Justification by Faith.” When either of these two titles is mentioned, there seems to be some sort of recognition of the latter, because we hear the words “justification” and “faith” spoken in churches. What do these terms mean?

Let’s discuss “justification by faith” briefly, because it lays the foundation for which we will need to explain, “imputed righteousness.” The doctrine of Justification by Faith seems to be taught far more than imputed righteousness, both are synonymous with each other but each can be explained in a slightly different manner.

Justification by faith can be generalized by these statements observations:

1. It says that there is a need for all of humanity to be justified (Eph 1:1-3; Rom 3:23; 5:12), since all are Adam’s sinful descendents. As Adam’s fallen offspring, the entire human race would be pronounced “condemned” or “guilty” before God on Judgment Day.


Mankind has absolutely no way to redeem himself, being there is nothing that a fallen creation can produce that God will accept. Imperfection cannot produce perfection, no matter how hard it tries.

2. This need was fulfilled in Christ Jesus on the Cross of Calvary. Upon our receiving Christ’s Finished Work on the Cross, we are able to attain that which we could not earn or merit on our own (Mk 16:16; Jn 3:36; Rom 5:16).

3. Justification is a verdict to those who believe in Christ Jesus (Rom 3:22-28). By this Heavenly Declaration of us being made “righteous” in Christ, we can now become a resident of Heaven by our identification and Oneness with Christ Jesus (Rom 5:18-19; 3:26; 4:5; 8:33; Phil 3:9).

4. Only those that relinquish claims to their own right standing in the sight of God are eligible candidates for justification by faith (Eph 2:8-9; Lk 5:32). Justification is a gift from God from the Father of all fathers, to all of mankind (Rom 4:5).

5. “God justifies us by FAITH alone (Gal. 2:15-21). God justifies the person who looks away from himself and trusts in CHRIST ALONE for righteousness (Titus 3:5-7; Rom. 4:4-5), “ (Jay Wegter).

6. That faith by which we receive can become a “work” if the believer is not totally aware of the fact that this justification that we receive is not by any work of our own, but by Christ’s Finished Work alone.

Arthur W. Pink states that “faith” is merely the instrument that God uses to hand us the gift of justification in His Sight. Faith is not to be viewed as though by some merit we are owed this gracious gift on God’s behalf.

Someone has given this perfect example when they described a man drowning alone in the ocean. This man had no life rafts, nothing to cling to, no floating devices, he is doomed and going to drown if someone doesn’t save him. Then a boat gloriously appeared and a hand reached down to rescue him from his pitiful condition.
This is how we should view our redemption by Christ’s substitution, and not by any merit of our own. We should never look at our salvation as though the proverbial hand that reached down to save us was because we were able to hold it well enough to pull ourselves out of the abyss.

7. By this unmerited favor that God has given us, we are gloriously given a righteousness that will last forever.

The only way that we can lose anything that Jesus died to give us, is if we renounce our faith in Christ forever. This means that only if we were to profess that we deny the Christian faith and the expiation of Christ will we burn eternally in hell.

And that in a nutshell is justification by faith. What is different about imputed righteousness is that through this teaching we learn that not only we given God’s righteousness back through Christ, but we were also alleviated of our sin. It is important that we understand this in detail because when we are empowered with this knowledge, it’s much easier to know where we stand in Christ.

Hunger & Thirst

Mt 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and do thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

One should note that in order for anyone to “hunger and thirst after righteousness,” they must first be able to come to the realization that they are void the righteousness that God will accept. This is a huge obstacle for many in the world today, and unfortunately for many in the church as well.

As a result of the fall, man is faced with the consequences of the curse that we inherited from our first parents thousands of years ago. We’ll remind the reader that Adam was cast out and separated from God’s presence, his work would now be hard labor and not mere leisure. He would also bring forth corrupt fruit, as well as having lost dominion over the earth. If we re-examine the first curse mentioned, this is the one that is so closely linked to righteousness. What this "separation by sin" from the Lord means, is that the death that sin brought with it stripped away our Oneness with God. Along with that separation came a loss of God's Righteousness in our own lives too. So we’re separated from God and void of righteousness.

