INTRODUCTION

Author: Pastor Johan du Toit

Learning Objectives

DEFINITIONS

Terms	Definitions
Righteousness	Acting in accord with divine or moral law; free from guilt or sin. Morally right or justifiable a righteous decision.
Religion	A particular system of faith and worship.
Manifest	Show (a quality or feeling) by one’s acts or appearance; demonstrate.
Consciousness	A person’s awareness or perception of something.
Fellowship	Friendly association, especially with people who share one’s interests.
Restore	Bring back to re-establish (a previous right, practice, or situation).

1. MAN’S CASE BEFORE GOD

Read Romans 3:10‐18, 23 and Ephesians 4:17‐19 attentively

• He is the enemy of God and cannot please Him: Romans 8:6‐8
• He is bound by sin and a slave of Satan: Romans 6:16
• Unregenerated man is driven by the (five) senses of the flesh and he has no understanding of spiritual matters: I Corinthians 2:14
• He can neither see nor enter the into kingdom of God: John 3:3‐5
• Natural man’s mind is blinded: II Corinthians 4:3,4
• Fallen man has no peace: Isaiah 57:21
• He sows corruption to himself as he lives according to the demands of the flesh: Galatians 6:8
• He falls short of the glory of God… Romans 3:23
• Natural man receives eternal death as a consequence of his sinful nature: Romans 6:23
• The inborn sense of condemnation gave birth to an inferiority complex that robs him of faith in himself, others and God.  This is what sin consciousness does to man.
• He has no means of approaching God for there is no basis on which to have his prayers answered. His only prayer is the prayer of desperation.
• This leads to philosophy, for the sense of guilt, inferiority and failure makes him reason in an attempt to justify his emptiness. He argues God out of the way and out of existence.
• Instead of calling on God for reconciliation and restoration, man attempts to earn his own righteousness by works programs.
• Fallen beings have no hope of salvation, for the only future that awaits them is eternal death.

2. THE FAILUTE OF RELIGION

After all that the church has done up to now, we must admit that we have, to a great measure, failed to produce the kind of Christian God had in mind for His new creation. We managed to make a turn to   some angle other than a 180-degree turn‐around‐walking‐back‐to‐God. Much time was spent focusing on our failures and weaknesses instead of on the work Christ has done on the cross. We have consequently brought forth a Christendom that is weak, compromising, looking like the world and struggling like the world. We have failed to clearly define the difference between the new life and the old, but instead went looking for crutches in extra‐biblical teachings to lean on.

Religion is teeming with all kinds of pet‐doctrines attempting to provide a bridge between our failure and the true message of the Bible. We seem to infect ourselves over and over again with the same old disease: ignorance of the truth that sets us free. Revelation knowledge of salvation and righteousness changes a man or woman.

Many Christians are running from church to church, to special services and ministers in the hope to find a cure for their problems, almost as if by magic, just like the world. The church cannot save anybody, but we can teach the truth that sets man free. Thank God miracles do happen by His grace! But the will of the Father is for us to appropriate His promises by faith. The just shall live by faith.

• Many Christian hymns and songs contain lines that remind us of our weaknesses and failures, some are openly contrary to the life of faith and victory in Christ Jesus, or do not line up with the Word. As we sing them, we establish those thoughts in our hearts and minds and wonder why we never seem to break free.
• The benefits of our redemption were cleverly put in the “after life”, so we failed to build up the faith of the saints for the here and now.
• Condemnation was (and still is, in some circles) preached instead of the benefits of our redemption in Christ Jesus.
• We had a total failure in our teaching of the new creation.

Therefore, Christians seem to have no more hope than people of the world; there is not much

visible difference between the lives of Christians and unregenerate.

Ephesians 4:17‐18 NKJV 
This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart .

Paul writes to born‐again Christians and warns them not to live like those who never heard the gospel, who have not been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. It is possible to be saved and live like the world, having the same struggle against sin and living without the benefits we have as children of God.

Although these people in the Ephesian Church were saved, they lived just like the world:

• They walked (lived) just as the Gentiles
• In the futility of their mind ‐ thinking like the world
• Their understanding was darkened – they had no spiritual understanding and reasoned like the world
• They were alienated from the life of God
• Were ignorant and
• Spiritually blind

Religion gives us just the same old person in different clothing. Nothing really changed. Through the new birth in Christ Jesus, we are changed from the inside out with visible changes. People ought to see it. Old friends and family should notice the difference immediately. We can never be the same after we became born again.

