The Ultimate Standard

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Tonight, we return to our study of the attributes of God, and particularly, we return to God the righteous, the ultimate standard. This week, I chose to get gas for my car on the coldest day of the week – perhaps, like me, you found yourself standing out in 21° wind chill, pumping gas. You know, it's amazing how many times you can glance at something and yet not really see it – of course, I've read it before, but literally hundreds of times I have pumped gas and not even noticed it – on every gas pump, there is a little small sticker certifying it to have been inspected by the appropriate state or government official. Have you ever noticed that little tag on every gas pump? That sticker is meant to assure you that the equipment you're using has been tested for accuracy – every time that counter tells you, you have put yet another gallon of gas in your car, that sticker says you can be sure that in fact, a gallon of gas is passed out of that tank in the ground. through the equipment. through the hose. and into the gas tank of your car. Every county in Texas, and all fifty states, has someone whose job it is to compare every pump's output against the standard.

But how is it that you and I can be sure that when we travel, we get the same amount, the same gallon, if you will, in Southlake as in Seattle? It's because there is a part of our government called the National Institute of Standards and Technologies, and the National Institute of Standards and Technologies has a division called the Weights and Measures Division, and the Weights and Measures Division maintains the ultimate standard of a measure of a gallon. The Weights and Standards Division, in turn, trains and equips state officials who train county officials who regularly check the gas stations in their county. To be able to measure anything anywhere ultimately requires a standard; there has to be a standard. For there to be a high degree of consistency, in the end, there must be an ultimate standard against which everything is compared and evaluated, whether we're talking physical issues like the measurement of something or moral issues, God is the ultimate standard. He is the plumb line, the ruler, the level, the measure against which everything in the universe must be compared. Measurements of gallons or minutes only make sense because God has created a rational, ordered world.

But God is also the standard for the metaphysical world – specifically, God is the ultimate standard of right and wrong. When we think of God, or when we speak of God as the ultimate standard for being, thinking, speaking, and acting, we are describing one specific attribute of God, and that is His righteousness – and that's the attribute that we want to examine tonight. Now, let's hurry through some preliminary matters to sort of give us a running start into what this concept of righteousness means – first of all, looking at the biblical words, the Hebrew word is tsedeq, the Greek word is dikaiosune, and both of those words can be translated righteousness or justice – both of these terms come from the sphere of law and courtrooms. In English, righteousness and justice are two very different words; in Hebrew and Greek, both of those words, righteousness and justice, come from a single word group. Both of the Greek and the Hebrew words contain, essentially, this fundamental idea: conformity to a standard, something that conforms to a standard. God is righteous – there is some relationship between the reality of God being righteous and conformity to a standard; let's see exactly what that is.

Let me give you several definitions. First of all, John Feinberg, in his book No One Like Him, writes, "God has established a moral order for the universe, and He treats all creatures fairly" – that's how he defines God's righteousness. There is a moral order, and He treats all creatures in respect to that moral order that He has established. John Frame, in his book The Doctrine of God, writes, "God acts according to a perfect internal standard of right and wrong." But my favorite definition is Wayne Grudem's, in his Systematic Theology: "God always acts in accordance with what is right, and He is, Himself, the final standard of what is right." Notice that definition hinges on the word right – what does that mean; what is it; what is right? When we use that expression, that it's right, what we're really saying is, it's as it ought to be. It's as it ought to be, it's what ought to happen – so, what is it that ought to happen or ought to be? Answer: whatever conforms to God's moral character – whatever reflects the character of God is what ought to be, it's what's right. God is the final standard; there's nothing outside of God – and that's why I like this definition – there's nothing outside of God, against which He should be measured. God can only be measured against Himself; He is the ultimate standard.

