MAN by the fall sustained an infinite loss in the matter of righteousness. He suffered the loss of a righteous nature, and then a two-fold loss of legal righteousness in the sight of God. Man sinned; he was therefore no longer innocent of transgression. Man did not keep the command; he therefore was guilty of the sin of omission. In that which he committed, and in that which he omitted, his original character for uprightness was completely wrecked. Jesus Christ came to undo the mischief of the fall for His people. So far as their sin concerned their breach of the command, that He has removed by His precious blood. His agony and bloody sweat have for ever taken away the consequences of sin from believers, seeing Christ did by His one sacrifice bear the penalty of that sin in His flesh. He, His own self, bare our sins in His own body on the tree. Still it is not enough for a man to be pardoned. He, of course, is then in the eye of God without sin. But it was required of man that he should actually keep the command. It was not enough that he did not break it, or that he is regarded through the blood as though he did not break it. He must keep it, he must continue in all things that are written in the book of the Law to do them. How is this necessity supplied? Man must have a righteousness, or God cannot accept him. Man must have a perfect obedience, or else God cannot reward him. Should He give heaven to a soul that has not perfectly kept the Law; that were to give the reward where the service is not done, and that before God would be an act which might impeach His justice. Where, then, is the righteousness with which the pardoned man shall be completely covered, so that God can regard him as having kept the Law, and reward him for so doing? Surely, my brethren, none of you are so besotted[1] as to think that this righteousness can be wrought out by yourselves.

Christ in His life was so righteous, that we may say of the life taken as a whole, that it is righteousness itself. Christ is the Law incarnate. Understand me. He lived out the Law of God to the very full, and while you see God's precepts written in fire on Sinai's brow, you see them written in flesh in the person of Christ. He never offended against the commands of the Just One. From His eye there never flashed the fire of unhallowed[2] anger. On His lip there did never hang the unjust or licentious word. His heart was never stirred by the breath of sin or the taint of iniquity. In the secret of His reins[3] no fault was hidden. In His understanding was no defect; in His judgment no error. In His miracles there was no ostentation.[4] In Him there was indeed no guile. His powers being ruled by His understanding, all of them acted and coacted to perfection's very self, so that never was there any flaw of omission or stain of commission. The Law consists in this first: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart" (Deu 6:5; Mat 22:37; Mar 12:30; Luk 10:27). He did so. It was His meat and His drink to do the will of Him that sent Him. Never man spent Himself as He did. Hunger and thirst and nakedness were nothing to Him, nor death itself, if He might so be baptized with the baptism wherewith He must be baptized and drink the cup which His Father had set before Him (Mat 20:22, 23; 26:42; Joh 18:11).

The Law consists also in this: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Lev 19:18; Mat 22:39; Mar 12:31). In all He did and in all He suffered He more than fulfilled the precept, for "he saved others; himself he [could not] save" (Mat 27:42). He exhausted the utmost resources of love in the deep devotion and self-sacrifice of loving. He loved man better than His own life. He would sooner be spit upon than that man should be cast into the flames of hell and sooner yield up the ghost in agonies that cannot be described than that the souls His Father gave Him should be cast away. He carried out the Law, then I say to the very letter He spelled out its mystic syllables, and verily He magnified it and made it honorable. He loved the Lord His God with all His heart, and soul, and mind, and He loved His neighbors as Himself.

The day is coming when men shall acknowledge Him to be Jehovah, and when looking upon all His life while He was incarnate here, they shall be compelled to say that His life was righteousness itself. The pith,[5] however, of the title lies in the little word our —"Jehovah our righteousness." This is the grappling iron with which we get a hold on Him—this is the anchor which dives into the bottom of this great deep of His immaculate righteousness. This is the sacred rivet by which our souls are joined to Him. This is the blessed hand with which our soul toucheth Him, and He becometh to us all in all: "Jehovah our Righteousness."

You will now observe that there is a most precious doctrine unfolded in this title of our Lord and Savior. I think we may take it thus: When we believe in Christ, by faith we receive our justification. As the merit of His blood takes away our sin, so the merit of His obedience is imputed to us for righteousness. We are considered, as soon as we believe, as though the works of Christ were our works. God looks upon us as though that perfect obedience, of which I have just now spoken, had been performed by ourselves. God considers us as though we were Christ—looks upon us as though His life had been our life—and accepts, blesses, and rewards us as though all that He did had been done by us, His believing people.