Galatians 6:15 AMP
For neither is circumcision [now] of any importance, nor un‐circumcision (religion), but [only] a new creation [the result of a new birth and a new nature in Christ Jesus, the Messiah]. 

In Christ Jesus we became new creations, and that is what we should be. If the old was good enough to hold onto, the new is unnecessary. Things have to change!

Because the church failed to teach these truths, believers failed to live up to God’s standards of holiness, righteousness and overall well‐being. Our priorities did not change that much; many Christians still place the pleasures of this world, carnal friendships and the temporary benefits of this world above their devotion to the Lord.

Too many born‐again Christians still believe that these things will come to pass when we cross over from life on earth to life in glory. Just as is the case with the world, in utmost foolishness they shy away from giving their all to God in this life, yet hope to live with Him eternally!

II Corinthians 5:17 AMP
Therefore, if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ, the Messiah, he is a new creation, [a new creature altogether]; the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!

We cannot be in Christ and still be driven by the devil driven nature of fallen man. There can be no real development of faith and a victorious life if we are confused about who we are. People who do not know who they are in Christ Jesus live a life of weakness and defeat.

Colossians 1:21‐23 AMP 
And although you at one time were estranged and alienated from Him and were of hostile attitude of mind in your wicked activities, yet now has [Christ, the Messiah,] reconciled [you to God] in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you holy and faultless and irreproachable in His [the Father’s] presence.

[And this He will do] provided that you continue to stay with and in the faith [in Christ], well‐grounded and settled and steadfast, not shifting away from the hope [which rests on and is inspired by] the glad tidings (the Gospel), which you heard and which has been preached [as being designed for and offered without restrictions] to every person under heaven, and of which [Gospel] I, Paul, became a minister. 

These things happen in the new birth and are intended for life on earth. We are already complete in Christ Jesus (Col. 2:10), not we will be.

I Corinthians 15:34 NKJV 
Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame. 

I Corinthians 1:30 NKJV 
But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God ‐ and righteousness and sanctification and redemption 

3. RIGHTEOUSNESS MADE MANIFEST

Righteousness is the ability to stand in the presence of a holy God without the sense of guilt or inferiority. Spiritually dead man cannot stand in God’s presence. Righteousness is also the ability to   stand in the presence of our accuser, the devil, without the sense of guilt or inferiority.

We came into this world with an inborn sin‐nature because we were born from a fallen man. Our problem is not so much the deeds of sin that we have done, but our fallen nature. And the wages of sin  is death.

God dealt with this sin problem in Jesus the Righteous. Jesus the innocent took our sin upon Himself and received the death sentence for it on the cross ‐ the innocent died in the place of the guilty. Our sin shifted to Him and His righteousness shifted over to us.

II Corinthians 5:21 NKJV
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

This is something we need to come to terms with: we were delivered from our sin‐nature. Two things happened to fundamentally change our lives:

A. THAT WHICH SEPERATED US FROM GOD HAS BEEN REMOVED.

We are no longer guilty, the penalty for our sin has been paid. We are no longer on our way to death. We do not carry the seed of death in ourselves anymore so we do not have to bear the fruit of death anymore. We are free; no guilty conscience, no separation from God, no reason to live below His standard for us.

B. HIS LIFE WAS IMPARTED TO US.

This means also the quality of His life: eternal, peaceful, joyful, fully provided for, etc. ‐ the God‐kind of life. No longer do we have a vision of death and all the misery of the world, but our hearts and minds are filled with the glory of God.

II Peter 1:2‐4 NKJV
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 

This puts us in a totally different category than before; it is impossible to be the same after our sin has been removed and the very life of God has been imparted to us.

John 10:10 NKJV
...”I have come so that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” 

This life and nature of God is righteousness. Not all Christians know it or take advantage of it, but it is true.

Sin consciousness must now be replaced by righteousness consciousness.

Hebrews 9:14 NKJV 
How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?  

Hebrews 10:22 NKJV
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience...

We have grown up with a sin consciousness; we have heard over and over again that we are not good enough. The devil whispered into our ears that we are sinners and unable to live in the glory of God. It has become a part of our thinking. Now we have to renew our minds to the new truth: if anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.

The old nature passed away;

“For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3).

When the devil comes to remind us of our weaknesses, our sins and hopelessness, we should know that the old man passed away and that the new has come.