Now, when we talk about the righteousness of God, there are several aspects, specifically two aspects of God's righteousness – the first is what theologians call His absolute righteousness, and by this, they simply mean God's own inherent moral excellence. It's describing what's internal to God, if we could speak of it that way – it describes His being; God is what is right. There are a number of passages in scripture that describe this – Deuteronomy 32:4 says, in Moses' song at the end of his life, he says, "The rock! His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright (literally straight; righteous and straight) is He." Tozer writes in his little book The Knowledge of the Holy, "when God acts justly, He is not doing so to conform to an independent criterion, but simply acting like Himself. Everything in the universe is good to the degree it conforms to the nature of God, and evil, as it fails to do so." God's the standard against which everything is measured – He is inherently righteous. Jeremiah 12:1 – "Righteous are you, O Lord." John 17:25 – Jesus cries out to God, in His high priestly prayer, "O righteous Father." Now, when you understand this, it makes other passages make sense – for example, you've quoted and memorized, all your life, Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned," and what is that last expression? And come short, or literally, are falling "short of the glory of God" – now you understand what that means. The reason none of us can ever measure up to God's standard and earn our acceptance with God is that the very character of God Himself is the standard – He's what we're to be measured against, He determines what righteous is, because He is. So, when we speak of God being righteous, there's one sense in which we speak of His being, alone – He is inherently righteous, He is morally excellent, He is what is right.

But there's another aspect, and that's what theologians call the relative aspect; that is, God's righteousness as it relates to other things – God's relative righteousness. This describes the rectitude or rightness of God's conduct. Now, we're not talking about God's internal being, but His external acts – we're talking about God's actions. God not only is what is right, but God's righteousness teaches us that God does what is right; all of His actions conform to His own character. Again, a number of references drive this home. Psalm 89:14 – "Righteousness and justice (I love this) are the foundation of Your throne." Of course, throne – the image behind the throne is that of sovereignty, that of ruling; it's describing God as the sovereign King of the universe, and the Psalmist is saying, when you look at God's rule, when you look at God's actions as King, understand that the very foundation of His Kingdom, of His ruling, is righteousness. Psalm 97:2 – "Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice (again) are the foundation of His throne." Psalm 145:17 – "The Lord" (I love this), "The Lord is righteous in all His ways." I've described this word ways to you before – it's a fascinating Hebrew word; it's the word for the rut that you leave when you go over the same territory again and again. It comes from the image of a wagon wheel, rolling again and again over the same path in soft soil and leaving this rut in the ground – that was the literal meaning of the word, and it came to describe the ruts that we leave by our behavior, or our habits, if you will. So, this verse is saying our God, Yahweh, is righteous in all of His predictable patterns of behavior – God's habits, if you will, are always righteous, they conform to His own internal standard of what is right and wrong, and that is the ultimate standard. And then, of course, it finishes, I love the balance – "and is kind in all His deeds." God – He is righteous; He's righteous not only in Himself, but He's righteous in how He relates to His world that He's created. His conduct, His actions are right – He is what is right, and He does what is right.

Now, when we speak of this relative righteousness, there are a couple of categories. Now, we're looking still at relative righteousness; that is, that God does what is right, but under God doing what is right, there are two categories – the first is legislative. Legislative – by this, the theologians mean that God established and communicated just laws to His creatures. How has God done that, how has God established and communicated righteous laws to us? Well, first of all, He's done it in our conscience, hasn't He? You remember Romans 2:15, where Paul says that the substance of the law is written on every man's conscience, on every man's heart – but God has also given us His just laws; He's communicated them in the scripture. God's laws, by the way, as we come to look at God's laws, His righteousness reflected in His laws in scripture, they're not arbitrary – they reflect His own character and nature. When you see the law of God, don't think of it as something – well, God just decided that adultery was a sin and faithfulness in marriage was a virtue – no, there is a reflection in God's law of His own nature. For example, take that issue, the issue of faithfulness and adultery – while, obviously, there is no physical relationship between the members of the Trinity, there is between the members of the Trinity a loyal commitment to faithfulness. You see that over and over again, even in Christ's earthly life, as He reflects everything that the Father chooses and wants Him to do. So, when God commands us to be faithful to our partners, that's not some arbitrary thing God decided to say – that's a reflection of His very nature; it is God's nature to be loyal and faithful, and so it's right. It's a reflection of what is right because He is the standard of what's right, to be loyal and faithful. John Frame puts it this way: "The moral law" – now, he's talking about the law of God that's summarized in the Ten Commandments; at some point we'll look at the law of God in the weeks and months ahead – I want to look at that in detail, because it's often misunderstood. But "the moral law is not something above God that has authority over Him, nor is it something He has created, as if He could change it at will – rather, His moral standard is simply Himself, His person, His nature. His acts are righteous because He's a righteous God – the standard for our moral behavior is not an abstract concept, but an infinite person; God Himself." So, when you and I – this brings it really home – when you and I choose to sin, you know what we really choose to do? Ultimately, we choose to violate the very character of God, because the standard is God, and that's the reason He's communicated what He shared with us in His Word.

