Romans 3:24-25 ".. and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."
I heard a Roman Catholic "scholar" so-called, say that there are levels of righteousness that can be attained. It amounted to, he explained, that when God imparted or infused righteousness into you it gives you ability to cooperate with the Spirit to be enabled to produce works that are righteous so as to build up levels of this righteousness.
Their idea of righteousness is not much different than many Protestants and Baptists of today. Most think that people will somehow more righteous in heaven than on earth. This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how one becomes righteous in the first place. There is an ignorance of the gospel doctrine of the righteousness of our LORD Jesus Christ by imputation.
The righteousness of God revealed in the gospel (Romans 1:16-17) is a righteousness established by Christ that is imputed to His people, which allows God to be just when He justifies ungodly sinners. This is the only way that grace can reign is by the wise way of this gospel righteousness totally conditioned on Christ. No other way brings glory to God and excludes boasting in the sinner.
What this means is that when God justifies a sinner he is as righteous as he is going to get. It is a perfect righteousness that cannot be added to or improved upon NOT EVEN WHEN A PERSON DIES AND ENTERS INTO GLORY! Do you believe that? I hope you do. Trust the LORD for such a righteousness. It is only found in Christ, The LORD Our Righteousness.
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