This would only follow if:

1.It is Christ alone who can justify us.
2.It is not possible for Christ to justify us by righteousness not His own.

Christ had a righteousness of His own, because Christ is God. But Christ did not overcome by means of His own righteousness, but by the righteousness of His Father, which He received by faith. This is well explained by the A. T. Jones statement, as well as their being many similar statements in the SOP, and also the Scriptures which Jones cited.

The SOP explains many times that Christ did not overcome by His own power, but by the power of God, which He laid hold of by faith. This is the same principle that Jones is explaining.

Let's take just #2. The righteousness which justifies us is, and must be, a human righteousness - a perfect human character.

Are you saying that Jesus needed imputed righteousness from God? And/or that God's character stands in the place of Christ's character?


That's how justification works for us. Is that how you envision Jesus was justified?


He lived righteously by faith in God? Sure.

He had to have faith in someone else's righteousness to count as His own? No.


He did not come to do what we could do for ourselves. He did what we cannot. So that we can have what we do not deserve. He righteousness is given (neither earned nor duplicated) to us that we might be given (neither earned nor duplicated) life.

You made the point that Christ was not righteous by His own righteousness, then He has no righteousness to justify us. That's not a valid argument. Christ could have righteousness not His own, and justify us with that.

Regarding the human righteousness which Christ had, that was a righteousness whose source of origin was God. Christ (in His humanity) was righteous by faith.

Jesus never sinned. I think that should answer the question.



Why would this be necessary? I don't know why you're asking this. I didn't say anything along these lines.

I quoted at some length from Jones. It seems to me that should have made my point clear.



This is one statement. She wrote many statements regarding how we are justified. To take just one statement, and say that this is how we are justified isn't adequate.

Again, if you read what I wrote, and what I quoted from Jones, it should be clear what point I was making.



Nothing like this was discussed in what I either said or quoted.



Christ, in taking sinful flesh, emptied Himself, so that the will of God could be manifest in that sinful flesh. In so doing, He made it possible for us to do the same, by emptying ourselves as He emptied Himself. This was the point of Jones' sermon, was it not?



I'm not sure quite what you're saying here. I certainly agree that we deserve nothing good, either righteousness nor eternal life, if that's your point.



This is an excellent quote. I believe it's in reference to the 1888 message.



This is as well. She was reacting to Jones and Waggoner's preaching, and expressing the thought in her own words.



This is excellent as well. We see that being clothed in the apparel of Christ's righteousness involves being Christlike in character, and obedient to God's commandments.

This is a very nice collection of quotes. I particularly liked this point:



Amen to that!

I'm not speaking about the source of righteousness, but of the righteousness itself. The righteousness which justifies us, and which is our title to heaven, is a perfect life - a perfect human character. Christ formed a perfect human character, and when we are justified, His character stands in place of our character. So, Christ had a perfect character to present to God, we don't. Therefore, the sense in which He was justified cannot be the same sense in which we are justified, as Arnold correctly pointed out.

Justification isn't just pardon, since it is also - for us - regeneration, and - for Jesus - dying daily to sin in receiving the Spirit without sinning in the process (Lk 9:23). Jesus was conceived by and born with the Holy Spirit indwelling him - in that he is different to us (there are four differences: other 3 r: he is God's begotten Son; he never sinned, learning righeousness instead; he grew in grace without falling): he chose the Spirit's leading throughout his life, by believing in his Father's love and will, etc.

Receiving the Spirit from his Father, with loud crying and tears in fear of him who can save from death (Heb 5:7), he built his own righteousness despite the sinful, degenerate human flesh he'd taken deliberately to save us all from it, for he defeated & condemned sin in the flesh (Rom 8:3). That flesh, our flesh, that was itself condemned for being sinful; hence, it was the item due execution, under obligation or condemnation of death, which was nailed to the tree (Col 2:14).

Jesus was justified - received the Spirit afresh daily - exactly as we are justified by faith, but his righteous he produced himself as he walked in the Spirit, by faith.

...and, no, Tom, he couldn't give us someone's else's righteousness to save us since he alone could indeed save us by his death for sin, so only his righteousness, developed and obtained in the Devil's playground at the risk of infinite loss should he have sinned at all, was suitable for saving us. It alone was approvable by the Father, after the resurrection and meeting Mary, according to the everlasting covenant under which the Father would redeem mankind through individual faith by the graceous, redemptive action of his Son.

Only Christ could be Saviour, and only by his own righteousness forged in sinful human flesh, by faith in the power of God to save. Amen.

Dying daily to sin seems like sanctification, not justification.
Justification is pardon and regeneration, and Jesus didn't need either of them.

Because Jesus did not need pardon or regeneration, His justification was not like ours. However, there is a part of justification that He fully participated in:

Dying daily...

No, it's justification, for it is then we daily receive the Spirit, remember.

Jesus had the same daily choice we have: follow our sinful mind or opt for the Spirit (the pragmatic side of the two covenants truth). Yes, our church was unanimous on that, regarding Jesus, for 100 years.

For Jesus, daily opting perfectly for the Spirit instead of his own will (Lk 9:23), receiving the Spirit so that he could live righteously meant, by definition, that his assumed sinful mind was perfectly regenerated.

This isn't generally discussed by our scholars, but Jesus did fulfill all righteousness, after all, didn't he.