Core Text God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21

Preamble

The Bible speaks much

about the holiness of God and about

something called

righteousness.

To many people the matter of righteousness is a mystery. For a very wide range of reasons, many people think less of themselves than they should.

As a result, they think that God is too holy for

them or too unreachable because of their own misgivings about themselves.

By Robert Carter

Paul said in Romans twelve that we should not have too high an opinion of ourselves, but the converse is equally as true. We should not think less of ourselves than we often do.

When we do that, several things happen- Firstly, it is insulting God! He has done many wonderful and amazing things for us to ensure that we are His sons and that we can walk uprightly, without fear of condemnation in perfect union and fellowship with Him.

Jesus paid a very high price for our redemption. He has redeemed us from the curse and its penalties and has reconciled us to the Father by His vicarious sacrifice on the cross.

The second thing that we do is to ourselves. We place ourselves in a position whereby we cannot walk with God in the full and complete liberty Jesus gave us. We then miss out on a wonderful relationship with God with the accompanying benefits.

The Force Of Righteousness is a bible study that reveals the essential truth that we are the righteousness of God… in Christ. We shall also look at the topic of Justification and we shall conclude this study with issues of The Law addressing the question of “Are we under The Law or under Grace”?

A Bashan Ministries presentation

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When Jesus went to Calvary, He not only took our sin, He became sin. Our foundation text reveals that God made Him to be Sin for us. If you ponder over that for a moment and think of those three days and three nights in the grave, Sin went there. We often think only of Jesus’ broken and torn body, but if God made Him to be sin… that has to mean that sin went into the tomb too.

The bible tells me that God raised Jesus from the dead. It reveals that Jesus rose in a glorified body without blood because He shed

every precious drop. When Jesus appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, they were startled and He reassured them. While they were saying these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” But they were startled

and terrified, thinking they saw a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; it’s me! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones like you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still could not believe it (because of their joy) and were amazed, he said to them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” So they gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in front of them. Luke 24:36-43. Please notice that He told them that a ghost or a spirit does not have flesh and bones. He did not mention blood and I think that is very significant, because he shed every drop and presented it to the Father as our Great High Priest. The Old Testament Priesthood made repetitive sacrifices for sin, because sin could only be covered, but not eradicated. That means that the results of sin were temporarily dealt with but the principle of sin was not.

Hebrews chapters 5 and 6 talk in depth about the Priesthood of our Lord and I recommend that you study this in depth. It is powerful.

A Definition

The Word Righteous means- Acting in accord with divine or moral law Free from guilt or sin Morally right or justifiable

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The Old Testament Priesthood had a very important function to perform, the most important one taking place once per year when the High Priest prepared himself beforehand and entered into the most holy place, past the Golden candlestick, the Table of Shewbread and the Altar of Incense, to go through The Veil and stand before the Ark of God’s presence. On that awesome day, the High Priest took blood there to make atonement for the sins of the people. That only happened once a year, but it happened year after year for hundreds of years until the day Jesus entered there to make His once and for all time sacrifice.

It was acceptable to God and brought about your redemption and my redemption.

That is why I said earlier that sin went into that grave with Jesus but it never came out! The sins that we committed and may still commit have been dealt with. We have an advocate with the Father who dealt not only with sins, or the things we do, but the very principle or driving force that causes us to sin. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 1 John 2:1-2. John’s epistle talks much about this aspect. It too will be a real blessing to you if you study it in depth.

We are talking about justification and about righteousness. A man called Bildad asked a leading question- How then can man be justified and righteous before God? Or how can he who is born of a woman be pure and clean? Job 25:4 The answer is found in Romans. Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory. Romans 5:1-2 We are declared to be righteous by faith, but whose faith is it? We come to God by faith and we know that we cannot please Him without it, but Paul said that we have been declared righteous by faith.

Our Great High Priest

We cannot do it ourselves. By one man’s (Adam’s) transgression, we were sinners by nature when Jesus went to the Cross. We were aliens. We could not do it. Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death as the result of sin, so death spread to all men, [no one being able to stop it or to escape its power] because all men sinned. Romans 5:12 Without Jesus, we would have been lost forever, but I am so glad that He came. But God's free gift is not at all to be compared to the trespass [His grace is out of all proportion to the fall of man]. For if many died through one man's falling away (his lapse, his offense), much more profusely did God's grace and the free gift [that comes] through the undeserved favor of the one Man Jesus Christ abound and overflow to and for [the benefit of] many. Romans 5:15 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5:6-11.

