The Righteousness of God that Saves

Trinity 6| Romans 6:1-2; Matthews 5:20| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| July 27, 2025

“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” Of course not! But why does Paul ask such a question? To answer that, we need to zoom out a bit for context. The major point of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is to prove what the righteousness of God is by which we are saved (Romans 1:16-17). To be righteous means to have a right relationship with God, to have right standing before Him. Righteousness is the opposite of sin, which is disobedience to God. Therefore, to become righteous, you must be obedient to God, you must obey His commandments. Yet, Jesus says in our Gospel lesson, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20) The scribes and the Pharisees were known to keep the Law of God more strictly than anyone else. Yet, even their righteousness was not good enough to enter heaven!

St. Paul and our Lord Jesus both preach against mere civil righteousness, that is outward righteousness; the righteousness of your hands, feet, and mouth. That is not the righteousness that will get you into heaven. You see, the Pharisees and scribes were so strict, not only did they count-up 603 commandments of God in addition to the Ten Commandments in the Bible, but they added the traditions of their fathers and bound peoples’ consciences to them. They built fences around the law, so to speak, to keep themselves from transgressing God’s commands. And so, on the outside, they looked very good. They worshipped regularly, they fasted, they did not commit adultery or any crimes. They were good citizens. But that righteousness wasn’t enough. Jesus called them whitewashed tombs, clean on the outside, but filthy on the inside. St. Paul writes, “Being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” (Romans 10:3)

No, outward righteousness won’t do. Most think with the Pharisees that if you do not murder you have fulfilled the commandment, but Jesus says that whoever is angry with his brother without cause is liable to judgment with the murderer. For the commandment does not say, “Your gun shall not commit murder or your hand may not commit murder” Rather, the commandment says, “You shall not murder.” That goes directly to your heart, which commits murder long before your hand does. Likewise, most people think that they are faithful to their marriage vows if they keep their bodies from the physical act of adultery. But Jesus says that if even your eyes look at a woman with lustful intent, you have already committed adultery, for your eyes are joined to your heart just as well as your other members are. So, the adulterer commits adultery in his heart first before any civil infraction is made. So, Jesus forbids viewing pornography or any other lustful activity. Most think with the Pharisees that divorce is fine as long as you fill out the proper paperwork, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. But Jesus says not to divorce your spouse at all, except on the grounds of sexual immorality (Matthews 5:31-32). Most think that you should love your neighbor, but hate your enemy, but Christ commands us to love them both from the heart. Outward righteousness is not the righteousness of God that gets you into heaven.

And yet, most agree with the scribes and Pharisees and disagree with Jesus. They think that if they follow a few outward rules, then they are righteous before God and should be allowed to go to the good place when they die. That is why so few turn to Jesus and His Church for forgiveness and righteousness. They think that they have enough righteousness and don’t need God’s forgiveness. But so far does our outward righteousness fail to reach the righteousness of God, that St. Paul concludes that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). In fact, Scripture says that none is righteous, no not one. (Romans 3:10; Psalm 14) Paul even says that it is impossible for a person to be justified by works of the law, because through the law comes knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20).

So, for you to obtain the righteousness of God, which is needed for salvation, you first must realize that you do not have that righteousness by your own works. You are utterly lacking in righteousness. That is what St. Paul concluded about himself after considering all his own works. He counted them as rubbish, that he would be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of his own that came from the law, but a righteousness of faith found in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3). And so, St. Paul comforts all us sinners lacking the righteousness needed to be saved, by declaring that Christ Jesus is our righteousness. Jesus’ righteousness, which we receive through faith as a gift is the righteousness of God by which we enter heaven.