What is righteousness? Righteousness is the exact opposite of sin. Sin is the reciprocal of righteousness. One cannot be partially sinful and partially righteous. We’re either sinful or we are righteous, there is no gray area and no in between. This seems to be an area that the church gets very confused about. There are many Christians that are saved, but they are not sure if they are considered "righteous" before God. On the other side, there are many unsaved people that believe that they are "righteous," but only by their own definition of righteousness. A sinner's self-proclaimed righteousness would actually vary from person to person, so the "definition" of righteousness would not remain a constant, but would be a changing variable. This is obviously not a standard that anyone can live by. Therefore, we can conclude that the only true definition of righteous, should be what God calls righteous and by His standard. Our next question should be then, “What does God call Righteous, and by what standard are we able to measure ourselves?”



OUR OWN RIGHTEOUSNESS

The Moral Law is also known as the Ten Commandments that were given to Moses by God in the desert at Mt. Sinai. This is the only “moral code” that has stood the test of thousands of years. We’re not going to get into an in depth discussion about the Law right now, but we will be covering some things later, regarding believers and the Law. We brought it up for this reason: The Moral Law was sent to show us the standard of Righteousness in the sight of a Just and Holy God. It could not be broken, not in thought, word, or deed. Not only was it never to be broken, one could not offend in even one area. So if someone in their entire lifetime had ever even thought about lying, by God’s standard of righteousness, they broke it. It was designed to define God’s stardard and then to show us that we don’t measure up. This way, we would see that we can’t in our own selves obey it and we would look for the one who had, (Jesus). What this means is that all men are naturally "guilty," of not living up to God’s prestine standard of righteousness. Some folks have a hard time grasping what we have just shared, so we have provided some scriptures that define all of “unsaved” men:

Rom 3:10 “There is none righteous, no, not one.”

Ps 14:1-3 “There is none that does good…..They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that does good, no, not one.”

Jer 17:9 “The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, who can know it.”

Mt 19:17 & Mk 10:18 “There is none good but God.”

These are not the most favorable accusations that have been made upon the human race, however distasteful they may be, the truth still remains that there is nothing good in unregenerate man. He seeks his own, not the will of God. In fact, unsaved man doesn’t care about anyone or anything, but himself. The well-known phrase that states, “looking out for number one,” that is the motto of one that has never been truly touched by God.

In referring back to the words of Jesus when He said, “...they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness,” it is when we get to this place where our lives is when we are able to resolve that there is internal dilemma that only God can fix, it is then that we reach for our only possible solution: Jesus Christ and what He did at Calvary.

Jesus also stated that, “the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but Righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom 14:17). We found it amazing that the Lord has lead us to these scriptures that spoke about righteousness, while also mentioning “meat and drink;” of which we just covered in our last chapter on communion and identification with Christ.

In Mt 6, Jesus speaks makes mention in verse 31, “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? Or What shall we drink? Or Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” The most familiar interpretation that we hear on this scripture pertains to our basic needs in life such as food, shelter, clothing, etc. What if perhaps there is an even deeper meaning hidden within this simple sentence? What would it mean if we interpreted another way, so that we could understand what Christ is saying in a natural way about spiritual things? What if Christ isn’t just speaking pertaining to our natural body, but rather to our spiritual man, which is Him alive in us? It could then read:

“Take no thought for your life (for your life is hidden in Christ, you are dead, but He is alive in you). Think not about what you should put in your belly (because His Body being broken for us is our meat), or what we shall drink (for our refreshing comes in knowing that all of our sins, even the ones we are committing and might commit in the future are washed away by the blood of the Lamb). Or what shall we be clothed with (what we physically wear on our bodies is only the outward appearance, but since we now wear His Righteousness, we are no longer naked before God).

In Mt 6:32 Jesus speaks regarding our physical food, drink and clothing are “what the Gentiles seek,” He is using the term “Gentiles” to describe those that are unsaved, not only those that were not Jewish at the time in which He spoke. We know that Christ is not talking here about natural needs, but rather spiritual needs because he then makes this statement in verse 33, “But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness (that which belongs to Christ, given to us when we believe on Him and are saved); and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Through this entire chapter, Christ is making reference to who we are “in Christ,” once we have received Him into our hearts and lives. If we are continually fed the Message of Christ’s “Finished Work,” then we are able to walk through life spiritually satisfied, knowing that through Calvary Christ fulfilled all righteousness and then placed it within us when we got saved.



WWJD?