The price that Jesus paid in His own blood was sufficient in God’s eyes; the work was complete. Nothing can be added to it, or it would not be a complete work. Until we know this, Satan will rule over us with all he has. Righteousness is not a feeling but it does lead us into wonderful experiences with God. As this knowledge is revealed to our hearts and minds in an ever-increasing way, we gradually gain control over the works of the devil and become what God says we are: more than conquerors in Christ Jesus!

4. THE PROBLEM OF SIN CONSCIOUSNESS

Dr. Yonggi Cho of Korea once said that every drop of that blood Jesus shed had a specific meaning in our salvation:

The blood that was shed when He received those lashes on His back purchased our healing;

The blood that came from His side purchased our redemption ‐ a clean heart before God as new creations in Christ Jesus;

The blood that flowed from His head as those thorns pierced through His scalp bought salvation for our minds.

Dr. Yonggi Cho

The mind is the battlefield of our spiritual war, and sin consciousness is the root of failure in the Christian life. It destroys faith, produces inferiority, cancels initiative and instils fear of God and man. Sin consciousness is what sends us searching for someone who can pray the prayer of faith because we feel inferior to receive directly from the Father. There is no sense of our right to stand in the presence of the Lord without feelings of condemnation.

Because our minds are filled with our own weaknesses, sinful pasts, failures and wrongs done to us, righteousness has no place there. We are negatively inclined and we approach life with negativism. We are constantly conscious of our unworthiness before God.

The redemption bought for us by Jesus Christ was meant for our walk on earth, otherwise no one would ever be able to stand before God in this life. God made provision for us through the new creation in Christ Jesus. In His plan of redemption God purposed to remove our old nature and replace it with His own nature, and so destroyed sin consciousness in His children.

Sin consciousness spawned many pet‐doctrines; teachings and religious practices that rely on carnal human insight, using loose Scriptures out of the context of the message of the Bible. Loose texts are sometimes put together like pieces of a puzzle to form a picture, but its not the picture of the Word. Although it has a religious color, it’s not that truth that sets man free. This causes man to come back for “counselling” over and over again, revisiting old problems and infecting himself with the same disease over and over again.

People who have trouble forgetting their past, need to go back for help over and over again because they never deal with the problem at the root. They never seem to get to the place where they have renewed their minds to the place where they understand that they have become new creations and

that old things have passed away. Therefore, they never enter into newness of life. They keep on dwelling on the past, not realizing that the past has no relevance anymore.

We now have a new identity in Christ Jesus which makes our old identity obsolete and redundant.

The real problem is the lack of understanding of who we are as new creations in Christ Jesus. The old man with his sinful nature died and a new one rose up with Christ Jesus in a new life. We have to renew our minds to this truth and enter into newness of life, just as a baby learns to walk by stumbling and getting up, until we have grown into a new lifestyle worthy of our calling and the name of the Lord. You cannot change a man until you change the way he thinks ‐ about himself, others, God and the Word.

There are two kinds of sin‐consciousness:

1. The sinner who is dead in trespasses, living in the wrath of God, alienated from the life of God;
2. The undeveloped believer who has never grown beyond the state of babyhood in Christ, ignorant of his privileges in Christ.

The plan of redemption, purchased with the blood of Jesus, was a perfect plan ‐ nothing can be added to it. For it to be perfect it had to cover every area of man’s need and bring perfect fellowship with the   Father, to such a level that there is no consciousness of sin or memory of past wrongs.

Colossians 2:9‐10 NKJV 
For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. 

John 1:16 NKJV 
And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 

Read Hebrews 10:1‐23 with special attention to verse 22.

LOOK AT WHAT GOD DID FOR US:

Colossians 1:13,14 NKJV 
He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.  

He delivered us from satan’s dominion,

He conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Since we have been redeemed, satan  has no legal grounds on which to exercise control over our lives anymore.

In Him we have the remission of sins:

• He redeemed us
• He recreated us
• He delivered us from Satan’s authority
• He remitted all the sin that we have ever committed. Remit means to ‘send payment for’ or ‘to pay away’.

Hebrews 10:17‐18 NKJV 
Then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin. 

Nothing can be added to the sacrifice that Jesus brought before the Father; it was a complete work and accepted as such by the Father. The old has passed away; all things have become new.

5. WHAT TIGHTEOUSNESS BROUGHT US

Righteousness restored to us all that we lost in the fall:

Our standing with God is restored

We have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus when we became new creations. It gives us right standing with holy God and takes away the old sin consciousness that robbed and crippled us as worthy beings in His presence. Jesus was fearless in the presence of God and Satan because:

• He knew His legal rights with the Father
• He ruled over Satan
• He ruled over the forces of nature and every sickness and disease
• He ruled over death when He called the deceased back from the dead.

