The Righteousness of God

The righteousness of God is the perfection by which he always acts in conformity with his own holy nature and law. In Scripture, this righteousness appears in two closely related ways: God's own justice as the judge of all the earth, and the righteousness he provides for guilty sinners in the gospel. The classic Reformed and Puritan authors treated this doctrine as central because it answers the deepest question of salvation: how can a just God accept the ungodly without becoming unjust? Their answer, drawn especially from Romans, is that God remains righteous in himself, judges with perfect equity, and justifies believers through a righteousness from God received by faith alone.

God's justice in judgment

Several authors emphasize that God's righteousness means his judgments are always true and impartial. Matthew Henry writes that God's judgment is always according to truth, based on the heart and works, not outward appearance or favoritism (Romans 2:2). He adds that God will judge every person according to their deeds, showing impartial justice to all (Romans 2:6). This means no one can claim that God is unfair in his verdicts.

Henry also notes that God's righteous judgment is now often hidden by the prosperity of sinners, but it will be openly revealed before all the world (Romans 2:5). The present appearance of injustice does not overturn the certainty of final justice. Charles Spurgeon makes the same point with a future orientation: God will be shown to be just when he judges and condemns the ungodly at the last day (Romans 3:4).

Spurgeon goes further by saying that even if men presume to judge God, the verdict would still be in God's favor, proving he has said nothing untrue or done anything unjust (Romans 3:4). Human criticism cannot overturn divine righteousness. Henry agrees: when people presume to quarrel with God's proceedings, the verdict will always go on God's side, for the Lord is righteous in all his ways (Romans 3:4).

This confidence rests on the fact that God is the judge of the world. Henry argues that if God were not infinitely just and righteous, he would be unfit to judge the world, so his role as judge silences all doubts about his justice (Romans 3:6). He adds that the fact that God judges the world should forever silence our doubts about and objections to his justice and equity (Romans 3:6). Spurgeon also insists that however faithless men may be, God remains true and faithful, and his sayings are justified and vindicated (Romans 3:4). Human unbelief cannot make God's faithfulness ineffective; God remains true even if every man is a liar (Romans 3:3–4).

The righteousness God provides

The gospel does not merely announce that God is just. It reveals a righteousness from God that sinners may receive. Henry explains that the gospel reveals the righteousness of God, which is received by faith (Romans 1:17). He adds that the gospel reveals a righteousness from God by which guilty sinners can be justified and accepted before him (Romans 1:17). This is not a righteousness that sinners produce, but one that God appoints and accepts.

Henry is explicit about the source of this righteousness: it is called the righteousness of God because God appoints and accepts it, and it is the righteousness of Christ, not of our own works (Romans 1:17). Spurgeon states the same truth in terms of faith: there is a righteousness from God that comes by faith in Jesus Christ, not by doing, and it is freely bestowed upon all who believe (Romans 3:21–22). Faith appropriates the righteousness of God to the believer, and this is the only way of salvation for anyone (Romans 3:22).

Henry also explains why this righteousness is necessary. Since the law cannot justify, God has provided another way of righteousness—a righteousness from God himself, apart from the law, now revealed in the gospel (Romans 3:21–22). The law cannot save, not because the law is defective, but because sinners cannot keep it perfectly. Therefore God provides what the law could not produce in us.

Christ's obedience as the ground of justification

Jonathan Edwards gives the most sustained argument that the righteousness by which believers are justified is Christ's obedience, not merely his suffering. He begins with a principle: righteousness is conformity to the law, so only perfect obedience answers the law and qualifies as righteousness in God's sight. This means that any righteousness sufficient for justification must be perfect conformity to God's commands.

Edwards then argues from Romans 5:18–19 that Scripture teaches justification by Christ's righteousness and obedience in very full and explicit terms. He insists that the righteousness by which we are justified consists in Christ's obedience, his moral goodness before God, not merely his suffering the penalty (Romans 5:18–19). The righteousness opposite to sin is moral goodness, and the obedience opposite to disobedience is actual positive compliance with God's command (Romans 5:18–19). In other words, Christ not only bore the penalty for sin but also rendered the positive obedience the law required.

Edwards also addresses the nature of faith in relation to this righteousness. He argues that a sentence of justification would be false unless the judge properly regards a righteousness as belonging to the person justified. Justification is not a legal fiction. God does not declare someone righteous without a righteousness actually belonging to that person. In the gospel, that righteousness is Christ's obedience, received by faith.

Edwards adds that true faith includes a heartfelt submission to the justice of God's threatened punishment, not merely a conviction of deserving it. Faith does not merely acknowledge that we deserve judgment; it submits to the rightness of that judgment. This submission is part of what it means to receive the righteousness of God rather than establishing our own.

Just and justifier through propitiation

The central problem is stated clearly by Spurgeon: God could not simply clear the guilty, so a vicarious substitute was needed for God to remain just while justifying the ungodly (Romans 5:8). If God simply forgave sin without any satisfaction, his justice would be compromised. The cross answers this problem.

Spurgeon returns to this theme repeatedly. God set forth Christ as a propitiation through faith in His blood so that God might be just and still justify the one who believes in Jesus (Romans 3:25–26). He states the same truth elsewhere: God set forth Christ as a propitiation through faith in His blood so that God could be both just and the justifier of those who believe in Jesus (Romans 3:25–26). The blood of Christ, not human faith or works, is the divinely appointed ground of safety from judgment (Romans 5:1).

Henry explains how the propitiation declares God's righteousness. God's righteousness is declared in the propitiation itself, because the death of Christ demonstrates God's hatred of sin and His justice in not sparing His own Son when sin was imputed to Him (Romans 3:25–26). The cross shows that God does not treat sin lightly. When sin was imputed to Christ, God's justice fell on his own Son.

