Lesson 5: A Saving Righteousness

It was God’s righteousness that stirred the soul of Luther, and brought new light and help after long, weary months of groping in the darkness, trying in vain to save himself in conformity to the demands of blind leaders of the blind. As he was reading the Latin Psalter, he came across David's prayer, "Save me in Your righteousness." Luther exclaimed, "What does this mean? I can understand how God can damn me in His righteousness, but if He would save me it must surely be in His mercy!" The more he meditated on it, the more the wonder grew. But little by little the truth dawned upon his troubled soul that God Himself had devised a righteous method whereby He could justify unrighteous sinners who came to Him in repentance and received His word in faith.

 Isaiah stresses this great and glorious truth throughout his marvelous Old Testament opening of the gospel plan. In merciless severity, the prophet portrays man's utterly lost and absolutely hopeless condition, apart from divine grace. "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds and bruises and rotting sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither softened with ointment" (Isaiah 1:5,6). It is surely a revolting picture, but nevertheless it is true of the unsaved man as God sees him. Sin is a vile disease that has fastened upon the vitals of its victim. None can free himself from its pollution or deliver himself from its power.


But God has a remedy. He says, "Come now, and let us reason together, said the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (v. 18). It is God Himself who can cleanse the leper from all his filthiness, and justify the ungodly from all his guilt. And He does it, not at the expense of righteousness, but in a perfectly righteous way.

 So it is Isaiah who, above all other prophetic writers, sets forth the work of the Cross. He looks on by the eye of faith to Calvary, and there he sees the Holy Sufferer dying for sins not His own. He exclaims, "But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:5-6).

 Thought Question:
 Have you ever thoughtfully considered these remarkable words? 

  • If not, I beg you to meditate over them now: It was Jesus that the Spirit of God brought before the mind of Isaiah. 
  • He would have you gaze upon Him, too. 
  • Take each phrase separately and weigh its wondrous meaning.