My Righteousness is in Heaven

John Bunyan’s words echo through the ages and remain a heart warming corrective and refreshment to us:

“One day as I was passing into the field, this sentence fell upon my soul: ‘Thy righteousness is in heaven.’ And with the eyes of my soul I saw Jesus at the Father’s right hand. ‘There,’ I said, ‘is my righteousness!’ So that wherever I was or whatever I was doing, God could not say to me, ‘Where is your righteousness?’ For it is always right before him.

I saw that it is not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness is Christ. Now my chains fell off indeed. My temptations fled away, and I lived sweetly at peace with God.

Now I could look from myself to him and could reckon that all my character was like the coins a rich man carries in his pocket when all his gold is safe in a trunk at home. Oh I saw that my gold was indeed in a trunk at home, in Christ my Lord. Now Christ was all: my righteousness, sanctification, redemption.” (John Bunyan, Grace Abounding)

Believer: right now, by virtue of the love & obedience of Jesus, your righteousness is in heaven, for it is Christ’s righteousness. Let this eternal truth consume and burn any rags of self-righteousness that you value enough to dress your soul in.

For Jesus sake, Amen

Possibly Related posts:

1. Meditations on Psalm 103
2. The Glorious Irony of Righteousness in Justification
3. Plagued by and Comforted in Divine Righteousness
4. The Importance of Repenting of Self-Righteousness
5. Who Talks Like This?

3 Responses to “My Righteousness is in Heaven”

1. Tweets that mention My Righteousness is in Heaven- Irish Calvinist -- Topsy.com says:

   December 2, 2009 at 10:17 am

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Erik Raymond, The Reformed Hub. The Reformed Hub said: IRISH CALVINIST: My Righteousness is in Heaven http://bit.ly/4SRRke [...]
2. Dan Smith says:

   December 2, 2009 at 12:01 pm

   This was so refreshing to read. I haven’t seen this before, so it was good to read it. Thank you for posting it.
3. Erik says:

   December 2, 2009 at 3:26 pm

   Dan, the biography linked above by Colburn is fantastic. He really did a great job on it.

   I did a Sunday School lesson a few years back on Bunyan. The audio is here, just skim the titles and you’ll find it. It’s a decent primer:

   http://www.omahabiblechurch.org/south/resources/audio-library/series/series-detail?seriesId=dft6gLM9iSk9RoHFwi30ng