Have you ever thought why the Holy Spirit has placed the book of Romans in such a way that it comes after the gospels and spearheads the epistles? The reason is that the gospels give us a detailed account of what Jesus did while He was here on earth and the book of Romans tells us about the finished work of Jesus i.e.; the righteousness of God and its impact in our lives.
Romans 1:16, 17 say, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith. So, through the gospels, the righteousness of God is revealed”. His righteousness is the crux of the gospel.
At the cross, Jesus said, “It is finished”. What exactly is the finished work of our Lord? The following verses clearly tell us what Jesus did for us.

Colossians 1:13 says, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,  in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins”. So, Jesus Christ has redeemed us, forgiven our sins and brought us out of the power of darkness and taken us into His Kingdom. We are already in the Kingdom of God not because of anything we have done and that is the righteousness of God! We have entered God’s Kingdom by grace through faith.
In the book of Hebrews, Paul says that we who are in the Kingdom should now grow in the Word of Righteousness. Let’s read Hebrews 5:12,13 where it says, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.  For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the Word of righteousness, for he is a babe”.

The Word of righteousness means the Word that reveals righteousness to us. It edifies us in many ways. It helps us to grow out of our spiritual childishness. So, each time we hear the Word of righteousness, we realize more and more what Jesus has done for us and that knowledge gives us the freedom and the confidence to stand in God’s Presence. Through the righteousness of God we get the same ability of God and it has made us able to command and change our circumstances. His righteousness has given us the freedom to call God, ‘Abba Father’.
2 Corinthians 5: 21 says, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”. Jesus did not carry our sins. He became sin for us so that you and I could be made righteous!
Not only did He make us righteous, but He also put His Spirit in us so that we may call Him Abba Father! His righteousness made us the righteousness of God in Him.

(To be continued…)

– Dr. Mathew Kuruvilla (Tangu brother)