Someone recently ask me what my favorite verse or scripture was. All of God's Word is a blessing to my heart and profitable to my soul but there is a portion of scripture that seems to be a special blessing to me.
It is verses 5-8 of Romans 4: "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto who God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, "Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin."
Now I know that the Righteous and Just God requires perfect righteousness. Anything short of perfect righteousness. He cannot accept. I know that I am unrighteousness as are all men according to the Apostle Paul. "As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one." (Rom. 3:10) All my righteousness are as filthy rags before God. My best works are sin in His sight because they are performed by a sinner.
Such a situation exists between God and men. God requiring righteousness. I guess this is why these verses in Romans 4 mean so much to me and to every true believer.
David and Paul both speak of "righteousness without works!" A righteousness was obtained by my works, a righteousness that cannot be defiled by my works, a righteousness that is according to the works of another. This is the good news of the gospel of God's grace in Christ. God imputes (charges, accounts, credits) to His people the very righteousness of Christ. That righteousness extablished by His works as a Man on the earth is obedience to the law of God. God does not impute the believer's sin to him but imputed them to the Lord Jesus Christ and He fully and finally paid the debt due them before God's justice on the cross. It required His death and blood.
It is natural for us as blind sinners to seek to establish a righteousness before God by our works. As Paul said of Israel, "For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. 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. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." (Rom. 10:2-4).
Those who seek to "go about" and establish in any measure a righteousness before God according to their works, reveal their ignorance of the righteousness God demands and of the One He gives. Christ is the Righteousness of God, the righteousness God will accept, He is the Lord of our Righteousness. I can never be righteous before God in any way apart from Jesus Christ. I am not saved by my works by His works!
And definitely, I am not saved by His works and my works. By God-given faith every true believer possesses a "righteousness without works." God in grace views me clothed in the righteousness of His son and receives and rewards me as His son. As surely as Christ met the penalty of God's law and justice when God held Him accountable for the sins of His people, so shall they all be held accountable before God for Christ's righteousness.
Every believer is rewarded and received by God based on that righteousness which is by faith in Christ…that "righteousness without works." That is good news to all but those who are "going about to establish their own righteousness" and "have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." With the heart man believes unto righteousness!