FRUITS OF RIGHTEOUSNES
2 Cor. 9:10, “And increase the fruits of your righteousness.” This Scripture has been challenging my spirit for some time. I often wondered what the fruits of Righteousness were. Then I remembered the fruits of Righteousness in Jesus’ life. The fruits of Righteousness were not right actions only but they were carrying out the will of His Father, speaking the words of His Father. That meant healing the sick, feeding the multitudes, and all the other manifestations of His love toward man.
They were the fruits of Righteousness. If we are to bear the fruits of Righteousness, they will be similar to these. Jesus said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” The branch bears the same kind of fruit as the vine. It is like the vine. It is a part of the vine. Then the fruits of Righteousness in our lives will be blessing and helping folks, healing their diseases, opening the Word to them, breaking the power of the Adversary over their lives, teaching them how to live in the will of the Father, teaching them how to enjoy all the fullness of His grace, and by showing forth in our daily walk a fearless fellowship with the Father, a fearless attitude toward the Adversary and all his works, a fearless mastery over circumstances.
That would be bearing fruit. That would be bearing “righteousness fruit.” This is something utterly new to most of us. We know about the fruits of love and the fruits of faith. We know the fruits of knowledge, but we know little of the fruits of Righteousness.
Righteousness here means the ability to stand in the Father’s presence without the sense of guilt or inferiority.
Fearless Faith
What mighty things could be wrought if men were conscious of their Righteousness !
How fearless they would be in the presence of disease and sickness! Jesus’ entire public ministry was the fruit of His Righteousness. He was not afraid of the Father, of Satan, of malignant diseases, or even of death. He had no fear in the presence of storms that filled other men’s hearts with terror. He was not only fearless, but He was Master. A man said to me, “If I knew that I was what the Word says I am, I could shake the world.”
But- he had never learned to believe the Word. He would believe the Word if it said that he was unworthy or if it said that lie was of no value, poor, weak and faithless. He would believe that, for it had become a part of his consciousness. He could not grasp the fact that God could recreate him and make him Righteous. One said, “If I did not have a Sin Consciousness, I would have faith. If I had faith, I would get up from this bed perfectly healed.” Sin Consciousness had gained the mastery.
He was a Christian. He would tell you that he believed his sins had been pardoned and that he was justified. Some would even go farther and say, “I have received the Holy Spirit and have spoken in tongues.” Yet they too are dominated by Sin Consciousness. Why? Because the Word has never become a reality to them. Here and there a part of the Word is real, but the great body of truth in regard to themselves is still unexplored territory.
God’s Problem
The problem is this: Was God able to produce a Redemption that would redeem man from the hand of the Adversary, recreate him, make him a New Creation, and remit all that he had ever done ? Could God take the sin nature out of man and in its place give him His own nature so that he could stand before Him without any Sin Consciousness, without the sense of guilt or inferiority? Yes, He could and did provide a Redemption like that. The Pauline Revelation is the unveiling of that Redemption.
We do not find that unveiling in the four Gospels, or the book of Acts. It is only in Paul’s Revelation. In that Revelation he tells us he is going to prove to the world that Righteousness has at last become available through faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Redeemer. He climaxes it by declaring, “That God might be righteous, and the righteousness of him that hath faith in Jesus.” When God becomes our Righteousness, we become so Righteous that there is “therefore now no condemnation” to us.
No one can bring a charge against us for it is God who has declared us Righteous.
The amazing fact of the New Creation is that the instant we become a New Creation, the thing that kept us in weakness and bondage, unable to stand in God’s presence, has been wiped out. In the place of our sin and our union with Satan has come union with God. Eternal Life, a new nature, and a new standing before God has come to the man who has faith in Jesus. If that is true, we can get our prayers answered, we can
use the Name of Jesus and Satan will obey us. God has made us Righteous with His Righteousness.
2 Cor. 5:21, “Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” He has cleansed us with the blood of His own Son. We can stand in the Father’s presence now as though sin had never touched us. It will be interesting to note some of the special fruits of Righteousness. We will have faith in His words in our lips, just as Jesus had faith in the words of the Father in His lips. When Jesus spoke to the sick and said, “Arise, take up thy bed and walk,” the Father had given Him those words.
We have the Father’s words in the Pauline Revelation and in the four Gospels.
Those words are for us to use. We can say to the sick, In the Name of Jesus Christ, come out of him,” and the demon will obey because they are the Father’s words spoken in our lips. Did not Christ say, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father.” We can say, “By His stripes we are healed,” and know that the Father will make it good. We will have faith in the Father’s words in our lips. We will have faith in the name of Jesus in our lips.
We Are Masters
There will be a fearlessness in the presence of need and want. We are the Righteousness of God in Christ. The fruits of that Righteousness will be healing the sick, and breaking Satan’s dominion over men. It will be the ability to unfold the Word.
The moment we become the Righteousness of God, the Spirit becomes our teacher, the Word becomes our food and our education. We should be studying the Word, poring over it. The Spirit will illuminate it and make it a living thing in our lips and in our hearts.
We will no longer be afraid of God, because we will realize that He is our Father. We will go to Him with a sense of joy and rest in His presence. It will be as natural for us to go to Him as it is for a son to go to his father.
We will find a freedom in prayer that we have never known because we will be taking our place. We will say, “Father, we thank thee that we have a right to come into your presence, and we know that thou art pleased to have us come.” We will have faith in our own faith. We will believe that the love which has been imparted to us by the nature of God will conquer and overcome.
That love in us will be like love in Jesus. It will gain the mastery over the masses.
We will believe in the love that is in us, that it is stronger than any force that can come against us. We will have faith in humanity, that it will respond to the appeal of love, and that we will see the fruitage from our ministry. We will have faith in 1 Cor. 1:30, that God has made Jesus to be our wisdom and that we have in us God’s wisdom. Jesus Himself is in us as He was in Paul. We will know that He is not only our wisdom, but that He is also our Righteousness.
“But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.” He was made unto us Righteousness. We know of course that we are the Righteousness of God in Him.
He is now our standing with the Father. We need have no sense of guilt, no need to continually pray for forgiveness. We should have no sense of sin because He is our Righteousness and He is in us. His fullness, His ability is in us. It is all ours. He is our sanctification.
He is separating us from the things that would hinder us in our ministry, in our walk, in our joy in our usefulness. He is our Redemption from the hand of the Enemy. From this hour He is redeeming us from ignorance, failure, weakness, and from the habits that have held us in bondage. He has become all this to us through grace. We believe it.
We rejoice in it, and live in the fullness of it.
Two Kinds of Righteousness
