Satisfaction via Righteousness

I am nothing. I am guilty before God. I can do nothing to rectify my estrangement from God, which humbles me and causes me to lament in my pathetic state of unrighteousness. I am helpless and hopeless (Eph 2:12); for apart from Christ, I can do nothing (Jn 15:5). Only when I come to the end of myself, my pride and pretenses, do I then look to another for right standing before God.

It is Jesus Christ, the righteous, who reconciles me to God (Rom 5:9–10; 1 Jn 2:1). He has secured right standing by His perfect, meritorious works in life and death (Mt 5:17; Heb 1:3; 8:1). No one else in human history has earned his or her place in the presence of Almighty God. For the Christian, right standing before God is a reality because it has been imputed to each one born again of God (1 Cor 1:30; 1 Pet 1:3). The saint does not earn his place in the kingdom of righteousness; rather he is transferred into it by God’s grace (Col 1:13). At the same time, the entire debt of sin is cancelled for the adopted child of God (Col 2:14; Rom 8:15, 23; Eph 1:4–5), who is fully forgiven (Mt 26:28; Eph 1:7).

The perfect God-man fulfilled the Law unto righteousness (Mt 5:17); then He went to the cross in order to redeem His people (Gal 4:5; Titus 2:14; 1 Pet 1:18–19). Jesus purchased His church with His precious blood shed on the cross (Acts 20:28). He bore our sins in His body (1 Pet 2:24), as God executed His just wrath upon Jesus as our substitute (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17; 1 Jn 2:2; 4:10). Christ died for our sins (1 Cor 15:3); and by His wounds we are healed (Is 53:5; 1 Pet 2:24).

There is a restlessness in sinners because they know the judgment day is coming (Jn 5:28–29; 2 Cor 5:10; 2 Tim 4:1; 1 Pet 4:5; Rev 19:11–21). Sensing their works do not satisfy God; they themselves strive to reach the state of satisfaction by endless efforts to appease God, who is angry with the wicked all day, everyday (Ps 7:11). Works-based religion fails to ever appease God; and, at the same time, it fails to ever satisfy sinners.

There is a man who is blessed in this matter, however. He vehemently longs to be right with God. It becomes his magnificent obsession. He craves being right with God more than anything. He wants to be at peace with God; and he is not disappointed in the one way that truly satisfies his spiritual starving. Simply stated, Jesus satisfies.

God teaches us this spiritual principle by the physical body’s hunger and thirsting. He then gives us food and water to satisfy the craving. The soul starves in the same way and nothing but Christ satisfies.

Sinners by-pass the quest for righteousness. They still want satisfaction because of the soul’s craving. Pursuing satisfaction, alternatively to pursuing righteousness, is an error. Satisfaction is never attained when it is the end apart from righteousness. The enmity with God looms too large. The false prophets and false teachers are ever promising satisfaction apart from Christ and His righteousness; but there is no peace with God apart from Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

Peace with God is priceless; especially since that peace is permanent. Righteousness with God is the essence of one’s salvation. Fallen humanity has now had thousands of years to learn that no one and nothing can bring satisfaction. People have tried food; travel; luxury goods; sex; money; entertainment; work; play; religion; education; etc. Simply put, none of it works.

What does work is contentment in Christ alone. He is our Sabbath rest. When one enters His kingdom by God’s grace, he or she — as an object of God’s love — moves from the status of unrighteousness to one who is declared righteous. One who is declared righteous is said to be justified.

There are three movements when God justifies one of His elect. First, at the cross, Jesus justified His people by His blood (Rom 5:9). His was the sacrifice that atoned for the sins of His beloved from all over the world and throughout history (Mt 1:21; Jn 1:11, 15; Rev 5:9; 7:9). Christians are declared not guilty because Jesus’ blood is applied to them via the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Second, the Bible tells us that the saints of God are justified by His grace (Rom 3:24; Titus 3:7). Grace is the work of God on behalf of His chosen ones that benefits them in the way of salvation. The redeemed of the Lord are saved by grace with great emphasis placed on the fact that is not of themselves, that is, a good or righteous work of oneself. Rather, salvation is a work of God that becomes a gift of God to whomever He chooses to receive it, according to His will, not the free will of man (Jn 1:12–13; Rom 11:5; Eph 2:8–9).

Jesus is our Savior, our Lord, and our God (Titus 1:4; 2:13). A believer in Jesus knows that he or she is forgiven because of the gift of faith granted by God via the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38; 10:45; Gal 3:22; Phil 1:29; 2 Pet 1:1), sent to each elect, redeemed, regenerated soul who is made to know they are forgiven of all their sins (Eph 1:7).

Jesus Christ is the Lord, our righteousness (Jer 23:6). We who are “in Him” are positioned there by His doing (1 Cor 1:30). First, God made us hungry for Jesus, thirsty for Jesus, and then He satisfied us with Jesus (Ps 34:8; Is 55:1; Jn 4:13–14, 6:53–56). Prior to that filling-unto-satisfaction, we discovered over and over that nothing else, no one else, could satisfy the deepest longing of our souls.

Today, if you hear His voice, then turn from the empty promises of the world and come to Him who alone gives rest to the weary, the heavy-laden, and to all who hunger and thirst for what He alone can give…righteousness.

David Norczyk

Spokane Valley, Washington

June 7, 2024

Matthew 5:6