The Third Kind of Righteousness

Because it seeks the good of another, it works love. It is precisely this that Christ requires.

The two kinds of righteousness

Just as he himself did all things for us, not seeking his own good but ours only—and in this he was most obedient to God the Father—so he desires that we also should set the same example for our neighbors. This means you should be as inclined and disposed toward one another as you see Christ was disposed toward you.

He was pre-eminent in such attributes as are particularly proper to the form of God.

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Yet he was not haughty in that form; he did not please himself; nor did he disdain and despise those who were enslaved and subjected to various evils. Men of this kind wish to be like god, sufficient in themselves, pleasing themselves, glorying in themselves, under obligation to no one, and so on. Not thus, however, did Christ think; not of this stamp was his wisdom. He relinquished that form to God the Father and emptied himself, unwilling to use his rank against us, unwilling to be different from us. Moreover, for our sakes he became as one of us and took the form of a servant, that is, he subjected himself to all evils.

And although he was free, as the Apostle says of himself also, he made himself servant of all, living as if all the evils which were ours were actually his own. Although as far as his relationship to us was concerned, he had the power to be our God and Lord, yet he did not will it so, but rather desired to become our servant, as it is written in Rom. The Apostle means that each individual Christian shall become the servant of another in accordance with the example of Christ.

He should not boast or get puffed up. Nor should he despise or triumph over his neighbor as if he were his god or equal to God. It is in this way, then that one takes the from of a servant, and that command of the Apostle in Gal. For thus no member of the body serves itself; nor does it seek its own welfare but that of the other.

From this it is now evident how one must conduct himself with his neighbor in each situation. For you are powerful, not that you may make the weak weaker by oppression, but that you may make them powerful by raising them up and defending them. You are wise, not in order to laugh at the foolish and thereby make them more foolish, but that you may undertake to teach them as you yourself would wish to be taught.

You are righteous that you may vindicate and pardon the unrighteous, not that you may only condemn, disparage, judge, and punish. He further says in Luke 9: But it opposes the case of its neighbor and wants it to appear mean. This perversity is wholly evil, contrary to love, which does not seek its own good, but that of another.

Martin Luther: Two Kinds of Righteousness

It ought to be distressed that the condition of its neighbor is not better than its own. Is it not proper to punish sin? Who is not obliged to defend righteousness? To do otherwise would give occasion for lawlessness. A single solution to this problem cannot be given. Therefore one must distinguish among men.

For men can be classified either as public or private individuals. The things which have been said do not pertain at all to public individuals, that is to those who have been placed in a responsible office by God. It is their necessary function to punish and judge evil men, to vindicate and defend the oppressed, because it is not they but God who does this. They are his servants in this very matter, as the Apostle shows at some length in Rom. The angels of God do the actual fighting.

Our role, the role of God's Israel, is to bring the judgment of God against the enemy. This is how we fight. The battle is conducted by the Holy Spirit. He points out to us a bondage in our life. The bondage may have to do with our love of the world. The bondage may have to do with the passions and appetites of our flesh and soul.

Or the bondage may be of our self-will and personal ambition. Once we perceive our behavior is not righteous in some area we must confess it to the Lord as sin, not as a flaw in our personality but as sin! The Bible does not talk about imperfections in our personality but about sin. The point of deliverance is not to improve us as a person, as though it were psychologic therapy, but to get at God's enemies so they can be put into the Lake of Fire. These bondages of ours are an offense to God and will not be permitted in the Kingdom.

We must confess the particular area of darkness as sin.

Then we are to denounce it, renounce it, and by God's help turn away from it. We are to draw near to God and resist the devil. If we will do this diligently with all the determination we can summon we will be delivered. Some deliverances require a period of time before they are final. But if we do not quit but keep on renouncing the behavior as sin it finally will be brought down to death and ultimately removed from us.

We are never, never, never to give up in despair. God will deliver us. It is His will to deliver us. But we must realize this is a fight to the death. Satan regards the physical realm as his possession, just as the Amorites who had been in the land of promise for hundreds of years regarded the territory as their possession. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, Luke 4: If what I think I am hearing from God is true, then we have arrived at a massive move forward in the Kingdom of God.

