No Personal Righteousness
In Philippians 3:8-9, Paul wrote “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. (ESV)
Paul follows up his comments about giving up everything for Christ by reminding us of his purpose in that: “In order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law.”
Here Paul underscores that he has no righteousness of his own that comes from keeping the law. This is appropriate because elsewhere scripture emphasizes that salvation never comes through keeping the law. (See Galatians 3:11) As people come to God, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ the reason they do that is because they understand that they have no personal righteousness before God. The reason that you need to be saved is that you are a sinful person and you have no righteousness and you understand that.
So you come to God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and you say “God I am a sinner, I recognise that the Lord Jesus Christ shed His blood, suffered and died in my place so that my sin can be put on Him and His righteousness can be applied to me.” We understand that at the moment of conversion when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But Paul Paul says this shocking thing in the present tense - that he has no righteousness of his own, but all of his righteousness is a gift of God through faith. It is entirely possible for us to begin well with a clear understanding that we have no righteousness but then we get involved in a Christian community, a local church, our view of ourselves become distorted. We start to think “Wow! I’m pretty good.”
We start to feel good about the way we do things: the way we conduct meetings, the songs we sing and the songs we don’t sing, the technology we use and the technology we don’t use. We take considerable satisfaction in being able to point out to others that we do things correctly. We are happy to instruct those who do things differently. But that is self righteousness and we have to let it go. It’s rubbish. Keeping the Jewish law is rubbish. Keeping your denomination’s law is rubbish. My only claim to righteousness is that Christ has given me His righteousness through His death on the cross.
God didn’t love Paul because he preached in Corinth, went to jail in Philippi, planted churches in Asia Minor, or because of anything he did or didn’t do. Everything that was good and right about Paul came from God. Why does God love you? Is it because you’ve gone on mission trips, tithe regularly, celebrate the Lord’s supper in the only correct way? Everything that is good and right about you comes from God - His gift of righteousness through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Check up question 3: Can I confess with Paul that I have no righteousness of my own through keeping the law?
Ron Hughes
© October 2008
