The Righteousness of God in Christ - Part One

Over the next two weeks I will be posting parts of a section from Herman Ridderbos' Paul: An Outline of His Theology. I've been reading him of late and have found him to be very edifying. The section I will begin posting is section 28 (pp. 166ff) entitled, "The Righteousness of God in Christ." Ridderbos writes:

"Just as it is true of the entire revelation of the mystery that it has Christ for its content, so also the revelation of the righteousness of God, as the ground for acquittal in the divine judgment, takes place in Christ. And just as the entire Pauline gospel has its center in the death and resurrection of Christ, so also the gospel of justification by faith.

This revelation of the righteousness of God is related to the death and resurrection of Christ in all sorts of ways. Romans 3:21-31, where once again the basic eschatological-christological structure of Paul's gospel comes clearly to the fore, is very central and very pointed in the further exposition of this theme. Verses 24ff. are especially important here:

' and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, [25] 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. [26] 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. '

"What is of particular importance for us in this context is that justification is founded here on the death of Christ. Moreover, God's righteousness is spoken of in a differentiating sense. God has made Christ a means of propitiation in his death, and in this way manifested his justice in his death. By this nothing other can be understood than that God has shown the adjudicating power of his righteousness in Christ, by giving him for others as a means of propitiation in death. The idea is then joined to this that God till this moment had not meted out the punishment on the sins of men that was due them, but passed over them in his forbearance, i.e., in his withholding of the judgment. Now, 'in the present time,' God has abandoned this attitude of waiting, however, and shown his vindicating righteousness, in the death of Jesus. Here again the apostle clearly elucidates the redemptive-historical significance of Christ's death, in the sense that the divine judgment on the sins of the world has, as it were, been drawn together in Christ's death, and in this way the eschaton has become present time. Just as Christ's resurrection is the breaking through of the new creation (2 Corinthians 5), so the final judgment of God has become manifest in his death. God has in this way justified himself toward the world in him and at the same time made known, revealed, the righteousness that is necessary in order that those who have faith in Jesus might stand in the judgment of God. For just as the abandonment of Christ in death took place because of our sins, so his resurrection occurred for the sake of our justification (Romans 4:25). Just as Christ's death was a demonstration of God's righteous judgment on the sin of the world, visited on him as the means of propitiation, so his resurrection was the demonstration and proof of the acquitting righteousness of God, revelation thus of righteousness in the sense of Romans 1:7; Romans 3:21" (pp. 166-167).