Henry then draws out the consequence for pardon. God is just in pardoning penitent believers because He has accepted the satisfaction Christ made to His justice, so that pardon is now not only an act of grace and mercy but also an act of righteousness (Romans 3:26). Pardon is not merely God relaxing his standards. It is God acting righteously because the debt has been paid.

Henry uses a financial illustration to make the point vivid. It would be unjust for God to demand the debt from the principal when the surety has paid it and God has accepted that payment in full satisfaction (Romans 3:26). Once the surety has paid and the payment is accepted, justice requires the release of the debtor. In the same way, Christ's satisfaction means God would be unjust to demand payment again from believers.

Spurgeon adds a pastoral note about the result. God's justice and holiness, which once seemed to oppose grace, now guard and protect the throne of grace (Romans 5:21). The very attributes that once threatened sinners now secure their access to grace, because those attributes have been satisfied in Christ.

Rejecting self-righteousness

The authors agree that the righteousness of God must be received, not achieved. Edwards states the point sharply: those who try to establish their own righteousness by works have not submitted to the righteousness of God (Romans 10:3). He repeats the same point elsewhere: those who try to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the righteousness of God (Romans 10:3).

Edwards explains what this self-righteousness involves. Attempting to set up our own obedience instead of Christ's righteousness is rebellion against God's authority and undervalues his wisdom and grace. It is not merely a mistake; it is an act of rebellion because it refuses the righteousness God has provided and insists on presenting our own.

Henry agrees, especially in relation to unbelief. Unbelief is a refusal to submit to God's righteousness, rejecting the gospel offer of justification by faith in Christ (Romans 10:3). He adds that the Jews' unbelief came partly from ignorance of God's strict justice and of the righteousness God has now revealed through Jesus Christ (Romans 10:3). They did not understand how strict God's justice is, so they thought their own works could satisfy it. They also did not know the righteousness God had revealed in Christ.

Edwards makes a further distinction about the relationship between the righteousness of faith and the righteousness of the law. Paul intends the righteousness of faith to speak in an opposite manner to the righteousness of the law, not merely to exchange one set of works for another (Galatians 3:12). Faith is not a new work that replaces old works. It is a different way of receiving righteousness altogether.

Final judgment and present submission

The authors also address the relationship between justification by faith and the final judgment. Edwards explains that at the final judgment God will judge by works as evidence, not because he needs to learn the truth but to declare and manifest what is right (Romans 2:5). Works do not provide the ground of justification, but they serve as evidence that justification has occurred.

Henry addresses a common objection to God's righteousness. Carnal hearts may object that if human sin serves to commend God's righteousness, then God would be unjust to punish that sin (Romans 3:5). If sin gives God an opportunity to display his righteousness, why should he punish it? Henry answers that suggestions that reflect dishonor upon God's justice and holiness should be rejected outright rather than entertained (Romans 3:6). The objection itself is impious and should not be given serious consideration.

Henry also applies the doctrine of God's righteousness to the believer's conduct. Christians must not avenge themselves because vengeance belongs to God as the sovereign King and righteous Judge who weighs actions in unerring balances (Romans 12:19). Because God is the righteous judge, believers can leave vengeance to him rather than taking it into their own hands.

Henry addresses another potential objection: the thought that God could be unrighteous in choosing some and refusing others must be rejected outright (Romans 9:14). Election does not compromise God's righteousness. He adds that when God cuts the work short, he does so in righteousness, wisdom, and justice, unlike men who do amiss when they cut short (Romans 9:28). God's sovereign decisions are always righteous, even when they involve shortening a work.

He had declared on Sinai that he would by no means clear the guilty; but inasmuch as he desired to pardon the offending, it was necessary that some one else should bear the sufferings which the guilty ought to have endured, that so by the vicarious substitution of another, God might be “just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly Charles Spurgeon, sermon “Love's Commendation” Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness: that He might be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus Charles Spurgeon, sermon “The Two Pillars Of Salvation” So that if a person should be justified without a righteousness, the judgment would not be according to truth. The sentence of justification would be a false sentence, unless there be a righteousness performed that is by the judge properly looked upon as his Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone” The words show that we are justified by that righteousness of Christ which consists in his obedience, and that we are made righteous or justified by that obedience of his, that is, his righteousness, or moral goodness before God Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone” Never was there such a demonstration of the justice and holiness of God as there was in the death of Christ. It appears that he hates sin, when nothing less than the blood of Christ would satisfy for it. Finding sin, though but imputed, upon his own Son, he did not spare him, because he had made himself sin for us Matthew Henry, “Exposition of the Old and New Testaments” That he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth. Mercy and truth are so met together, righteousness and peace have so kissed each other, that it is now become not only an act of grace and mercy, but an act of righteousness, in God, to pardon the sins of penitent believers, having accepted the satisfaction that Christ by dying made to his justice for them Matthew Henry, “Exposition of the Old and New Testaments” It would not comport with his justice to demand the debt of the principal when the surety has paid it and he has accepted that payment in full satisfaction Matthew Henry, “Exposition of the Old and New Testaments” 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 Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone” An endeavour to set up our own obedience instead of the righteousness of Christ, is rebellion against the authority of God, and undervaluing his wisdom and grace. None deserve condemnation more than those who reject the only remedy Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone” God will judge men according to their works: for though God will stand in no need of evidence to inform him what is right, yet it is to be considered, that he will then sit in judgment, not as earthly judges do, to find out what is right in a cause, but to declare and manifest what is right Jonathan Edwards, “Justification by Faith Alone”