Please notice that Paul said there was a time when we were enemies of God. That is a powerful statement. Man had fallen from living in the spirit or by revelation knowledge with amazing abilities, no fear, no sickness and no lack to sense knowledge having to toil to eat his bread by the sweat of his brow. The curse did more that expel Adam from the Garden. It produced hostility between God and man to the extent that we were now considered enemies. God is a God of love, so the animosity that came was not at man but at the driving force of sin within man.

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The Word Justification means- To prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable To show to have had a sufficient legal reason To qualify (oneself) as a surety by taking oath to the

ownership of sufficient property To administer justice to, to absolve, to judge To treat as being righteous

[Remember] that you were at that time separated (living apart) from Christ [excluded from all part in Him], utterly estranged and outlawed from the rights of Israel as a nation, and strangers with no share in the sacred compacts of the [Messianic] promise [with no knowledge of or right in God's agreements, His covenants]. And you had no hope (no promise); you were in the world without God. But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were [so] far away, through (by, in) the blood of Christ have been brought near. For He is [Himself] our peace (our bond of unity and harmony). He has made us both [Jew and Gentile] one [body], and has broken down (destroyed, abolished) the hostile dividing wall between us, By abolishing in His [own crucified] flesh the enmity [caused by] the Law with its decrees and ordinances [which He annulled]; that He from the two might create in Himself one new man [one new quality of humanity out of the two], so making peace. And [He designed] to reconcile to God both [Jew and Gentile, united] in a single body by means of His cross, thereby killing the mutual enmity and bringing the feud to an end. And He came and preached the glad tidings of peace to you who were afar off and [peace] to those who were near. Ephesians 2:12-17. If we have been declared righteous by faith and we cannot do it ourselves the question remains, “Who declared us to be righteous”? Obviously the answer has to be God, so we need revelation on this. We need to shed some light on how we became the very righteousness of God in Christ. We were under the curse and pronounced guilty before God, the righteous judge. Jesus came to plead our case before Him in what was in essence a legally constituted court case. When He entered the Holy of Holies with His blood, it was not into the type or shadow of it according to The Law, but the real thing. As He gave His testimony of the completed work of Calvary and presented His evidence, which was His blood, God pronounced an eternal sentence on those who would accept Jesus. The verdict found us to be not guilty. It declared us to be innocent of all charges. It proclaimed us to be adopted Sons of God. It tore down the wall that alienated us from God and removed that hostility between us. If you look at the definition above, you will see that we are now legally justified and qualified to be partakers of the Divine nature and inherit the privileges of sonship. Justification declared us to be in the same category as Jesus. It gave us legal standing to be the righteousness of God in Christ. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children. And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ) Romans 8:14-17. See also Galatians 3:29, 4:7; Titus 3:7; 1 John 3:1

A Definition

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I was taught in my early Christian years that Justification means that it is as if we had never sinned, but it means much more than that. We live in an evil world and subjected to temptation, which, if we succumb, causes us to fall into sin again. If that was all it did, then we could be continually accused of any wrongs we do after we are saved. This was the problem with the Law and all of its ordinances. The High Priest could make atonement for our sin but thirty seconds after we would be back in it and the spiral continued.

All that the Law could do was to be a reminder of our fallen state. It could not change the status quo. If it were possible to totally keep The Law in every aspect, we might have had hope, but no man could do that until Jesus came to fulfill it. We shall see more of this shortly.

Jesus was a righteous man but we know that the bible says that there is no one who is righteous. See Isaiah 41:26 and Romans 3:10-12. If no one could be righteous, how then did Jesus qualify? The bible tells us that He did not sin, but He was born of a woman—an ordinary human being. Did He not inherit the taint of sin that emanated from the Garden? The answer, thankfully, is “No”. The sin principle was passed down to man through Adam to us. According to Genesis 3:15, the curse came to seed, but how can this be? Let me put is bluntly to you. Women do not have seed. Men do! Men give their seed to women and they receive it into their wombs to create life. Thus, the curse is passed from seed to seed.

