"BEING IGNORANT OF GOD'S
RIGHTEOUSNESS"
Romans 10:3
Fallen man has
no righteousness of his own. And he is totally ignorant of God's righteousness.
He is ignorant of God' s character of righteousness, God' s requirement of
righteousness, and God's accomplishment of righteousness in Christ. Being
ignorant of both the righteousness of God and his own sinfulness, fallen man
ever goes about to establish his own righteousness. Fallen man made an apron of
fig leaves, by which he hoped to meet with God's approval. His firstborn son
followed the example and nature he had received from his fallen father. Cain
offered God a bloodless sacrifice which he had produced by the works of his own
hands. But God despised it.
No one will
ever trust Christ until he sees that he has no righteousness of his own and
that it is utterly impossible for him to produce any righteous work acceptable
to God. Yet, fallen, ignorant, sinful men and women continue the vain, futile
work of trying to establish their own righteousness. They take bricks from the
kiln of their corrupt hearts and slime of their defiled hands for mortar, and
try to build a tower of Babel that will bring them to heaven. By works of legal
obedience, moral reformation, personal sacrifice, self-denial, devotion, sacramentalism,
penitence, and religious zeal, foolish man hopes to establish righteousness for
himself. But when he has done the very best he can do and offers it up to God,
giving God his righteousness is like throwing a vile, disgarded, loathesome
menstrous cloth in the face of the triune God (Isa. 64:6)! God will not have
it' God requires perfect obedience. He cannot and will not accept anything less
than perfection, both inward and outward (Gal. 3: 10). Fallen man cannot
produce righteousness because his heart is evil (Matt. 15:19). A corrupt
fountain cannot bring forth pure water. Everything man does is defiled, because
his motives are defiled. No man can make atonement for his sin (Heb. 10:11).
Even if man could cleanse his heart and begin to do righteousness, he could
never be accepted with God on that basis, because he still bears the guilt of
sin and must be punished.