Thy Righteousness Is in Heaven

“But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” — 1 Corinthians 1:30 (KJV)

Bunyan found a picture that helped him in an old law of Moses. Someone who killed another person by accident, without hating them, could run to a “city of refuge” and be protected there. Bunyan saw himself in that law. He had not hated Christ; he had loved him, prayed to him, and fought that wicked thought for a whole year. So “I thought verily I was the man that must enter, because I had smitten my neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not aforetime.”

Then he did something he had been too scared to do for years. He went back and actually read, carefully, the frightening verses in Hebrews that had haunted him. “I found their visage changed; for they looked not so grimly on me as before I thought they did.” Hebrews 6 was about people who fall away completely and openly, rejecting Christ in front of the world. Esau had not had a sudden panicked thought; he made a calm, public choice and went on despising his birthright for years. That was not Bunyan's story.

Then one day, walking through a field, still a bit uneasy, he heard a sentence in his soul: “Thy righteousness is in heaven.” He seemed to see Jesus Christ at God's right hand. That was where his righteousness was, his rightness with God. And he saw something that changed everything: “it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.”

“Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed.” He went home rejoicing. When he looked for the sentence in the Bible and couldn't find it, his heart began to sink again, until he remembered that Christ “of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” The truth was there after all.

He gives a lovely picture of what this meant. The good things growing in him were like the small cracked coins a rich man carries in his pocket, while his real wealth is locked away safe at home. “Oh, I saw my gold was in my trunk at home! In Christ, my Lord and Saviour!”

Looking back, Bunyan thought he could see two causes of his long trial. One was that after his first deliverance he had only prayed to be rescued from present troubles, and never asked God to guard him from future ones. “I do beseech thee, reader, that thou learn to beware of my negligence.” The other was that once, during his first wife's painful pregnancy, he had secretly tested God, asking him to stop her pains that night as proof that God knew his thoughts. She fell asleep peacefully. Later he felt he should have simply trusted God rather than put an “if” on him.

He came out with a deep sense of how big grace is. “Great sins to draw out great grace.” He would still have hard times; once, when he was seriously ill and afraid to die, the words “justified freely by his grace” turned his fear into joy. But the worst was over.

Here is the heart of this chapter. Your standing with God does not rise and fall with your mood. On your best day, your rightness with God is Christ. On your worst day, it is still Christ. And when a Bible verse frightens you, don't run from it and don't obsess over it alone. Read it in context, with someone wise. Bunyan found the verses he feared most “looked not so grimly” when he finally faced them properly.

One thing to do this week: write 1 Corinthians 1:30 on a card or in your phone. On a day when you feel far from God, read it and say: my righteousness is not my mood today; it is Christ.