Our own righteousness is lacking, because we are sinners. We have inherited our sin from our first father Adam. We call this sin original sin. Original sin is the lack of original righteousness. Original righteousness is to truly fear, love, and trust in God from the heart. In Adam, we all fall into sin, shame, death, and hell. Yet, God sent Christ Jesus to become our second Adam. He restores original righteousness to our race. He took on our human flesh, yet remained sinless. He obeyed God perfectly. Though His righteousness exceeded that of the scribes and Pharisees, He took on the guilt of the whole world and died for us. And because He is not only a man, but fully God, His obedience, suffering, and death are greater than all sin. Christ reverses to curse of Adam. So great is Christ’s payment for our sin, that it is impossible for the sins of the world to ever surpass what He has paid to redeem us. This is why St. Paul writes at the end of Romans chapter 5, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” So, as many sins as our race piles up, God’s grace piles up even more because of Jesus’ unsurpassable blood and righteousness.

That is why St. Paul then asks, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?” If God gives us Christ’s righteousness by grace as a gift apart from our works to be received by faith, so that as great as our sin is, so greater still is God’s grace, why do we not then take a load off and sin as much as we want? Paul blasts that idea as blasphemous! How can we who died to sin still live in it? “Do you not know,” he asks, indicating that you certainly should know, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by Baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Baptism is not a mere symbol, a sign of your faith in Christ. Baptism is a powerful working of God, by which God clothes you in Christ Himself and joins you to His cross and resurrection. If you have faith in Christ, you should also have faith in what Christ has done for you in your Baptism. And in Baptism, God has joined you to Christ’s death. That means that you have died with Christ. That means that your sins have been put to death in Christ. It also means that you now live in Christ, who is risen from the dead, having died to sin once for all. It is antithetical to the Christian religion, a denial of the power of Baptism, a rejection of Christ’s death and resurrection to continue in sin without repenting as if Christ died so that you may sin freely. No, Christ died so that you may be free from sin! And if you are baptized and have faith in Christ, you should believe that you are indeed free from sin. Sin has no dominion over you, because you are under God’s grace, which has replaced the Old Adam and his sinful desires. Not only does God cover you with Christ’s righteousness, so that you stand justified before Him, but your new-self who has risen out of the waters of Baptism desires from the heart to do what is pleasing to God. So, as a Christian, you have righteousness greater than the scribes and Pharisees two-fold. First, you have the righteousness of Christ Himself through faith, by which alone you will enter heaven. Second, you produce righteousness from the heart, as you really are a new creation!

Yet, I may be embarrassing you with these words. And yes, I hate to say, I put myself to shame as I speak them. For I still sin. And you still sin. And for some Christians, their sin becomes like a heavy weight upon their head, which burdens them day by day. For that Old Adam rises each day. He does not believe that he has died with Christ. For while in Baptism, God has washed away all your guilt in Jesus’ blood, the sinful desires of your Old Adam remain in your flesh. This is why St. Paul Himself writes in the very next chapter of Romans, “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:18-19)

And so, as long as you live in your body of flesh, your Old Adam will rise each day and drive your body to sin contrary to the desires of your new-self risen with Christ. And so, what should you do? Put to death the Old Adam each day! Drown him with all sins and evil desires. Take him off and put on Christ. That is, repent of your sins and your sinful desires, believe that all your sins have been buried with Christ and that you have risen to be a new person, and then walk as that new person, delighting in what is good.

This will be a life-long struggle. For until you die, sinful desire still lives in you. Yet, when you die, you will finally put off that body of sin and be free from sin once and for all. Then Christ will raise your body to new life to live before Him in righteousness and purity forever. So, when you repent of your sins each day and walk as a forgiven child of God, believing in that righteousness which God has credited to you for Christ’s sake, you are practicing dying and rising each day. You will indeed die. And you will indeed rise again. So, by repenting of your sins each day, you remind your old body of sin that it will soon die and never rise again. And you remind yourself that you will rise without sin after the image of Christ to live forever.

So, do not let your sin alarm your conscience as if it may condemn you when it has been put on Christ and your Old Adam has died with it. Yet, also, do not let sin rule over you as if you have not been buried with Christ in death and risen to new and righteous life. In Christ, you are a new creation. In Christ you have the righteousness of God, which grants you admission into eternal life in heaven. And so, in Christ you walk in newness of life, not in bondage to sin. May God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit keep us in this true faith and keep sin from ruling over us. Amen.