RIGHTEOUSNESS

John Bunyan:

“But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes [matters or sins] on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and I thought withal, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, as my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, He lacks my righteousness, for that [my righteousness] was just before him.  I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet was my bad frame that [which] made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness – Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, 35-36)