Righteousness dominates!

Righteousness restored to us fellowship with God

When Adam sinned, He lost fellowship with God, for sin separates us from holy God. Righteousness gives us the same fellowship Jesus had with the Father. Jesus approached the Father with the same freedom, confidence and trust as a child addresses his earthly father. The way to the Father’s heart is open.

We are no longer alienated from the Father. Jesus always heard the Father and He always saw Him because He lived in fellowship with Him:

John 5:19 NKJV 
Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” 

Psalm 16:8 NKJV 
I have set the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved. 

I Corinthians 1:9 NKJV
God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Righteousness restored faith

Word is true and that God watches over His Word to perform it.

It is by faith that we have been saved. God dealt each one of us a measure of faith, for faith is the language of the new creation.

We know the will of God because the Word is His will. Faith begins where the will of God is known.

Faith is a spiritual thing and cannot be known by the spiritually dead. Since we have been made alive with Christ, faith in God was restored to us.

Righteousness restored peace

Peace can only be restored where righteousness is restored. The sense of guilt and the burden of lack rob us of inner peace.

Righteousness restores quietness and rest to our hearts and we are no longer afraid of anything that might come against us. Because we have right standing with God we know that we have favor with Him and that He will take care of all of our needs.

Philippians 4:19 NKJV 
And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. 

Matthew 7:11 NKJV 
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” 

Righteousness restored freedom

Righteousness restored to us the very thing for which man has fought and struggled from the earliest times until now ‐ freedom. The greatest freedom is not political or financial freedom, but freedom from the burdens of sin and guilt.

Jesus came to give us freedom from Satan, man, fear, worry and circumstances, and this freedom is found in right standing with God.

John 8:36 NKJV 
“Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” 

6. LOST IN THE FALL, RESTORED IN CHRIST

Paul describes the effects of the fall of man in Romans 1:18‐25. All men, no matter how godless and unrighteous they may be, know the truth about God and themselves, but they suppress the truth in their wickedness.

Scripture	Lost in the fall	Restored in Christ	Scripture
Col. 2:13	Mad died spiritually.	We were made alive in Christ and given life.	John 5:24
	Man lost righteousness and his fellowship with God.	We became the righteousness of God in Christ.	1 Cor. 5:21
Eph. 2:1-3	Adam was born again from life to death.  He lost the life and nature of God and gained the spiritual death nature of the devil.	Fellowship has been restored.	1 Cor. 1:9
Luke 4:5,6	Man lost his God-given dominion and authority and the human race became the servants of the devil.	“…and they shall reign forever…”	Rev. 22:5
Rom. 6:16	Man lost kingship and rulership of the earth to the devil.	We are delivered from the rulership of the devil and the dominion of darkness.	Rom. 5:17
Gen. 2:19,20	Man lost revelation knowledge and gained sense knowledge – Adam walked in the knowledge of God before the fall.	We have the mind of Christ.	1Cor. 2:16
Rom. 8:3	The law of sin and death began to control the earth and curse came upon the human family.	We were made free from the law of sin and death and now live by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.	Rom. 8:2
Col. 1:13	Man came under the lordship of the devil and a citizen of the power of darkness.	Jesus became our Lord which makes us citizens of heaven.	Cor. 1:13
Rom. 1:22-32	The dignity of man has been overthrown by the fall.	The Son set us free from all oppression.	John 8:36
Gal. 5:19-21	Manifestations of sin nature are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, idolatries, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, etc…	Manifestations of our new nature in Christ are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.	Gal. 5:22
Rom. 3:17	No peace: ‘…and the was of peace they have not known…”	“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you…”	John 14:27
Rom. 3:23	Man lost the glory of God.	The glory of Christ given to us.	John 17:22
Gen. 3:17-19	The ground was cursed and thorns and thistles came forth.	Jesus wore a crown of thorns on His head. Thorns are symbolic of the curse – He took that curse upon Himself.  He redeemed us from the curse!

I John 4:4 NKJV 
You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 

If you can stand in the presence of God, no power can stand against you!

Romans 8:31 NKJV
...If God is for us, who can be against us? 

7. HOW TIGHTEOUSNESS COMES TO US

Right standing with God comes only through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not works, not money, not religion ‐ nothing else. God took our sin and put it on Jesus, and took His righteousness and put it on us. He paid the penalty for our sin when He died on the cross, for the wages of sin is death.

