Scripture teaches us that Christ is the Believers' righteousness. If we want to see Righteousness, we must look at Jesus. Indeed, if we want to see our own righteousness, we must look to Jesus, for God has clothed us in His Righteousness by faith in His bloodshedding at Calvary.
Further still, we must boast in Christ's righteousness! The Scriptures repeatedly warn us against boasting in our own works. What we have in ourselves is not worthy of boasting, but rather shame. But Jesus took away our shame, and gave us His righteousness, so we cannot boast in our own works.
In Hebrews, the writer is seeking to convince backsliding Jewish believers to stay with the Savior and reject appeals by their family and friends to turn back to temple Judaism. They boasted in their ritual and temple and priesthood and history, and ridiculed Christians for having none of that.
In that context, Hebrews tells us that we are all Christ's house, which is far greater than Moses' house, because Moses was merely God's servant, but Christ is the Son Who built His house, which is the church.
Believers are urged to hold fast the hope with rejoicing - which is to say, we are to brag on Jesus and the Gospel we have been saved by!
In other places, we are exhorted to boast in Jesus, His cross, His sacrifice, and His righteousness. This harks back to the promise of Jeremiah, that God's people would be called "The LORD our Rightousness!"
Thus, believers must exult in Christ's Righteousness, and wear it as a name, as a badge, of that which distinguishes them above all others!
This overthrows all pretense at works religion and legalism. Our boast in Jesus must become our very identity! |