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The emphasis is shifting, for the members of the Body of Christ, from imputed righteousness to actual righteousness of personality and behavior. The message of forgiveness and imputed righteousness is still to be preached to the unsaved. But to the disciples the emphasis is now on actual righteousness. No more can we live a casual Christian life ignoring the sins evident in our personality.

No more can we say: Although I am sinning constantly God sees me in Christ as totally righteous. In the first place the Scripture does not say that God sees us through the blood of Christ. This may be our tradition but it is not in the Word. The blood forgives us as we walk in the light of God's will, but the blood is not a screen that shields the believer so God cannot see what he is doing. Christ sees our works, as He informed the seven churches of Asia. Today is not an hour for Christians to rest in the unscriptural belief that God is not aware of their behavior.

Rather it is time to return to God with all the strength we can gather and ask Him to help us drive the enemy from our personality. There is a picture in the Old Testament of the change from ascribed righteousness to the actual casting out of wickedness that characterizes the entrance of the Kingdom of God. When Joshua was fighting against the Amorites he imprisoned five of their kings in the cave at Makkedah.

Now the five kings had fled and hidden in the cave at Makkedah. When Joshua was told that the five kings had been found hiding in the cave at Makkedah, He said, "Roll large rocks up to the mouth of the cave, and post some men there to guard it. Then when Joshua had gained complete victory over the Amorites he returned to the cave at Makkedah.

Joshua said, "Open the mouth of the cave and bring those five kings out to me. Joshua brought the five kings out, killed them, hung them on five trees, and them threw them back into the cave. When we receive Christ the kings of wickedness hide themselves in us. We do not even realize they are there, but Christ does. Christ puts them under guard in us while He goes to war against the lesser evils in our life with which He is concerned. When Christ is assured these external problems have been taken care of satisfactorily He returns to our personality and calls forth the kings of wickedness that are in us.

He puts them to death and hangs them on His cross. They no longer can compel us to behave in a manner displeasing to God. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, Romans 8: Christ is ready to put to death the kings in us that He will not accept in His Kingdom. But we have to cooperate with Him by naming them, judging them as wicked, and then denouncing and renouncing them. We must draw near to God and resist them. Just as the Lord helped Joshua in the battle for the land of promise, so Jesus will help us as we go from battle to battle in our land of promise, which in this case is our own personality.

We want above all to dwell in peace with God and to always do His perfect will. But we cannot because these kings in us keep pressuring us to disobey what we know to be God's will. If you have been a Christian for a while, and God considers you to be strong enough for the work of eternal judgment to begin in your personality, you may find that things in your life that you thought were long dead are now beginning to emerge. This means Christ is bringing out the kings hidden in you. He is ready to put them to death and hang them on the cross.

A passage that suggests the work of judgment and deliverance will take place at the end of the age is as follows:. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. I suppose most of us have read the above passage many times. Maybe we thought this would take place when we went to Heaven; or perhaps, as is so often the case with Christian scholars, all such unpleasantness is directed toward the Jewish people.

The passage is not directed toward the Jewish people but toward the Kingdom of God. It is saying first, everything that causes sin will be weeded out of the Kingdom, and then all who do evil will be removed. The above passage is showing us the working of the Day of Atonement, which I like to term the Day of Reconciliation. Every person that is to be brought forward to the new heaven and earth reign of Jesus Christ must be free from evil. The evil will be incarcerated for eternity in the Lake of fire. Sooner or later all who would be saved, whether members of God's elect or citizens of the nations of saved people, must be reconciled to God.

This means all love of the world which the Father hates , all the ungovernable lusts and passions of the flesh, and all self-seeking, must be removed. God will not have fellowship with any of these. Notice that the above passage is addressed to the Christian people of Corinth, not to the unsaved. It is we Christians who are commanded to "come out from them and be separate"; to "touch no unclean thing. Then He regards us as His sons and daughters.

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So the great day of cleansing, of judgment, of deliverance has finally come. Whenever a person makes such a statement we should go to the Lord and determine if this is true. In the case of the present writer, the Lord, I believe, spoke to me over fifty years ago that the Day of Atonement, that follows the Jewish feast of Pentecost, signifies the next move of God after the Pentecostal experience would be judgment on the churches.