Most of us have seen the bracelets and read the writings on the “What Would Jesus Do,” campaign that has been going around the world. We present this thought to the reader and it goes along with what we discussed a few moments ago when we mentioned the sinner’s definition of righteousness. Just as each and every person that has never known what the Ten Commandments are would have their own idea as to what God would call “righteous” in His sight, the same is true for every believer that has never understood what the Finished Work of Christ is and how it is to work in their life. What we mean by that statement is this: We cannot try to behave in the manner in which we think that Christ would, which is the way that most Christians approach having right behavior. If that were the case then the Christian that thinks that God hates them would treat people more hatefully than one that understands His love for them. The definition of ”what Jesus would do” would vary from person to person.

Jesus also stated in Mt 6:27 that we cannot add to our length of life simply by thinking about it. In Jer 23:6 the prophet refers to Christ as, “The Lord our Righteousness.” This should be the standard by which we live, that He is the only and yet capable “Fulfiller” of all righteousness in us.

Let’s return back to our original piece of scripture that we started this chapter with: Mt 5:6 “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” We want to talk now about the parts that say, “blessed” and “for they shall be filled.” These are crucial for every believer to understand, without a proper understanding of what we are about to share it will be very difficult to live the overcoming and victorious life that Jesus died to give us.

We first need to ask this question of the reader: “Have you since your salvation experience longed for the Lord in such a way that it hurt like you were dying of hunger and thirst?” The answer of any true believer should be “Yes!” Even David cried in the Psalm that as the deer pants after the water brook, so his soul does long after the Lord.” The answer is most likely yes to our question, but did the reader know that the feeling of hungering and thirsting after Him is not actually living a victorious life in Christ?

In Jn 6:35, Jesus exclaimed, “I am the Bread of Life, he that comes to Me, shall never hunger; and he that believes on Me shall never thirst.” Is the reader confused? We were, as sought the Lord as to why we have felt void of Him, when He clearly states here that we never should feel that way!

The problem is that most of us hunger and thirst for righteousness after we come to Christ, because we aren’t honestly aware of what God really handed us when we got saved. If we don’t know what we have, then we can’t access it in a way that it will work properly for us. It’s like someone calling us on the phone and congradulating us on the million dollars they have put into our account for us. If we never think to ask where this account is located, then we can’t access the money that someone gave us to bless us with. If we can’t access it, then the blessing becomes a frustration rather than a blessing.

In the back of every failing Christian’s mind is the thought that what they are experiencing in their daily life should actually be better than what they have. We all know that Jesus doesn’t want us to fail and that we perhaps should not be missing the mark of perfection, yet when we miss it we can become increasingly discouraged. Some get so discouraged that they actually give up altogether, realizing that they do not have the power to live the life that they should be.

But what if we told you not only where this “account” is, and that it contains multiple endless blessings in it! Your answer to where the account full of blessings, is in the Finished Work of Christ and the way to access this account is to have proper identification. The identification that we hold up in front of the bank teller, is the one that says, “The Bride of Christ.”

We’re re-introducing the themes of being Christ’s Bride and the identification with Him because therein is the key to a life full of joy and victory. The Word says that the “Kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Rom 14:17).

We began this chapter by stating and scripturally proving that we are not righteous within ourselves. Along with our depravity with being morally accepted by God, we find that there is one that came that did meet that mark of perfection. It is then by our understanding that when we received Christ, we died. Our old man, the one who sins and is prone to sinful acts is dead. But not only did we die, Christ is alive. It was in the grave of our endless attempts at earning our way into God’s perfection that we learned it wasn’t a grave, but rather a womb. Out of that womb we were born into the world as a New Creation in Christ Jesus. We are now identified as “in Christ” and no longer “your name goes here”.

When we find ourselves faced with our own unrighteousness and sinful acts, we must realize that the old man is dead, It’s hard to believe this when we are forced to see his/her horrifying ungodliness. We don’t want to behave in an ungodly manner because we love the Lord. This is the place in which we deny that the old man is alive and look unto Jesus, who is the Author and Finisher of our faith. We are no longer forced to earn God’s love by our own merit, but by the work that Christ did in our stead. When we realize that our filthy rags of righteousness are forever thrown away and replaced with His white robe of righteousness, we are better able to wear the garment in which we died to give us. He traded our sinful self for His Perfects Self. Though our sins be red as scarlet, we are now made white as snow.