Lessons for the Day of Judgment: Dunghill Covered with Jesus’ Righteousness, Pt 1

We must realize that we are all dunghills.  That is, we are totally depraved sinners or radically corrupt sinners.  We desperately need a covering from God.  That is, His covering is His very righteousness.  We must understand that we are no good.   We have nothing to offer God but filthy rages and garments of defilement.   We need His righteousness alone to save us because we cannot save ourselves.   We cannot commend our own dunghill.  In and of ourselves, we are spiritually corrupt and bankrupt.  In Christ we are spiritually set free and wear His righteous covering.  We must trust in His righteousness alone to save us.  Nothing else will do save His life and death alone.  Let us look at some Scriptures that teach us about the nature of man, and what to do about it after we discover the problem of man’s sin.  (It is good if we would seek to memorize where these key texts of Holy Scriptures are located).

Romans 3 KJV

⁹What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

¹⁰As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

¹¹There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

¹²They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

¹³Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

¹⁴Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

¹⁵Their feet are swift to shed blood:

¹⁶Destruction and misery are in their ways:

¹⁷And the way of peace have they not known:

¹⁸There is no fear of God before their eyes.

¹⁹Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

²⁰Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Let us remember that the Lord promises to forgive contrite sinners.  To be contrite means to understand that we have offended God and injured His tender heart.  We are commanded by the Word of God to repent.

Acts 3:19 KJV
Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

Psalm 86:5 KJV
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.

Jeremiah 31:34 KJV
And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Psalm 51 KJV

¹Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

²Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

³For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

⁴Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

⁵Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

⁶Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

⁷Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

⁸Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

 ⁹Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

¹⁰Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

¹¹Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

¹²Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

¹³Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

¹⁴Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

¹⁵O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

¹⁶For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

¹⁷The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

¹⁸Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

¹⁹Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

The repentance that we do does not and cannot add to the unified work of Christ alone.  Let us mediate on the work of Christ alone that covers our dunghill.  We must make every effort to repent because we are all dunghills but made in the image of God.  Here are verses on the righteousness of Christ alone.

Romans 1 KJV

¹⁶For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

 ¹⁷For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Romans 3 KJV

²¹But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

²²Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

²³For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

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

²⁵Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

²⁶To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

²⁷Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

²⁸Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

²⁹Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:

³⁰Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

³¹Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.

Romans 4 KJV

¹What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found?

²For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

³For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.

⁴Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.

⁵But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

⁶Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,

⁷Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

⁸Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

⁹Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.

Philippians 3 KJV

⁹And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

Galatians 2 KJV

¹⁶Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

¹⁷But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.

¹⁸For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

¹⁹For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

²⁰I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

 ²¹I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

Psalm 71:16 KJV
I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.

2 Corinthians 5:21 KJV
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

James 2:23 KJV
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.

The unified merit of Christ alone is so precious.  It is the cornerstone of all that is right and good in this fallen world.  We ought to memorize these Scriptures of Christ’s righteousness alone.  If we have troubled remembering them, we can at least remember where they are located in the Bible.  Our defense is from God and through Christ alone.  If we add something to Christ, we take away from the power of the Gospel.