Too Much Sin-Consciousness? Try "Righteousness-Consciousness"!

“For God made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”
(2 Corinthians 5:21 King James version)

“For God took the sinless Christ and poured into Him our sins; then in exchange, He poured God’s goodness into us!”
(2 Corinthians 5:21 Living Bible version)

There is an important point that we need to see when we look at ourselves as Christians. Christians are NOT sinners – we are the righteousness of God! Let’s stop putting ourselves down. Those in union with Christ by a new birth aren’t sinners. We may sometimes “miss the mark”, which is what that word translated “sin” means. The vital thing is to differentiate between who I am, and what I sometimes do. I am the righteousness of God because Christ lives in me and when God looks at me, He sees Christ. And when something wrong appears in my life, it doesn’t make me a sinner.

Some translations of the New Testament may seem to say that we have two natures within us – God’s nature and sin nature – which are constantly at war. This is a false concept which, in effect, makes the Christian life more difficult. A human being has only one nature at a time – before conversion and the new birth, there is a sin nature; after conversion then the nature of God takes the place of the sin nature.

Let us distinguish between the REAL me in whom Christ dwells, and the way I USED TO BE before I was crucified with Christ, and risen with Him.

When we Christians are together, let’s talk about how we please God by having become His children, not how we fail Him. Instead of bemoaning our sins, let us emphasize the fact that we are children in God’s family containing His righteous nature. Who are we really? We are Christ/persons – Christ/Joe, Christ/Mary, Christ/Jack, Christ/Meg.

It is so important to see that you are not a bad person, striving to be good. That’s an Old Covenant orientation. You are a good person – the righteousness of God – in which some “hangover” of the old patterns sometimes reassert themselves. Some leftover garbage of the “old man” is still lodged in our brain cells which is subject to the external influence of the world, the flesh and the devil. Certainly we sin at times. But Christ does not leave us. The Holy Spirit does not leave us. The reborn divine nature of God the Father does not leave us. As Christian children, we make mistakes, we miss the mark, we SIN. Our loving Father corrects us as necessary, but He doesn’t disown us. His love ultimately draws us back closer to Him.

It may sound strange to say that I SIN, BUT I’M NOT A SINNER. But again, it comes down to who I am by nature – a saint/child of God – who sometimes misses the mark.

Righteousness IS God’s divine nature. It is not so much a moral quality as a factual condition. Rocks have a rock nature. Plants have a plant nature. Animals have an animal nature. God has a divine righteous nature – and He has given that nature to us (2 Peter 1:4).

God is not in the business of shaping your character by imparting to you good qualities one by one. God is instead constantly REVEALING the flawless, perfect character of Jesus Christ within you. Christ IS our righteousness, and His character is right there within us to draw on by faith and trust.

A proper self-image is absolutely essential to the life of everyone, Christian or non-Christian. Teaching that says that Christians have to battle their human nature causes them to have a negative view of themselves. We are not battling our nature because we have a God nature!

And when you have a negative view of yourself, then inevitably you will have a negative view of your surroundings and your condition. You will see your life as you see yourself – negatively.

I am persuaded that the reason that there is so much unforgiveness even among Christians lies in how they view themselves. If you are concentrating on how bad you are, then the logical conclusion is that other people are bad too. If other people are bad, then you can’t forgive them – after all, they’re bad! The solution is to discover and stay aware of who you really are.
When you know that you’re the righteousness of God, you come to realize that you are not the ONLY one. Then you begin to see other Christians as the righteousness of God. And you begin to see people of the world as ones whom God is dealing with in a personal way drawing them to conversion into His righteous nature.

Peter’s opening salutation in his second Epistle points out the benefits of a righteousness consciousness:
“Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them who have obtained the same precious faith with us through the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD and our Savior Jesus Christ:
GRACE and PEACE be multiplied to you through the KNOWLEDGE of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power has given to all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue.
We are given exceedingly great and precious promises: that by these we are partakers of the divine nature [the RIGHTEOUS nature of God], having escaped the corruption [the sin nature] that is in the world.”

The above words were written near the end of Peter’s life. It took Peter a lifetime to come to the understanding that he was a partaker of the divine nature. Peter was a slow learner. He was slow to give up trying to keep the law of Moses and even had a heated argument with Paul over it in the second chapter of Galatians. Peter apparently thought that he was still a “sinner” saved by grace, and that righteousness was earned by keeping the law. The whole discussion leads up to Paul’s statement of my favorite verse in the Bible:
“I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I live in the flesh I now live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)

But then, probably as a final rebuttal to Peter, Paul talks about the importance of righteousness consciousness in verse 21:
“I do not frustrate the grace of God [probably pointing at Peter with the implication: ‘like you do!’], for if RIGHTEOUSNESS comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.”

Peter had to learn Paul’s message that a Christian contains Christ’s RIGHTEOUSNESS, and is no longer a sinner by nature. Peter was an emotional guy who desperately wanted to be liked by those around him. May you grow in understanding as Peter did.

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