Now, when we say that God's law to us is a reflection of His character, we need to give one caveat, and that is that God has certain rights or privileges or prerogatives as a deity that you and I don't have. For example, we're commanded not to take human life, but God, because He is the creator, has, inherently, the right to do that. So, there are certain rights that He has to Himself, just by virtue of being God, that you and I don't have – but, by and large, as a whole, His laws reflect those things that bind His own character. Let's look at Psalm 119 – I want you to see how the psalmist in Psalm 119 drives home this point that God's law is a reflection of His own righteous nature. And, by the way, let me encourage you to do something – when I was in college, one of the most revolutionary things that I was ever asked to do, that I was ever encouraged to do, was to get alone with God and to pray through Psalm 119; just turn the expressions of the words, not in a meaningless way, but really seeking to understand them, and then turn them and express them to God. You know, I'll be honest with you – when the man who was my spiritual mentor at the time expressed that, I thought, now that's going to be the most boring thing in the world; I mean, after all, every verse in Psalm 119 sounds exactly alike. I couldn't have been more wrong – as I did just what he had recommended, it is absolutely amazing, the profound riches that are part of this psalm. But let me just show you – back to our theme for the evening – let me show you how God's character makes its way out in His laws. First of all, verse 7: "I shall give thanks to You with uprightness of heart when I learn Your righteous judgments." Now, there are several different synonyms used for God's law throughout Psalm 119 – judgments is one of those, ordinances is another, precepts is another, etc. – so, he's talking about the word of God here. Your judgments, Your legal decisions contained in Your word, are righteous. Verse 62 – and, by the way, there are others; I'm just citing a couple – verse 62: "At midnight, I shall rise to give thanks to You because of Your righteous ordinances." Verse 75: "I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous." Verse 137 – take special note of this one: "Righteous are You, O Lord" – there's the declaration of God's absolute righteousness; remember, He is righteous, therefore, "upright are Your judgments." Because God is who He is, because He's inherently righteous, because He is what is right, because He is the way things ought to be – therefore, what comes from His mouth, the laws that He's given us are upright, or straight, is literally the Hebrew expression. Verse 144: "Your testimonies are righteous forever." Verse 160: "The sum of Your word is truth" – you pull all that the scripture teaches together, and you have all of the truth that God intended for us to have for life and godliness – "and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting." Since God's character conforms to what is right, conforms to His own nature, His words are right. Isaiah 45:17 expresses the same truth, and you can look that up on your own – it's God's own testimony about His words.

Now, when we look at the relative aspect of God's righteousness, we see the legislative which we've been looking at; that is, God has communicated His law. We also see what theologians call the distributive; that is, God now not only tells us what is right, but God distributes reward or punishment to us based on our response to what is right. This is also an expression of God's righteousness, and when we think of God's distributive righteousness, there are two words: remunerative, which speaks of reward, and retributive, which speaks of punishment; we're going to look at those two in the moments ahead. So, we're talking about God's relative righteousness, and when we talk about His relative righteousness, we're talking about two forms: as legislative and as distributive. Now, we're going to talk about the distributive – God judges and evaluates His creatures by the standard of His own character, and then He distributes to each person what they deserve – so, now we're talking about not what God is, but what God does in interacting with us. He not only gives us a law, but then He takes us, as it were, and holds us up against that standard, the standard of His own character, and He responds to us, in reward or judgment, based on what He finds – this is an expression of the righteousness of God. You see this throughout the scripture – you remember, just before the Lord was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham pleads on behalf of the two cities, and he says, "Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked," – Genesis 18:25 – "so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike." He said, listen, God, You judge righteously, You distribute to men what they deserve, based on how they respond to and lay alongside the standard of Your own perfection – "Far be it from You; shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?" Deuteronomy 10:17 – "For the Lord your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who does not show partiality, nor take a bribe." God is a righteous judge – He distributes to us righteously, without partiality. Psalm 9:7-8 – "The Lord abides forever; He has established His throne for judgment, and He will judge the world in righteousness; He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity." You can look later at Psalm 96:10-11; it makes the same point as Psalm 9. Isaiah 3 – this is an interesting expression – Isaiah says, "Say to the righteous that it will go well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their actions. Woe to the wicked; it will go badly with him, for what he deserves will be done to him." Again, the point here is, God is righteous, He has a standard, and He treats people based on how they measure up to that standard. We'll see in a moment, though, none of us measure up, and ultimately God treats some of us in grace, because of someone who did measure up to the standard. So, when you read – by the way, I should just say that – when you read these verses that talk about the righteous, that does not imply inherent righteousness, that that person perfectly measures up to the inherent standard of the character of God. Instead, we're called righteous because we wear the righteousness of another, someone else who measured up, the only one who has ever measured up to the standard – Jesus Christ.

