But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.–Romans 3:21
The issue between the Holy God and sinful men is one of righteousness. God demands it of us and we are incapable of producing it. Righteousness, of course, concerns God's law. The law of God is expressed to us in writing in the form of ordinances and commandments, but these are really just an expression of His very Person. It is the holy character of God Himself to which we must conform and measure up. We little realize the magnitude of this requirement and just how hopelessly short we fall. The letter of the law is formidable enough, but to consider the spirit of the law and the Person of Him Whom we have offended is staggering.
In the gospel, we see that God has sent His Son to this earth in redeeming love and mercy as the Saviour of sinners, but how few realize just what this salvation is. Most religion has the notion that Christ came to show us how to live and what we must do to please God. What Christ actually shows us is that we are dead and that we never have nor shall please God. In other words, Christ is not an example to us of what to do, nor is He trying to get us to do something, but He actually came to do for us what we had no desire nor ability to ever do.
The righteousness without law spoken of in the text does not imply that the righteousness of Christ does not relate to the law. The law is integral to the very definition of righteousness. What this speaks of is righteousness provided for us without us having any dealing with God's law. No conformance to God's law is necessary on our part in this matter! The righteousness of our Representative, the Lord Jesus Christ, has everything to do with God's law. He honored and satisfied that holy inflexible law in letter and spirit. He did not just conform to the written law, but He is well-pleasing in the sight of the Holy God Whose very heart that written law is an expression of!
When we realize the magnitude of what is required, our terrible condition and inadequacy, and the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Representative and Substitule of His people, only then can we have a true sense of what salvation is.
Christ's death on the cross of Calvary is without a doubt the central event of all history and the crowning event of our salvation, but everything about Christ from the day He was conceived on this earth to the day He cried, "It is finished!" and gave up the Ghost, is essential to my standing before God. My need is righteousness and Christ, by every thought, word and deed of His representative life and death has accomplished it for me and imputed it to me.
Righteousness without law is the only hope for a sinner. This is no new concept. As the Apostle Paul explains, the entire Word of God (the law and the prophets) give witness of this righteousness of Christ, which is and always has been the sinner's only plea before God.
To so many, the gospel of Christ is just another form of law. We are so prone to being entangled with that "yoke of bondage" we are warned of in scripture. The faith, which God gives, is made by religion to be just another work which man must produce in order to please God. The good works to which God has ordained His people are considered by fools to be meritorious in mainaining our favor with God.
God help us to see our sinfulness and inability, abandon ourselves and lay hold of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Righteousness.