In Isaiah 26:9 it says that righteousness will be learned when judgments are in the earth. The inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness out of judgment. As stated in previous posts, this happened on the same day. In verse 10 he tells us in what way righteousness will never be learned. Verse 10…Let favor (grace) be shown to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness, in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly and will not behold (recognize) the majesty of the Lord.

The majesty of the Lord is His cross. If we do not understand this Day of Judgment that was prophesied to come upon the earth then it will be difficult to understand that righteousness came upon the whole world at the cross. In Isaiah 54:9 it says that the cross will be the same as the waters of Noah unto Him when He flooded the whole human race and judged the entire world at that time, He would do the same at the cross. Instead of judging the sin in every man individually, He was going to judge all sin in the body of one man Jesus Christ.

In this comes the revelation of God’s righteousness. When you are punished for your own shortcomings, it always points out your faults. It doesn’t reveal righteousness to you. You will never learn righteousness through someone pointing out your faults and shortcomings to you. So how do you learn righteousness? If you don’t realize that your own righteousness was taken out of the way by the judgment that was placed on Christ for you, that you will have problems learning about righteousness.

The issues of your righteousness have been taken out of the picture and therefore since God’s wrath was put on someone else on your behalf then HIS righteousness is revealed. Since our self righteousness has been taken out of the way, then whose righteousness is left? God’s of course and He was righteous enough to take on the sins of the whole world which leaves you and I with none to be held against us because they were judged on the cross. He that knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God. So where were we when all this was taking place on the cross?

We were in Him of course as we have been created in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:10) Jesus said if I be lifted up I will draw all unto me meaning that all judgment due mankind was going to be placed upon Himself on the cross. If judgment for sin was placed upon Jesus then why should we be looking for our sin to be judged in the future? If God took out His wrath upon His Son on our behalf, then why are we still looking for God’s wrath to come? Either Jesus did it all or He did none at all. These are things we have to settle in our own hearts before we can even begin to see that we have God’s righteousness and not our own.

When you have a revelation of a completed work then you have a revelation of righteousness. We have to know we never have and never will do it right enough to be righteous in God’s eyes. Is anyone foolish enough to think they can look at what they have been and are doing to gain God’s favor that it would be good enough to get what they need from God? We all know we can never do enough to stand before a Holy and Just God by our own works. Surely we can see at least that we are in an impossible situation if it depends on us to attain this righteousness that God requires. To try to do this for yourself will never work for you. The reason it doesn’t work for you is because it is not the Gospel.

The Gospel is not based on doing something to get something from God. The Gospel is based on you not getting what you do deserve. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve. Grace is when you do get what you don’t deserve. We can look at these two statements and agree that’s what grace and mercy are, and yet listen to preachers tell you what you have to do to get something from God!!! If this is what you are doing then you must come to the conclusion that Grace and Mercy are not what you thought they were.

You cannot have it both ways. How did we get this mercy and grace? It was through judgment at the cross that should have been ours but was taken by Jesus on our behalf instead of us. Let’s make up our minds as to what we have. Do we have judgment coming or are we under His grace and mercy? We are under His grace and mercy my friends as He took all our judgment upon Himself. If He didn’t then we are not under grace. It has to be one or the other.