Turn to Romans 2 – I want you to see this in some detail. My joy was to edit the Book of Romans for the MacArthur Study Bible – some of you have that (I was teased mercilessly at the time), and if you look at the Book of Romans in the MacArthur Study Bible, there's almost as many notes on the bottom of the page as there are scripture verses at the top. Now you understand that, now that you've been under my ministry for some time. But I got to edit the Book of Romans under the dictum "no good deed goes unpunished," because John had asked me to edit Revelation, and because there were some time deadlines and so forth, and so I did that, and I enjoyed doing that and really poured my life into it day and night. For a couple of months, Sheila didn't see me much during those couple of months, and I turned it in with some relief, and about a week later I came home, and I said honey, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is John liked what I did with Revelation – she said, what's the bad news? I said, he wants me to do Romans. So, it was a joy to me – later on, I got to lead a team that completed most of the New Testament, but one of the greatest and richest experiences of my life was editing the Book of Romans for the Study Bible.

When I went through this book – and you can see this clearly – when you come to Romans 1, beginning in verse 18 through the end of the chapter, Paul lays out his case against the immoral pagan person who simply lives to his own pleasure, lives to pursue his own agenda. But when you get to chapter 2, Paul here presents his case, not against the immoral pagan, but against the religious moralist – whether he's a Jew or a Gentile doesn't matter – the person who looks at himself as religious, who thinks they measure up, and when you come to chapter 2, Paul catalogs six principles of God's judgment. When God judges, how does He judge? Well, in verse 1 of chapter 2, Paul says He judges according to our knowledge, His judgment is based on our knowledge, and guess what? We don't have any excuse. In verses 2-3, he says God judges according to truth; verses 4-5, he says God judges according to our own personal guilt; the soul that sins, it shall die. In verses 6-10, we're told that we're judged by God according to our deeds; God looks at what we've done. And frighteningly, in verses 11-15, we're told that we'll be judged with impartiality – God doesn't respect a single person, in the sense that He's going to treat them with partiality. And then, in verse 16, we're judged with regard to our motives. It's frightening, really, to think about how God judges, but I want you to go back – with that in mind, go back to verse 5. Notice Paul says there is coming a "day of wrath," and that day will also reveal "the righteous judgment of God." Now, with that in mind, look at verse 6 – what is a right way to judge? Here it is: He "will render to each person according to his deeds, to those who, by perseverance in doing good, seek for glory and honor and immortality," He'll give "eternal life, but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but who obey unrighteousness," He'll give them "wrath and indignation." Now, again, remember – here, He's not saying that there are those who are righteous enough to inherit eternal life; the Bible everywhere teaches that man could never measure up to the standard of God. The righteous here are not those who are accepted because of their own righteousness; they are exhibiting practical righteousness because they have been declared righteous, as Paul will later explain in this book. You and I stand before God, not in our own righteousness, but in the righteousness of another. What I want you to see is that God distributes – and this is the point Paul is making here – to each person, according to his deeds. 1 Peter 1:17 – "If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth" – a pretty direct warning from the apostle.

