"BEING IGNORANT OF GOD'S
RIGHTEOUSNESS"
"Brethren,
my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to
knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the
righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
every one that believeth..” -- Romans 10:1-4
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.
Fig Leaves
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. Adam’s 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. What folly!
Filthy Rags
When man has
done the very best he can do and offers it up to God, giving God his
righteousness is like throwing a vile, discarded, loathsome menstrous cloth in
the face of the triune God, who declares all our righteousness to be nothing
but filthy rags (Isa. 64:6). He 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. If we
would be righteous before God, we must be made righteous by God, by the
imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us. We must be made the righteousness
of God in him.
Grace Baptist Church of Danville - Grace For
Today Radio Message #773
2734 Old Stanford Road -
Danville, Kentucky 40422-9438
Donald S. Fortner, Pastor -Telephone 606-236-8235 - Email grace@mis.net