November 16 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"...the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God..." (Rom. 3:22–23).

Devotional

The righteousness wrought out by the incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death of Christ is a most glorious righteousness. It took in the whole law of God. It did not soften down or ask for a compromise of its claims. It took the law in its utmost strictness, and honored it. It gave all the law demanded, all it could possibly demand.

And what stamped this righteousness with a glory so great? What enabled the Redeemer to offer an obedience so perfect? What, but that he was God in our nature, God in the flesh! The Law-giver became the Law-fulfiller. The Judge became the Surety. God became the Substitute.

Behold, then, the justification of a believing sinner! If you are resting in Christ, then you stand accepted in the righteousness of Christ, with full and entire acceptance.

What does the Holy Spirit say?

"In the LORD all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory" (Isa. 45:25).

"And by him (the Lord Jesus) everyone who believes is justified from everything from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses" (Acts 13:39).

"Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25–27).

"God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might be made the righteousness of God" (2 Cor. 5:21). Mark the expression, "made the righteousness of God"! It is so called because the righteousness which Christ wrought out was a divine righteousness—not the righteousness of a created being, of an angel, or of a superior prophet. If it were, then it would be blasphemy to call it "the righteousness of God." Oh no! the righteousness in which you stand, if you are "accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6 KJV), is a more costly and glorious righteousness than Adam's, or the highest angel's in glory. It is "the righteousness of God"! It is the perfect righteousness of the God-man—possessing all the infinite merit, and glory, and perfection of Deity. And what seems even more incredible, the believer is made the righteousness of God in Christ. So that beholding you in Christ, the Father can "rejoice over you with gladness ... quiet you by his love ... exult over you with loud singing" (Zeph. 3:17).

Is this not then, we ask, a perfect and complete justification? What can be more so? Do not the Scriptures we have quoted prove it? Can any other meaning be given to them, without divesting them of their beauty and obvious sense? Would it not be to turn from God's Word, to dishonor and grieve the Spirit, and to rob the believer of a most influential motive to holiness, if we were to take a less expanded view of this subject than that which we have taken? Most assuredly it would.

Then let the Christian reader welcome this truth. If it is God's truth—and we humbly believe we have proved it to be so—it is not less your privilege than your duty to receive it.

Thy works, not mine, O Christ,
speak gladness to this heart;
they tell me all is done;
they bid my fear depart.

Thy pains, not mine, O Christ,
upon the shameful tree,
have paid the law's full price
and purchased peace for me.

(Horatius Bonar, 1857)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.