So, God judges and He distributes to each person what they deserve – so with that in mind, when we think about God's distributive justice, we're talking about two expressions of it. The first is to express reward; to give reward. God rewards both men and angels, and the Bible stresses the reward of the righteous more than the punishment of the wicked – did you know that? Over and over again, the Bible stresses the reward of the righteous. Psalm 58:11 – "Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth." If there is a God, and if there is a God who judges, then there will be a reward for the righteous. Matthew 25:21, in the parable of the talents – "His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'" 2 Timothy 4:8 – "In the future," Paul says, "there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the … righteous Judge will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved His appearing." They're rewards! In Hebrews 11:26, we're told that Moses "considered the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt" – how? "For he was looking to the reward." Amazing – God saves us by His grace; He empowers us to live righteously and to serve Him, He gives us a place of service in which we can express our love to Him, and then He rewards us for everything He's done in us. You see, the giving of rewards to the righteous is an expression of God's love and grace – they're not given on the basis of strict merit; no creature can truly merit anything before God. We only merit rewards because God made a gracious promise to reward certain actions. You remember Luke 17:10, where Christ says, "When you do all the things which are commanded you, say 'We are unworthy slaves; we've only done the things which we ought to have done.'" 1 Corinthians 4:7 – "What do you have that you didn't receive?" So, when you and I are rewarded, we're not rewarded because we deserve it.

Let me give you an illustration that will, maybe, clear this up for you – let's suppose, for a moment, that I decided to tell my girls that I would give each of them ten dollars for cleaning their room, which, by the way, those of you know me know I would never do, because I'm cheaper than that. But suppose I told them I would give them ten dollars for cleaning their room – they work a half hour, cleaning and straightening, and I give them the money. Now, you tell me – did they earn ten dollars? No – by every standard, they didn't earn ten dollars; in fact, cleaning their rooms was really something that is their normal duty to do. The only reason they would receive the reward is because I had determined to give them ten dollars on the grounds that they cleaned the room. Now, that's the same sort of thing that God does with us – it's our duty to serve God. And when we have served Him, we could never really earn anything from His hand – we would have only done what was our duty to do. But God, as a pure expression of His grace, has chosen to reward us if we are faithful servants – that's why Revelation describes us as taking our rewards and our crowns and throwing them at Christ's feet; we didn't do anything to deserve them! But God rewards.

There's another aspect of God's distributive righteousness, and that is retributive – not only remunerative, in terms of reward, but retributive, in terms of punishment. God inflicts penalties – this is the expression of God's divine wrath. Listen carefully to this; this is crucial that you understand this – although man does not, cannot merit any reward he receives, he does merit whatever punishment he receives. God's retributive justice – that is, his punishing justice – is without passion, without selfish anger, it is not vindictive; it is simply an expression of the revulsion of God's nature toward evil. And when God acts in ultimate judgment, it is absolutely – and this is frightening – irreversible. It is irreversible. The Bible, again, speaks constantly of God's punishing of the wicked. Psalm 7:11 – "God is a righteous judge, and He is a God who has indignation (wrath) every day." Turn to the Book of Romans again – you're still there – Romans 2; look at verse 5 again. He says, "your stubbornness and unrepentant heart" are causing you to "store up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and the revelation (or the revealing) of God's righteous judgment." By refusing to respond to God's goodness and His kindness – when people do that, it's as if they're just stockpiling wrath; it's coming. Look at Romans 3:5 – "But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He?" "May it never be – for otherwise, how will God judge the world?" It's an expression of God's righteousness to judge sinners – in Romans 12:19, Paul writes, "never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written 'vengeance is mine, I will repay,' says the Lord." I want you to turn to 2 Thessalonians 1:5 – Paul says the "persecutions and afflictions" which you're enduring "is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment, so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. For after all, it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you." He says, listen, it's just for God, it's right for God, it's the way things ought to be for God to deal with those who are sinful; and particularly in this case, those were afflicting His own people – and notice how. Verse 7 – "when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, He will deal out retribution." There's our word to those who do not know God, and to those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus – these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power. Make no mistake – God's righteousness cuts both ways; He rewards the righteous and He will deal in wrath with the wicked.