Paul explained- For Adam was first formed, then Eve; And it was not Adam who was deceived, but [the] woman who was deceived and deluded and fell into transgression. 1 Timothy 2:13-14 Adam knowingly transgressed a given law and commandment. He was not deceived, but Eve was. Therefore the sin is charged to the man and not to the woman and it is for that reason, I was able to say that the sin principle passed to us through the seed of the man. The judgment and penalty for sin came on us all.

Mary conceived, but there was no human seed placed in her womb. According to Matthew 1:18 and Luke 135, she conceived by the Holy Spirit!

Jesus did not inherit the sin principle passed down through the generations, but He was a human being nevertheless and just as human as you and me.

This is why He was capable of keeping The Law in every aspect, but He took it to a much higher level. The Law dealt with the externals, but Jesus went to the heart of the mater.

The Law told us not to commit adultery, but The Law did not tell us how to stop committing it. All it could do was condemn us for it.

Jesus spoke about adultery in a higher plane by saying that we do not have to commit the act, but by allowing the thoughts to run riot, we broke that Law. The Law told us not to commit murder, but it could not tell us how to avoid doing that. Jesus said that when we harbor grudges and lack forgiveness, it is tantamount to killing someone just as surely as if we held a gun at them and pulled the trigger.

The Law told us what God’s demands were, but was unable to give us the power to meet them. All we could do was to offer a sacrifice to cover the transgression, but that sacrifice could not remove the inherited sin principle through the seed of Adam. The Law was a harsh taskmaster, or as Paul described it a schoolmaster. Under The Law, real peace was not possible. Peace is not a mere tranquility of mind but a cessation of hostility. The High Priest did not enter the most holy place with calm assurance, but with fear and trembling. We can enter the throne-room with boldness. We can now enjoy life—not endure it.

When I have been speaking about The Law, I have been relating to the Law that God gave Moses. It is much more than the Ten Commandments. They are part of numerous various laws and ordinances seen in the Old Testament, but look at this from what might seem a new perspective to you.

We are meant to enjoy life— not to endure it

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At this point, I must say that God is a good God—that His mercy endureth forever. The bible states this 130 times to reinforce that statement. God is love. He is not an angry God wanting to inflict punishment on us for goofing off and we do not have to appease him in any way because Jesus did all that for us—but He is angry at sin. It is abhorrent to Him and when Jesus was taking sin upon Himself on the cross, God the Father had to turn away, unable to look upon it. Remember that Jesus became sin for us.

Because God will not tolerate sin, He had to judge it and His anger is not directed at us, but at the sin principle in us. … but the righteous shall live by his faith. For God's [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative. Romans 1:17-18. See also Romans 2:5-8; Revelation 6:16-17. Paul said that The Law produces wrath- For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression. That is why I said that without The Law, we didn’t even know that we were sinning. Man was therefore under wrath because of the righteousness and holiness of God and must be judged accordingly. All unrighteousness is sin and The Law defines it as such. This is starting to reveal the wonderful work Jesus did for us by taking our sin, becoming sin, receiving the punishment and penalty for sin so that we would no longer have to bear it.

If we consider that laws are commandments, it stands to reason that the very first recorded Law is the one God gave Adam in the Garden—“Do not eat that fruit”, but that was well before the written Law came to us. Sin came into the world through one person, and death came through sin. So death spread to everyone, because everyone sinned. Sin was in the world before there were any laws. But no record of sin can be kept when there are no laws. Yet, death ruled from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin in the same way Adam did when he disobeyed. Adam is an image of the one who would come. Romans 5:12-14

The King James Version of this verse says that this state existed until the law. This refers to The Ten Commandments. Once they were given sin was defined. Without any law, no one really knows what is right or what is not right. We had no reference point, other than our conscience, that we were committing sin. Until God gave The Law to us He judged sin on the grounds of the human conscience. We instinctively knew that certain things were wrong, but did not know why. Once The Law told us what it was, it changed everything. Once The Law told us that we cannot steal, we then knew why our conscience tried to warn us not to take the thing.