All I have experienced over the ensuing half-century has confirmed that it really was the Lord who spoke to me. This tells us there will be a time during which God sounds the trumpet of war against the enemy. I think this is taking place now. The battle will be joined and the enemy driven from God's saints. This will be the exercise of eternal judgment on Satan, and the result will be the reconciliation of God's people to Himself: God is a Person and we are to relate to Him person to Person, not through a religious formula, a legal maneuver that serves to screen from God what we are.

As we have stated, we think the Day of Vengeance against the enemy has either begun or else is at hand. We believe it will continue throughout the thousand-year Kingdom Age and is the purpose for this long period of time that will take place before the new Jerusalem descends from Heaven to be established forever on a high mountain of the new earth.

If this is true, then the emphasis, for the Christians at least, is no longer on imputed righteousness but actual righteousness of behavior. After we have been released from the chains of Satan it will be easier to behave righteously. Who would not want to be always kind, always truthful, always compassionate, always merciful, always honest, always helpful, always considerate of others, always modest, always loving, always joyous, always self-controlled?

This is the moral image of Jesus Christ. There are many people who demonstrate one or more of these virtues in their adamic personality. However, if enough pressure is put on us the adamic virtue eventually will fail. In order to get at the sin that is in us, God assigns our adamic nature, the good and the bad of it, to the cross with Jesus Christ. Then we are born again of His Spirit. As we in our adamic nature and by the wisdom and strength given to us by the Holy Spirit obey the commandments of Christ and His Apostles, Christ is formed in us.

When Christ is formed in us the Father and the Son make Their eternal abode in the new creation that has grown in us. Now the kindness, truthfulness, compassion, mercy, honesty, helpfulness, consideration of others, modesty love, joyfulness, and self-control that we have always desired are revealed in our behavior because of the new born-again spiritual nature that has been created in us. This is the third kind of righteousness. We see from the above that righteousness is righteousness, whether it is performed by the natural man or by the new spiritual creation.

The difference is not that one is filthy rags because it comes from the adamic nature and the other is acceptable to God because it comes from Christ. The difference is that one is imperfect and will crumble under enough pressure while the other, being of Christ, is perfect and will survive in every situation.

The "filthy rags" are the religious efforts of the individual who in his pride strives for spiritual mastery while at the same time disregarding the normal rules of life and the will and Presence of God. The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was as filthy rags because they, in their religious zeal and self-seeking, attacked Jesus whose only wickedness was to go about doing good and healing the people. The religious righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was not the genuine righteousness of truthfulness, uprightness, justice, mercy, compassion.

The last great witness to be given to the nations, as symbolized by the "two witnesses" of Chapter Eleven of the Book of Revelation, will be borne by people who reflect in themselves the righteous Personality and behavior of Jesus Christ; not perfect people, not manifested sons of God or anything of the kind. Just ordinary believers operating under a double portion of the Holy Spirit to cast out devils, heal the sick, raise the dead, and preach the soon coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth. In addition they will perform mighty works of judgment in order to insure that the Gospel witness reaches every nation, and also to reveal to earth's people that the coming Kingdom of God will be installed by force; it will not be brought into being by gentle philosophers and teachers who plead with the wicked of the earth to begin doing what is decent and honorable.

We have made some pretty strong statements in the above essay. Would you like to go to the Lord Jesus and see if what we are saying is really coming from Him? Notice how the Lord esteemed the righteous behavior of Cornelius. Cornelius stared at him in fear. Therefore, two factors must be considered. But what about the Bible statement "there is none righteous, no not one"? So much for the first kind of righteousness, religious self-righteousness. The truth is evident: Christians living in known sin will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Several verses in the New Testament speak of the coming Day of Redemption.

By salvation I mean the removal of sin from us. But what do we do today? It is time to take the Kingdom. As we said, to be delivered is to bring judgment on the adversary. Notice Jesus' remarks in His own home synagogue. He omitted "and the day of vengeance of our God. I believe we have come to the day of vengeance of God. God will teach our hands to war if we will allow Him to do so. The picture is found in the tenth chapter of the Book of Joshua. What a picture this is of the way we are delivered from sin.

A passage that suggests the work of judgment and deliverance will take place at the end of the age is as follows: