Dear Editors—The question, Is it the life or death of the Lord Jesus that constitutes the believer’s righteousness before God? can be quickly answered, if we remember that “righteousness” and “justification” are the same word in the original, used in different forms. Justification is equivalent to judicial righteousness as distinguished from practical righteousness. The word “righteousness” is the same throughout, with one exception (Heb. 1:8), but the context settles how it is used without any difficulty. Imputed righteousness—the result of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus—is judicial; that which in the believer is the fruit of the light is practical.
Now for the question. Romans 4:23-25 is plain, and is surely sufficient to settle the point. In this passage the equivalent values of “righteousness” and “justification” are clear, even in our English translation.
“Now it was not written for his (Abraham’s) sake alone, that it [righteousness] was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”
Two points are abundantly plain:
(1) The believer’s faith is to be in God, as the One who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, thus emphasizing that it is only through death that the believer can be in righteousness before God. Nothing is said here about the life of our Lord. Surpassing in beauty, incomparable in holiness, perfect in detail, it was surely full and absolute delight to God. But that life is NOT the source of the believer’s righteousness. The perfection of that life was all carried into death, and in death alone blessing for the believer was effected.
(2) Christ was raised again for the believer’s righteousness before God, or justification, again affirming the fact that it is only through death and resurrection the believer’s blessings flow.
One plain text, then, clearly answers the question, and every other text bearing on the point only confirms this.
But it may be urged that Romans 5:19 seems to point to a different conclusion:
“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous.”
But this in no wise contradicts, but confirms, Romans 4:23-25.
The latter half of Romans 5 contrasts the headships of Adam and Christ—the former by his disobedience bringing in death upon life, the latter by His obedience bringing in life through death—the one, involving the race in ruin, the other, blessing all in connection with Him.
But Headship in Christ can only be taken up in resurrection. Our Lord’s own word is plain as to this:
“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides ALONE: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit” (John 12:24).
This clearly proves that the obedience of Romans 5:19 is as Philippians 2:8 puts it, though in a different connection, Christ’s obedience in death:
“He humbled Himself; and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.”
And further, Hebrews 10:8-9 contrasts “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God,” with “Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin,” in which God had no pleasure, evidently linking up God’s will in this connection with the death of Christ, and not His life, though in life it was His meat to do God’s will.
And as to “the obedience of One” (Rom. 5:19), notice that five verses lower down baptism is introduced. Are believers baptized to Christ’s life or to His death? The latter surely.
Finally, all Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, bears out this thought. For instance, how was the guilty condition of Adam and Eve met after the fall? They were clothed in coats of skin. The life of the animals never furnished these, though without their life they could not have been, but their DEATH did. God justifies the ungodly, and “the righteousness of God is to all and UPON all them that believe,” even as the coats of skin were upon Adam and Eve. So we could run throughout Scripture, but space forbids.