As if with a garment we are now clothed in His righteousness ‐ we can never be righteous in our own right.

II Corinthians 5:21 NKJV
For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

II Corinthians 5:21 J.B. Philips 
For God caused Christ, who himself knew nothing of sin, actually to be sin for our sakes, so that in Christ we might be made good with the goodness of God. 

Jesus was made unrighteous with our unrighteousness when He took our sin to the cross. God could not face Him anymore and turned His face away from Him, and He cried out “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!” He knew what it was to be separated from God by sin!

As our sin‐substitute Jesus was made sin for us, He took our place and went where we were supposed to go; to prison where sinners go, and served our full sentence. God was fully satisfied and granted us His righteousness!

Romans 4:25‐5:2 NKJV 
Who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification? Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 

Colossians 1:17,18 NKJV 
And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the Head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the pre‐eminence. 

Jesus became the Firstborn from the dead ‐ the Head of a new creation. Just as it is the truth that God made Him sin, He made us righteous the moment we accepted Him into our lives.

In the atonement practices of the Old Testament, the sins of the people were covered by the blood of bulls and goats, which means it was never taken away. It was still there, albeit covered by blood.

There was a sin consciousness because the sin was never truly removed. But the New Testament is a better covenant than the Old, for the blood of Jesus takes away our sins. There can be no memory of something that doesn’t exist; not even God remembers it!

Hebrews 8:12,13 NKJV 
“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. 

He made us righteous and therefore we now qualify to stand in His presence. Jesus is the Firstborn among many brethren (Rom. 8:29); we were made like Him because of righteousness.

I John 4:17 AMP 
In this [union and communion with Him] love is brought to completion and attains perfection with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment [with assurance and boldness to face Him], because as He is, so are we in this world.

There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus! Righteousness manifested in Christ Jesus.  Before we were:

• Lost in sin;
• Alienated from the life of God;
• Without hope in this world;
• A partaker of Satan’s nature;
• An enemy of God,

…but God reconciled us with Himself. All that we were Jesus became in order to save us, now we have become His righteousness unto God!  Fellowship is restored and we can once again stand before Him as if we never sinned. The fact that Jesus could leave the dwelling place of the lost and enter immediately into the Father’s presence opens the door which is proof that the lowest sinner can do the same through Jesus Christ.

Confess of yourself: “I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.”

James 5:16 AMP
...The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [, dynamic in its working]. 

• We have been made righteous.
• Our prayers avail much because tremendous power is made available when we pray ‐ and we know it.
• We have been given the Name of Jesus with all the authority in heaven and earth.
• We rule over the works of the devil (sickness, oppression, sin, wickedness, death, poverty, etc.) because we rule over him in Christ.
• He has become for us wisdom from God ‐ and righteousness and sanctification and redemption… (I Cor. 1:30).

8. GOD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS

Romans 3:21‐22 NKJV 
But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe... 

The righteousness of God Himself is revealed to all and on all who believe. It is a staggering thought! This is how complete our redemption in Christ Jesus is. That we may receive the revelation of redemption leading to righteousness!

Man is the reason for creation, but he became alienated from God through disobedience. God’s desire was to restore him to perfect fellowship with Himself once again ‐ on legal grounds. Anything less than that would fail to accomplish God’s ideals for man.

The object of righteousness is to give man fellowship with God. This is why Jesus became flesh, the Word that dwelled amongst us, and endured the cross where He was made sin for us. Only God’s own righteousness can make sinful man worthy of standing in His presence:

Romans 3:26 NKJV 
To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 

Read the promise in Jeremiah 23:5‐6. Jehovah Tsidkenu ‐ THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS ‐ is His name! It is not our righteousness, but His! The filthy rags of our own righteousness (Isa. 64:6) were removed and we are clothed, as it were, with His robe of righteousness.

Righteousness came to us when the penalty for our sin was fully paid by Jesus; when we were justified by God.

Romans 4:24‐25 NKJV
...It (righteousness) shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, Who was delivered up for our offenses, and was raised because of our justification. 

Romans 5:19 NKJV 
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous. 

Romans 5:1 NKJV
Righteousness produces peace with God. The carnal mind is enmity against God, but righteousness restores peace with God. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Righteousness restored peace with God, which implies fellowship with Him. Since the barrier of sin has been removed, we can once again have fellowship with God.

Read II Corinthians 5:16‐19.

