“Declare and set forth your case; indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. (Is 45:21)

Righteousness is the goal of human religion: telling people how to be right with their deity. This rightness, or righteousness, comes through human effort to better oneself, to do what is right toward others. That concept is universal—that somehow a person’s destiny and value relates to how he or she treats others. The so-called “Golden Rule” that Jesus spoke of in Luke 6:31, “Do to others what you would have them do for you,” was not uncommon among ancient religions, though worded in different ways.

But with the God of the Bible we find a different kind of righteousness—one that is given, not earned. True, Jesus spoke of treating others well as a general life principle given by God. But He never spoke of righteousness as something we can earn through righteous efforts. He died on the cross because we all have failed in our standing before the Lord. That is why “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son …” (John 3:16). The whole world needs God’s salvation, because we are all failures in trying to gain it on our own. Our lives only prove that we are unrighteous.

What we need is a righteousness that comes to us from a perfectly righteous God. Pagan gods, so-called, had their foibles and portrayed very human tendencies, capable of capricious or revengeful behaviors. But the God of the Bible is perfect, high above human ways. His righteousness is perfect, absolute and never failing. Our only hope is found in this. For what would it mean to be righteous if God were not perfectly righteous? If there were any unrighteousness in Him, then we could never be sure that our sin would be done away with for eternity, that our “eternal life” was really eternal in length.

But He is righteous and never deals with us in an unrighteous way. We saw in Psalm 41:1 that He is “the God of my righteousness.” Therefore, my righteousness is perfect also, because He is perfectly righteous. That does not mean that I walk perfectly or that I always the way God desires. But it means that God accepts me as perfectly right with Him. Sit back and think about that for a moment. What other god among the many religions in the world is like that, who gives us righteousness and before whom we can continually stand as righteous? God Himself says, “There is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me.”

Righteous Lord, I stand before You only because You have made me righteous.