I know that Socinus[6] in his day used to call this an execrable,[7] detestable, and licentious doctrine: probably it was because he was an execrable, detestable, and licentious man. Many men use their own names when they are applying names to other persons; they are so well acquainted with their own characters, and so suspicious of themselves, that they think it best before another can express the suspicion to attach the very same accusation to someone else. Now we hold, you know, that this doctrine is not execrable, but most delightful; that it is not abominable, but Godlike; that it is not licentious, but holy.

Imputation, so far from being an exceptional case with regard to the righteousness of Christ, lies at the very bottom of the entire teaching of Scripture. How did we fall, my brethren? We fell by the imputation of Adam's sin to us. Adam was our federal head: he represented us. And when he sinned, we sinned representatively in him; and what he did was imputed to us. You say that you never agreed to the imputation. Nay, but I would not have you say thus, for as by representation we fell, it is by the representative system that we rise. The angels fell personally and individually, and they never rise. But we fell in another, and we have therefore the power given by divine grace to rise in another. The root of the fall is found in the federal relationship of Adam to his seed; thus we fell by imputation. Is it any wonder that we should rise by imputation? Deny this doctrine, and I ask you—How are men pardoned at all? Are they not pardoned because satisfaction has been offered for sin by Christ? Very well then, but that satisfaction must be imputed to them or else how is God just in giving to them the results of the death of another unless that death of the other be first of all imputed to them?

When we say that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to all believing souls, we do not hold forth an exceptional theory, but we expound a grand truth, which is so consistent with the theory of the fall and the plan of pardon, that it must be maintained in order to make the gospel clear . . . I must give up justification by faith, if I give up imputed righteousness. True justification by faith is the surface soil, but then imputed righteousness is the granite rock which lies underneath it. And if you dig down through the great truth of a sinner's being justified by faith in Christ, you must, as I believe, inevitably come to the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ as the basis and foundation on which that simple doctrine rests.

And now let us stop a moment and think over this whole title—"The Lord our righteousness." Brethren, the Law-giver has Himself obeyed the Law. Do you not think that His obedience will be sufficient? Jehovah has Himself become man that so He may do man's work: think you that He has done it imperfectly? Jehovah—He Who girds the angels that excel in strength—has taken upon Him the form of a servant that He may become obedient: think you that His service will be incomplete? Let the fact that the Savior is Jehovah strengthen your confidence. Be ye bold. Be ye very courageous. Face heaven, and earth, and hell with the challenge of the Apostle. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Look back upon your past sins, look upon your present infirmities, and all your future errors, and while you weep the tears of repentance, let no fear of damnation blanch[8] your cheek. You stand before God today robed in your Savior's garments, "with his spotless vestments on, holy as the Holy One." Not Adam when he walked in Eden's bowers[9] was more accepted than you are—not more pleasing to the eye of the all-judging, the sin-hating God than you are if clothed in Jesus' righteousness and sprinkled with His blood. You have a better righteousness than Adam had. He had a human righteousness; your garments are divine. He had a robe complete, it is true; but the earth had woven it. You have a garment as complete, but heaven has made it for you to wear. Go up and down in the strength of this great truth and boast exceedingly, and glory in your God. And let this be on the top and summit of your heart and soul: "Jehovah, the Lord our righteousness."

From a sermon delivered on Sunday morning, June 2, 1861, at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington. The complete sermon is available as a small booklet from Chapel Library.

Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892): Influential Baptist minister in England. History's most widely read preacher (apart from those found in Scripture). Today, there is available more material written by Spurgeon than by any other Christian author, living or dead. Born at Kelvedon, Essex.

1 besotted — intellectually stupefied, as with liquor; foolish.
2 unhallowed — unholy; wicked.
3 reins — the seat of the feelings or affections.
4 ostentation — pretentious display meant to impress others.
5 pith — the central or inward part, hence the vital or essential part of anything.
6 Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) — anti-Trinitarian theologian; taught that Christ became deity only after the resurrection and that Christ's death did not bring forgiveness of sins. Born in Siena, Italy.
7 execrable — calling forth expressions of extreme disgust; bad beyond description.
8 blanch — to cause to turn white or become pale.
9 bowers — a shelter or covered place in a garden made with boughs of trees bent and twined together.