Righteousness is reconciliation with God and it restores fellowship with Him. This is the joy of the new creation! Fellowship opens the floodgates for the life of God to flow into and through our lives. It generates faith in our hearts.

Now cultivate your fellowship with the Father by spending time with Him in worshipful prayer and searching the Word.

9. WE ARE BORN AGAIN

Having just our sins forgiven is not righteousness, for the old nature would lead us back into sin over and over again. Forgiveness cannot work right standing with God. We needed a remission of our sinful past ‐ the old nature had to pass away with all that was connected with it.

Our reconciliation could never be perfect if sin were to be carried over into the new creation. Remission took our sins away ‐ it is part of the born‐again experience. Forgiveness is used in connection with the believer, when he sins through an unrenewed mind driven by the weakness of the flesh.

I John 1:9 NKJV
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

II Corinthians 5:17 NKJV
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

“In Christ” is the key here ‐ when a sinner is born again, he comes into Christ as the vine is in the branch. There is a unification with Christ.

Romans 6:5 NKJV 
For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. 

It is therefore not a matter of sins, forgiveness or repentance, but of the new birth.

When we are born again, we have hope and life ‐ something the natural man does not have. And we have the forgiveness and cleansing of our sins (I John 1:9). We are not condemned; we just have to confess our sins to receive forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness. Jesus Christ is our Advocate and Intercessor at the right hand of the Father (Heb. 7:25).

John 5:24 NKJV 
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” 

I John 5:11‐12 NKJV
And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 

This is not hoping to receive eternal life, but the very manifestation of it. It has nothing at all to do with religion, but with life in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 6:15 NKJV
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.

Questions like circumcision or uncircumcision have to do with the law, with religion and works in and of the flesh. It has no importance at all, for it passed away with the Old Covenant. What matters is a new creation in Christ Jesus.

God takes the sinner as he is, without works or goodness or self‐proclaimed righteousness coming from religion. When he receives Jesus as his Lord, God imparts into him His own nature and he becomes a child of God. Righteousness cannot be earned, but Christ became righteousness for us.

The just shall live by faith because he lives in fellowship with God. He has unhindered entrance in to His presence. There is no condemnation, no guilt and no inferiority. The promises of the Father belong to the righteous. We can become all that He created us to be and can have all He wanted us to have. Restoration of God’s original plan for man took place when righteousness was restored to us in Christ Jesus.

10. REALITIES OF REIGHTEOUSNESS

It is a practical truth that we have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus; a glorious reality. Don’t see it as just something that is written in the Bible, or a theological understanding, but the truth. Jesus set us free, so we are free indeed.

Righteousness is not something we grow in ‐ it is the gift of God. We do not become righteous gradually as we grow in the things of God ‐ we were made righteous the moment we were born again. God Himself is our righteousness! Let us fill our minds and hearts with this truth and expel sin consciousness once and for all. Confess with your mouth until your mind knows it: “I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”.

Righteousness cultivates faith in our hearts ‐ we know that we stand in His presence with no obstacle that hinders the flow of His life and power through us. There is no veil that hides Him from our view; we can see Him clearly with the eyes of faith.

The revelation of righteousness makes us fearless in the face of the enemy.

Read Psalm 23

Nothing is impossible for those who believe. We are connected to Him as the vine is connected to the branch ‐ His life‐giving power flows into and through us.

We do not grow in sonship, but we grow in the knowledge of what it means to be a mature son of God. Now that we are mature, let us get busy with the business of the Father. He is a Ruler and a King, and He rules over the works of the enemy through His children on the earth. We are covenant partners of

Almighty God, which means His provision freely flows towards us to supply in every need we may have to accomplish His purposes on the earth.

Let us now renew our minds to these truths and begin to change from the inside out. He is our loving Father who delights in giving good gifts to His children. The things of the world that appeal to our carnal minds fade away as we fill our minds with those things that are above, where Christ is, at the right hand of God. It is walking away from the carnal towards the full stature of the new creation we became in Christ Jesus.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face  

And the things of earth

Will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace!

Let all fear we had for the devil and his evil plans against us, fear of failure and the fear of man vanish from our minds as we awake unto righteousness. Nothing can come against us now that we know that we stand in the presence of Almighty God without guilt or inferiority.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cho, D. Y. (n.d.).

Lemmel, H. H. (n.d.). Turn your eyes upon Jesus [Recorded by H. H. Lemmel].

Nelson, T. (1982). The New King James Version Bible. Thomas Nelson.