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Updated: May 6, 2025
Here was love, you will say, to persons; and I will say also, to things; to all the righteousnesses of God that are revealed in the world, that all the elect might enjoy them to their eternal comfort and glory, by Christ Jesus.
He has, therefore, another righteousness, which standeth in performance, or obedience, to a revealed will; and that is it that He puts upon sinners, and that by which their sins are covered. CHRIST. But are the other righteousnesses of no use to us?
Well, as to his rags: filthy rags are only once spoken of in the Bible, and it is the prophet Isaiah, whose experience and whose language John Bunyan had so entirely by heart, who puts them on. And that evangelist among the prophets not only calls his own and Israel's sins filthy rags, but Isaiah is very bold, and calls their very righteousnesses by that opprobrious name.
Had that bold prophet said that all his and all his people's unrighteousnesses were filthy rags, all Israel would have subscribed to that. There was no man so brutish as not to admit that. But as long as they had any sense of truth and any self-respect, multitudes of Isaiah's first hearers and readers would resent what he so rudely said of their righteousnesses.
Mark the text, "When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered: but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it." Observer a few things from this text, and they are these that follow.
Well said Siricius of Rome of such men "Can the Holy Spirit of God dwell in other than holy bodies?" No wonder that such a one as Synesius grovels at the feet of Orestes' mistress! 'Then she is profligate? asked Philammon. 'She must be. Has a heathen faith and grace? And without faith and grace, are not all our righteousnesses as filthy rags? What says St. Paul?
He comes out of his closet after all night in it with his psalm-book wrung to pulp, and with all his righteousnesses torn to filthy rags; till all men escape Mr. Wet-eyes' society all men except Mr. Desires-awake. I will go out on your errand now, said Mr. Desires-awake, if you will send Mr. Wet-eyes with me.
Daniel also, when he comes to plead for himself and his people, he first casts away his and their righteousness, saying, "For we do not present out supplications before thee for our righteousnesses."
The meaning of the man who sat at the feast without a wedding garment seems to have been, "I am my own master, and I shall work my own way to heaven:" the meaning of the men who meekly wore it was, "We are not our own; we are bought with a price; our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, but the Lord is our righteousness."
"Then will God look down upon the stiff-necked and rebellious people, whom long centuries of chastisement could not subdue, and lo! a remnant, broken-hearted and contrite, humbly confessing that 'all their righteousnesses are as filthy rags, that they are all fading as a leaf, and that their iniquities, like the wind, have carried them away. They long for the personal interposition of God their Father, and cry, 'Oh that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldst come down! They are ready at last, for their Messiah.
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