I am perfect. I have no sin, no guilt, and am in absolutely perfect one-hundred percent obedience to every command of God in thought, word, and deed. That is my righteousness; but, of course, you realize I didn’t live it—not any of it. In fact, I ran the other way. I violated His commandments in every way.

It was Christ who lived that perfect life, Christ who took away my sin, Christ who gave me His obedience that made me righteous. My righteousness is not my own. It belongs to Christ. But as Paul says, “by the obedience of One the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). How are you going to be made righteous before God? “…[B]y the obedience of One the many will be made righteous.”

Theologians like to refer to what they call the active and passive obedience of Christ. His active obedience being all He did in obeying His Father through all of His earthly life. This One who could say, “… for I always do those things that please Him” (John 8:29). That white robe of obedience was woven day by day out of the pure linen of Christ’s perfect obedience with the golden thread of His deity running through it.

His passive obedience was what He endured: the scourge, the thorns, the spikes, the Cross. We get from that passive obedience the word “passion”—the passion of Jesus Christ. Now His active obedience and His passive obedience make up what is known as the righteousness of Christ. He is our righteousness.

Jesus-Tsidkenu, Jesus my righteousness, I praise and thank You today for counting Your righteousness as my own. Thank You, Father, for looking at me through Jesus Christ, as if I had never sinned…