Part 5: Jesus Died For Our Unrighteousness
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21
Job asks one of the great questions of the Bible in chapter 9, verse 2 of the book bearing his name: “But how can a mortal be righteous before God?” Indeed, the Bible repeatedly teaches that God is righteous (Ezra 9:15; Psalm 4:1; 7:9; 11:7; Isaiah 5:16; 45:21; Daniel 9:14). By righteous, scripture means straight, right, sinless, just, and lawful.
Scripture also teaches that God made humanity in a state of sinless righteousness (Genesis 1:31; Ecclesiastes 7:29). However, humanity fell into a continual state of unrighteousness beginning with our father Adam in Genesis 3. Since Adam was our representative head and physical father, his sin has been imputed to us all (Romans 5:12-21). By imputation it is meant that his sin has been reckoned, transferred, or charged to everyone. In a sense, when Adam chose rebellion and war against God, we all did; in much the same way, when our president takes our nation to war, in a sense we are all at war, as he chooses as our representative head for us all. Consequently, everyone is conceived with an unrighteous sin nature (Psalm 51:5; 58:3) and subsequently lives a life marked by personal sin (Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:10). This state of unrighteousness is the opposite of God’s nature and is marked by crookedness, wrongness, sin, injustice, and rebellion.
Human unrighteousness includes the frequent attempts to be righteous apart from God, which is the sin of self-righteousness (Romans 10:3, illustrated in Luke 18:9-14). Rather than being impressed at human attempts at righteousness, God harshly declares that our righteousness is as grotesque to Him as a bloody tampon given to us as a precious gift (Isaiah 64:6a).
Perhaps the people most devoted to pursuing self-righteousness were the Pharisees. Despite their great self-discipline and moral life, Jesus declared that unless our righteousness superseded theirs we would end up in hell along with them (Matthew 5:20). Therefore, no one can make themselves righteous before the Righteous God (Romans 3:10, 20).
Compassionate toward us, our eternal God, Jesus Christ, became a man. Because Jesus did not have an earthly father descended from Adam, He did not inherit an unrighteous sin nature and was the beginning of a new humanity as the second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45). Unlike the first Adam who sinned, Jesus lived a life of righteous perfection (Romans 5:12-21), resisting all temptations to sin (Hebrews 4:15), fulfilling all of God’s laws (Matthew 5:17), fulfilling all righteousness (Matthew 3:15), and dying as the only righteous man who has ever lived (Luke 23:47).
In His death, the righteous Jesus stood in place of sinners, paying the price for their sin, which is death (Isaiah 53:5-6, 12; Romans 8:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13; 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18). Subsequently, the only person who is righteous in God’s sight is Jesus Christ. But Jesus graciously imputes His righteousness like Adam imputed his unrighteousness to us (Romans 3:21-22; 4:4-6; 5:12-21; 10:4; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 3:8-9; 1 Peter 2:24; 3:18).
Therefore, the answer to Job’s question is that an unrighteous person can stand righteous before the Righteous God not by their own works, but solely by trusting in the person and work of Jesus by faith (Genesis 15:6; Romans 3:21-22; 4:3, 5, 24; 10:4; Galatians 3:6, 11; Philippians 3:8-9; Hebrews 1:4). Jesus alone is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30), makes us new righteous people (Ephesians 4:24), and enables us to pursue righteousness (1 Timothy 6:11) and obey Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16), by the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:3-4).
