That I may gain Christ... and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. Philippians 3:8-9
The righteousness which is of the law is anything you think you can do to make you acceptable to God. In the words of Apostle Paul, this is self-righteousness, and this manifests in different ways in different places. In one of my mission outreaches, I was doing a meeting with pastors, and a question arose from Deuteronomy 22:5. A group of those present believed that it was a sin for a woman to put on trousers. For such people, this was a requirement for righteousness. At other times, they charge, as sinners, those who use makeup of any kind, and the list is endless.
But according to Paul, this will be self-righteousness. What such people fail to realize is that the law requires perfect obedience to all its commands, of which no one is able to do. According to Apostle James, to fail in one command is to fail in all. James 2:10. Those who believe that they can be justified by the doing of the works of the law fail to understand what it means to break one law of God. Think of the law of God as the windscreen of a car; now, consider that a person breaks a portion of the screen, but his action didn't affect the entire windscreen, and upon accosting him for breaking your windscreen, he says to you, 'but I only broke a little portion'. This is how it is with the law of God, when you break one, you break all.
But in the teachings of Apostle Paul, none of these count for righteousness, except simple faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross. Jesus is the end of the law for righteousness. To come to Jesus by faith is the same as coming in the merit of His life, death, and resurrection.
Toni
