“Righteousness will be ours if we are careful to follow every one of these commands before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’” (v. 25)

It really was pretty simple:

God’s people, if they obeyed God’s commands, would be counted as righteous in God’s sight. If we lived rightly—according to God’s sovereign boundaries of rightness—we would have righteousness.

You, of course, know how this turned out.

Every generation of humankind—from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to everyone ever—has failed the test of obedience. God’s instructions are for our good, but we think we know better. Instead of honoring every one of these commands, we struggle to honor even one.

Righteousness won’t be ours—for none of us have lived righteously.

How great, then, is the Good News? How great is the grace and mercy of Christ, who bore away all our transgressions, our Substitute? How great is the gift—Jesus, who took on all our sin and all our debt and all our penalty—given for us by God?

How great is the Gospel?

God made the One who knew no son to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).

For those who have believed, repented, and been baptized in Jesus’ name, the righteousness we own won’t be ours.

It’ll be His.

— Tyler