So, what are the implications of the righteousness of God, that He is what is right, and that He does what is right, that He metes out to us what each of us deserves based on the standard of His own character? There are several, and I won't take equal time with each of these – but let me just run through them. First of all, the presence of and the necessity of an ultimate standard is one argument for the existence of God. If you want to read this in detail, read C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. He makes an argument from the basis of this sort of internal law of God, this ultimate standard for the existence of God – you can read about that on your own.

Secondly, God expects human government to reflect His righteousness – and again, I won't linger here, but read Romans 13. There, Paul says government exists to execute God's righteousness – to punish evildoers, and to reward those who do good. God expects the authorities that He's placed in the world – honestly, this would be true to some degree of parents as well, although we don't bear the sword, thankfully (the government does, speaking of execution), but authority is placed in the world to reflect God's righteousness – to reward righteous behavior, and to punish evil behavior.

Thirdly, judgment is coming – Hebrews 9:27 says, for "it is appointed unto man" – what? "Once, to die, and after this, the judgment." It's coming – judgment is coming; without exception, every being in the universe will stand before God and be measured against the standard. They'll be measured against the absolute moral perfection of God Himself.

God's righteousness, fourthly, demands wrath and punishment for His enemies – turn to Deuteronomy 32. When you understand God's righteousness, you understand why Moses writes this – notice verse 39. "See now that I, I am He, there is no God besides Me, it is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded, and it is I who heal" – God's taking full responsibility for the control of His world – "and there is no one who can deliver from My hand. Indeed, I lift up My hand to heaven and say, as I live forever" – do you understand what's going on here? God is swearing by His own eternality; God is saying, because of the reality that I live, if I live, then you can bet this is going to happen. "If I sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand takes hold on justice, I will render vengeance on My adversaries, and I will repay those who hate Me." The righteous character of God demands the punishment of his enemies. Tozer writes, "The vague and tenuous hope that God is too kind to punish the ungodly has become a deadly opiate for the consciences of millions. It hushes their fears and allows them to practice all pleasant forms of iniquity, while death draws every day nearer, and the command to repent goes unregarded. As responsible moral beings, we dare not so trifle with our eternal future." He's absolutely right. Pink notes that there are more references in scripture to God's anger and wrath than there are to His love and tenderness. This is our God – He is righteous, and because He is righteous, He responds to us based on our relationship to the ultimate, absolute standard of His own perfection. If you don't belong to Christ, this should move you, even where you sit, to cry out to God for forgiveness. And, as believers, we would think and meditate on this: we begin to understand how deeply God hates sin; it would motivate us to fear God, and it would cause us to praise God for what He's done for us, in Christ.

There's another implication – because of God's righteousness, we must not question His ways, even those that don't seem right or fair to us. There are a couple of different places this is expressed – turn to Job 40. "The Lord said to Job," – verse 1, speaking of Job here now – "will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?" Are you really going to find fault in Me, and in what I've done, God says? Are you going to cross swords with Me? "Let him who reproves God answer it." Are you trying to reprove Me, Job – are you trying to tell Me that My actions and My ways with you haven't been right, they haven't been according to My own standard of perfection? Job gets the point – you see his response there in verses 3-5, but the Lord's not done with Job. Notice verse 6 – how did the Lord respond to Job's questioning Him and His moral integrity? "The Lord answered Job out of the storm, and He said, 'Now girt up your loins like a man; I will ask you and you instruct Me. Will you really annul My judgment? Will you condemn Me, that you may be justified?" So how is God going to respond to being accused, in a sense, by Job of not doing what's right? It's a strange response, really – verse 9.

Do you have an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like His? Adorn yourself with eminence and dignity, and clothe yourself with honor and majesty. Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud, and make him low. Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him, and then tread down the wicked where they stand. Hide them in the dust together, bind them in the hidden place. Then I will also confess to you that your own right hand can save you.

What is God doing? He's saying to Job, I don't owe you an explanation that My actions are right. Instead, God appeals to His majesty and His power. God never needs to explain Himself, and it's wrong for us, just as it was wrong for Job, to question why He does what He does.

There's a very specific application of this if you struggle with the reality of eternal sovereign election. Turn to Romans 9 – we won't take time to do it tonight, but in Romans 9, this same thing comes up, and Paul says – after he says God loved whom He loved, and He hated whom He hated, based on nothing in those boys – he says, are you going to say that God is unfair? Don't you dare accuse God of being unfair! Listen, we may not be able to sort out all the intricacies of what God does, in our lives, in His providence, or in salvation, and in choosing some to Himself – at some point, we'll get to soteriology, we'll study that in detail – but far be it from us, whatever the scriptures teach, to question the character of God. He does what is right.