Without that, the very weight of it would destroy us. Because we have been focusing mostly on Romans, let me summarize thus

far. God’s righteousness is revealed in Romans

1:17 The wrath of God is revealed in Romans

1:18 The love of God is revealed in Romans 5:5-

8. We are now coming to a really wonderful aspect of our relationship with God, in that we are now free from sin and alive to God. Freedom from sin is revealed in Romans 6. Chapter five told us that there was death in Adam but life in Christ. It revealed that faith triumphs and it tells us that we are reconciled to God by and through Jesus. I know that I have repeated myself somewhat on certain aspects in this study, but the bible does that also because this is a very important truth that we must know and experience. The Old Testament sacrifices had to be offered every year and The Law was merely a shadow of things to come until the fulfillment came in Jesus. Hebrews 10:1-6 states- For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.

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But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Jesus came to die once and for all time. There is no substance for making continual sacrifice for past sins. Our repentance leads us to Godliness because they are not only forgiven but are obliterated as if they never existed. By attempting to keep The Law we are in essence stating that Jesus’ sacrifice was in vain. If this is true then our sin remains. If our sin is still alive and active in our lives, we must therefore keep making sacrifice day in and day out, moment in and moment out. Thankfully that is not the case. Romans Chapter six tells us that when we are born again we become dead to in but alive to God and because of this, we can and must not live in sin or allow it to reign in us. We are now under grace. That is why Paul raised the issue of continuing to sin after we were saved. He asked a valid question, WHAT SHALL we say [to all this]? Are we to remain in sin in order that God's grace (favor and mercy) may multiply and overflow? Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer? Are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Romans 6:1-3 He answered his own questions by continuing- We were buried therefore with Him by the baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious [power] of the Father, so we too might [habitually] live and behave in newness of life. For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be [one with Him in sharing] His resurrection [by a new life lived for God]. We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin. For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men]. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, Romans 6:4-8 There is so much more to share on this matter, but I think that by now you have seen the core of the matter. All that remains to complete now is the matter of Law versus Grace. Many Christians have head that we are under grace, but are not really sure of what it really means. Perverted teaching has twisted Divine grace and used it as an excuse to continue in sin. God forbid! Romans 5:21 states that grace can only reign through righteousness. If we have been made the righteousness of God as I stated earlier, then grace must reign in our lives. The Grace of God reigning in our lives demands that, according to Titus 2:11-14, we-

Deny ungodly lusts Deny ungodliness Live soberly and of sound mind Live righteously Live rightly Live Godly lives Look for that blessed hope, which I maintain is the imminent return of Jesus.

Now if a person is dead to sin it should not be possible to continue living in sin, because when Jesus died, we died; when Jesus was buried, we were buried; when Jesus arose, we arose; when Jesus ascended, we ascended; When Jesus sat down at the throne, we sat down with Him and when He lives… we also live as new creations in Christ. What The Law demanded legally on parchments and tablets of stone by people with stony hearts, without permanent remedy, we have God’s Law written on our hearts. Compare Jeremiah 31:33-34 with Hebrews 8:10.

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Obviously some of us have problems with this and have to work it out. The way to do that is to identify with Him as above in all respects. Sometimes it is a battle but we can win. Paul struggled but won. He told us of his personal struggles in Romans 7:13-25. Here he spoke of a war or a struggle between the flesh and The Law. The Law as I have explained cannot really set us free because this liberty came through Jesus. The Law told us that we were sinners without hope and that we needed a savior. Jesus came to fulfill all the requirement of The Law. In essence, The Law remains, but we do not have to keep it because the grace of God prevailed. The power of sin over our lives has been broken, but we must still live holy lives before God. Grace does not give us license to do what we want. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6:12-23 We now have a New Commandment, or, may I put it this way—a Higher Law? It is the royal law of love. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. John 13:34-35. See also 1 John 2:8 and 2 John 1:5. I titled this lengthy study The Force Of Righteousness, because it is a powerful liberating force within us that enables us to walk with God the way Jesus did. It enables us to enjoy right standing with God. It releases us from the burden of The Law and allows us to walk in the light as He is in the light. It allows and demands the love walk and it enables us to live uprightly before the Lord as if we have never known sin. I hope you have been both blessed and challenged to live right before God.

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Pastor Robert Carter is the President and founder of Bashan Ministries

For further information, contact- Bashan Ministries PO Box 152 Mount Tamborine QLD 4272 Australia Email info@bashanministries.org Web site www.bashanministries.org