“How can a man be righteous before God?” (Job 9:2). In my opinion, this is one of the most important questions that needs to be answered. When you stand before God, and if He were to ask you, “Why should I receive you into my heaven?”, what would you say? In our heart of hearts, we know that a god of some kind exists. All around us we see the evidence of an intelligent being who is the architect of all we see. Instinctively, we also know that this being is much more powerful than we are. The Bible tells us that it is appointed for us to die once and then face judgment. The fear of death and what comes next is universal. We also know that whatever this god’s standards are, we don’t measure up. What will happen to us when we face the judge of the universe? All of this is why Job asked, “How can a man be righteous before God?” The Bible actually gives us the answer to this question.
The Bible describes God as being perfectly good, righteous, and just. That has implications we are not comfortable with. I think most of us really hope that God is like a grandpa. Grandpas won’t let kids get away with terribly naughty behavior but will, if necessary, apply some moderate sanctions to keep their grandchildren from getting hurt or damaging the furniture. But, for most things, they will overlook behavior that is wrong but basically normal childhood character showing itself. We want a god like that – a god that will punish people like Hitler or Stalin but let us off the hook when it comes to the everyday sins normal good people commit. The problem is that that god doesn’t exist.
The real God loves us more than grandpa does, but He is also a perfectly just judge who must make judgments from the bench that are perfectly consistent with His character and laws. We are not used to that. There is leniency in almost every area of life where rulings are made. As students we often receive opportunities to retake a test or have a tardy ignored. Police sometimes just give us a warning instead of a ticket. Even though I’m not a sports enthusiast, I’ve noticed that rulings on the court or field are generally pretty strict and the rules held to fairly consistently. But in many areas of life there is leniency. Yet even in this kind of culture, what would our reaction be if a judge releases a serial killer or even a serial thief saying something like, “I really care about this guy’s needs, and he seems remorseful, so even though he has committed this crime 20 times, I’m going to let him off this time too”? There would certainly be outrage. We expect our judges to be just and not ignore crime. Yet, at the same time, we expect God to give us a pass and ignore our countless infractions of His law.
God is just. That is what is so scary about facing Him at the judgment. The Bible says, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). It is this knowledge that caused Job to ask the question, “How can a man be righteous before God?” Trying to keep the law won’t work because we are unable to keep it. God says that if a person keeps the whole law and yet breaks it in one point, he is guilty of all of it (James 2:10). With that kind of standard, who is going to be able to stand? In fact, the writer of Psalm 130 asks this very question, “If you Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” (Psalm 130:3).
God has designed an amazing answer to this question and solution to His “dilemma.” (God doesn’t really have a dilemma, but in our minds his dilemma appears to be how to forgive people he loves while at the same time maintaining justice and His own righteous character.)
What He has done is to come here to earth Himself in the second person of the trinity. He took on actual human flesh and lived here among us as the God-man, Jesus (John 1). Having lived a life without sin, perfectly keeping the law and loving God and neighbor as the law commanded, He was mocked, tortured, and killed. God has said that the punishment for sin is death – physical death and separation from God. Jesus endured those consequences of sin, even though He had never committed a single sin in His life.
God has promised to count Jesus’ death as the death penalty that we deserved. The Bible says in Ezekiel 18:20 that the soul that sins must die. But God is willing to count Jesus’ death as my death and as your death. He is willing to say that when Jesus died, you died. The death penalty has been carried out. Because of the curse on our physical bodies, we will still die physically. It’s spiritual death we’re focusing on here. Spiritual death involves being separated from God and sent to Hell to be punished forever. It is, indeed, a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. God is promising to count Jesus’ death on the cross as the eternal spiritual death that you and I deserve. Even more amazingly, God declares that He will credit you and me with Jesus’ perfect record. In other words, when God would look at our record, He would find that we had obeyed every law and every standard perfectly. Those with a perfect record are welcomed into heaven.
The Bible says, “He made Him (Jesus) to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18).
“Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).
But who is this for? Who gets credited with Jesus’ perfect obedience, and for whose sins did Jesus get blamed and executed? The answer is simple: For those who believe. We’re not talking about believing in God. We’re talking about believing the facts He has given us and believing and accepting that the offer He is making is true.
God has given us this promise in what is called the Gospel, the Good News. He is making this offer of complete forgiveness of all sins, past, present, and future. With that comes the offer to credit us with Jesus’ righteousness. It is a gift. You can’t work for or earn a gift. If you work for it, it is no longer a gift. Paul says it this way, “And if by grace (a free unearned gift), then it is no longer of works; otherwise, grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise, work is no longer work” (Romans 11:6).
Believing is the key, It’s not saying that we believe, but actual believing. “But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness” (Romans 4:5).
“If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).
“Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
“He who believes in the Son (Jesus) has (present tense) everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:31).
Jesus, Himself, said, “Repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). To repent means to change your mind about who Jesus is and about what it takes to be accepted by Him. You realize that all of the good deeds in the world, all of the church-going, all of the money-giving, none of that is going to earn you a place with God. You can’t do any of it with pure motives or to the level that would be needed to earn your way in.
It’s believing. It’s not having faith in faith or a generic I-believe-in-God faith. But it is believing the testimony that God has given concerning His son (1 John 5:10). If you repent, and accept Jesus’ testimony that He is the son of God, and you believe that His death satisfied God’s death requirement for you a sinner, then God promises that all of your sins have been removed and paid for by Jesus, and you are declared righteous and will go to heaven when you die. The judgment for you has already been administered against Jesus on the cross.
That is the answer to Job’s question as to how a man can be righteous before God. He can be righteous by repenting of his former rebellious life and accepting God’s free gift by faith.
“But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed…, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a [substitute sacrifice] by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate … at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:21-26).
There you have it. God can be just and still declare us righteous because of what Jesus Christ has done for us on the cross.