God's righteousness – the next implication is, God's righteousness was both vindicated and satisfied in the death of Christ. Read Romans 3:25-26; God says – Paul says there, in that verse, he said God publicly displayed Christ as a satisfaction of God's wrath, a propitiation for our sins, and in so doing, when He displayed Him on the cross, He demonstrated, or literally proved, His righteousness, that He can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ. The only way that God could let you and me – who will never measure up to His perfect standard and who in fact have violated His own character, by our choices to sin – the only way He could ever let us into heaven is by pouring out the punishment that His righteousness demands on someone else, and that was Jesus Christ, so that now God can be righteous and declare you righteous, because He punished Christ, and because He takes Christ's perfect life and He throws it up against the divine standard of His own absolute perfection, and He sees that it matches perfectly, and then He takes that perfection and puts it in your account. And now He says, Joe and Sue and Paul – Tom – you meet the standard in Christ. In the miracle of justification – and this is what I was just alluding to – God's righteousness is credited to the believing sinner as a gift of God's grace. Read Romans 3:21-24, listen to the tapes that we just went through on Philippians 3 – learn about justification. In justification, God's righteousness – that incredible perfection that is His and His alone – is credited to the believing sinner as a gift of grace. Unbelievable. Richard Baxter, the great Puritan pastor, put it this way – he said, "Desert is written over the gate of hell, but over the gate of heaven, only the gift of God."

A couple of more implications, then I'm done – true believers will reflect God's righteousness in their behavior. Turn for a moment to 1 John; let me just show you these references because this is so abused in our day. 1 John 2:29 – "If you know that God is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him." We begin to reflect the character of our heavenly Father – yes, He declares us righteous when we have none, and He declares us righteous always and forever, on the basis of the righteousness of another. I will never be righteous before God; I will never have a standing before God based on my own righteousness – it will always be on the righteousness of Christ, but because He has changed me, I will begin to show righteousness; I'll begin to practice righteousness. Chapter 3, verse 7 – same point: "Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous," whereas "the one who practices sin is of the devil" – again, this isn't talking about perfection, it's talking about direction. What's the direction of your life – is it toward righteousness?

A couple more. Be patient – justice will ultimately prevail. You know we sing that song at Christmas time, "the wrong will fail, the right prevail?" Well, it may never happen in this world by God's plan and purpose, but I can promise you this – it will happen. Read Psalm 73:17 – we saw it this morning; the Psalmist saw that their end of the wicked prosperous was coming. Psalm 96:13, Psalm 98:9 all drive home the reality: that ultimately every wrong will be set right and justice – pure justice – will be done. Be patient; it's coming.

Finally – and I love this – the day is coming when God will create a new heaven and a new earth in which perfect righteousness reigns. Turn to 2 Peter; we'll close with this. 2 Peter 3:13 – "According to His promise," Peter says, "we are looking for a new heavens and a new earth," and it will be one "in which righteousness dwells." That perfect standard that is God, what ought to be, will be, in the new heaven and the new earth – and what's amazing is, because of God's grace, in that new heaven and that new earth, you and I will be there, and we will be what we ought to be, and we will do what we ought to do – we will reflect the standard of God's righteousness. What amazing grace God has shown us to be so righteous, and at the same time, so merciful. Let's pray together.

Father, we are overwhelmed with the demonstration of Your righteousness. Lord, to think that You are inherently morally excellent, that You are everything that ought to be, and then we look at ourselves, Father, and we can only turn our faces away in shame, because we are everything, apart from Your grace, that we ought not to be. Lord, thank You for Your grace, thank You that You have given us Your righteousness as a gift; the very righteousness of Your son is absolute perfection credited to our account, so that we who are sinful, You now see as righteous. Lord, don't let us ever take this gift for granted, because while it's free to us, You paid for it a tremendous cost, in the person of Your own son. Lord, help us to hate our sin, help us to pursue righteousness.

We pray in Jesus' name – Amen.