Our Righteousness
Via The Righteousness of Faith according to Luther
Luther tried to describe what happened to him. It became clear to him that this foreign righteousness was also and at the same time our righteousness, and that it did not stand outside of us, but rather in us, since God is who He is not only for Himself, but also for us. Whoever believes that God is justified in Christ must also learn to believe that he himself is justified. The righteousness of God that is revealed in Christ includes us, because it is not a righteousness that condemns, but a righteousness that creates. Because of Christ, no one can say: “God is righteous and I am not,” or, “God is holy and I am not.” The righteousness of God that is revealed to the world in Jesus Christ does not shut out the sinner, but includes him. For either it is not God that reconciles the world to Himself in Christ or there is no righteousness at all. In that case the unbeliever finds in Jesus at best “the death of a righteous one.” Similarly, if one’s sins are erased and one is sent righteousness as a gift, then Christ died for nothing. But it is a new righteousness that God gives us in Christ, one that is quite different from the righteousness that God reveals in the law. It is not only new and unprecedented in human terms which is the wonderful, paradoxical, and faith giving aspect of it, but it is also new and unprecedented in terms of the righteousness of God that is revealed in the Law. Every instance of God’s righteousness that is revealed in the Law is one according to which God, as judge, gives “each person his due.” But in Christ God does not give each person his due, quite the contrary: He lays our sins on His Son and gives us His Son’s righteousness. He reckons to us what is not ours (imputatio), namely, a foreign righteousness and He does not reckon to us that which is ours, namely, our own sins (non imputatio). No theologian since Paul has dared to say these things so boldly, so freely, or so paradoxically. Neither has anyone since Paul found the language with which to make it so closely and easily understood to the hearts of believers until Luther.
