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

If you were to ask what single discovery made John Bunyan, the answer would be a sentence that fell on his soul one day as he walked in a field near Bedford. He had been through the long storm described in the last chapter. The thunder, he says, had gone beyond him, but some drops still fell; like those who have been scared by fire, he thought every voice cried Fire, fire, and every little touch hurt his tender conscience. And then, suddenly, it was over.

The sentence in the field

“But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven.” And with it, he says, he seemed to see with the eyes of his soul Jesus Christ at God’s right hand. There, he said to himself, is my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, He wants my righteousness, for that was just before Him.

Then he saw something else, which is the heart of the matter: “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.”

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. HEBREWS 13:8

“Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed,” he writes. He was loosed from his affliction and irons; the dreadful scriptures left off troubling him; he went home rejoicing for the grace and love of God.

Looking in the wrong place

To understand why this set him free, we have to see where he had been looking. For years Bunyan had searched his own heart for his righteousness. He examined his feelings, his faith, his repentance, his thoughts. When his heart was warm, he hoped; when it was cold, he despaired. When a promise comforted him, he was lifted; when a threat struck him, he fell. His peace, he said, would be in and out twenty times a day. He was trying to find in himself the ground of his acceptance with God, and every time he looked he found only sin.

The sentence in the field turned his eyes round. His righteousness was not in his heart at all. It was in heaven, at God’s right hand, in a Person. It did not rise and fall with his frames and feelings, because it was not his frames and feelings. It was Christ.

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. ROMANS 3:24

This is the doctrine the Reformers called the imputed righteousness of Christ. Bunyan had found it before in Luther’s commentary on Galatians, an old book so worn it was ready to fall to pieces, which, he said, handled his condition as if it had been written out of his own heart; he preferred it, next to the Bible, before all the books he had ever seen, as most fit for a wounded conscience. But there is a difference between reading a doctrine and seeing it. In the field, he saw it.

Gold in the trunk at home

When he got home, he looked for the sentence in his Bible and could not find it, and his heart began to sink. Then 1 Corinthians 1:30 came to mind — Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption — and he saw that the other sentence was true.

What followed was a season of sweet peace, and he describes it with one of the loveliest images in the book. The graces of God that were now green in him — his faith, his love, his repentance — were, he said, like the cracked groats and fourpence-halfpennies that rich men carry in their purses, when their gold is in their trunks at home. “Oh, I saw my gold was in my trunk at home! In Christ, my Lord and Saviour! Now Christ was all.”

For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. COLOSSIANS 3:3

One with Christ

Bunyan went further. The Lord led him, he says, into the mystery of union with the Son of God: that he was joined to Him, flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone. If He and I were one, he reasoned, then His righteousness was mine, His merits mine, His victory mine. Now he could see himself in heaven and earth at once — in heaven by his Christ, his head, his righteousness and life, though on earth in his body.

For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. EPHESIANS 5:30

Why this is the centre of everything

It is not too much to say that the whole of The Pilgrim’s Progress hangs on this sentence. It is why the burden falls at the cross and not at Legality’s house. It is why Christian receives a coat that he did not make, and why he hopes to be known at the gate by that coat. It is why Ignorance, who trusted Christ to make his own obedience acceptable, is turned away. And it is why Christian, sinking in the river and remembering his sins, can still get over: his righteousness was never in the river with him. It was on the other side.

For anxious and scrupulous believers, this is the medicine Bunyan himself needed. The answer to endless self-examination is not a better self-examination. It is to look up. Your frames will change; your feelings will rise and fall; your graces will be green and small. None of that makes your righteousness better or worse, because your righteousness is Jesus Christ Himself.

A caution against misuse

Does this make holiness unimportant? Ignorance thought it would, and Bunyan answered him: true faith in Christ’s righteousness bows the heart to love God, His word, His ways and His people. Bunyan’s own life after the field was one of costly obedience, twelve years in gaol among it. The righteousness in heaven does not make us careless on earth. It makes us free to obey out of gratitude rather than fear. And it does not mean that feelings do not matter; Bunyan’s own feelings in the field were overflowing joy. It means only that feelings are not the foundation.

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. ROMANS 8:1

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Where have you been looking for your righteousness — in your feelings, your performance, your spiritual frames? Name it honestly.

2. Say to yourself several times this week, especially in low moments: my righteousness is in heaven; it is Jesus Christ Himself.

3. Read Philippians 3:7–11 and 1 Corinthians 1:30, and underline every phrase that locates your righteousness in Christ.

4. Think of your own graces as pocket money and Christ as your gold at home. What difference does that make to how you handle failure?

5. If a friend is tormented by self-examination, share Bunyan’s sentence with them, gently, and point them upward.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, at the right hand of God. It is not my good frame that makes it better, nor my bad frame that makes it worse.

Forgive me for searching my own heart for what can only be found in You. Turn my eyes upward.

Let my chains fall off, as Bunyan’s did, and let me go home rejoicing in Your grace.

And since my gold is safe in heaven, make me free and glad to spend my small coins in Your service here. Amen.