FOUNDATIONAL TRUTH
RIGHTEOUSNESS God’s righteousness means that God always acts in accordance with what is right and that He Himself is the final standard of what is right. 1 For man to be right before God, his sins must be forgiven. When Abraham believed God, he had faith in God’s promises; thereby, God imputed righ- teousness to Abraham’s account. His sin was removed; and God granted him righteousness based on Jesus’ sacrificial death, which paid the debt man owed. Righteousness through faith precedes the Mosaic law, which under- scores salvation through faith alone, not by doing the law. Salvation is and has always been by faith alone. “Scripture is clear that because Adam’s sin has corrupted every man, ‘none is righteous, no, not one’ (Rom. 3:10; cf. Ps. 14:1–3). But it is also clear that Jesus Christ lived a perfectly righteous life and died for our sins in order to free us from our punishment and credit us with His own righteousness—the righteousness of God (see 1 Cor. 1:30 and 2 Cor. 5:21). This is the gospel.” 2
4. According to the Bible, how are you able to live in a right relationship with God and others? What would you tell someone who thought they could be righteous by “doing righteous things”?
DAY 2
God Makes a Covenant with Israel
Fulfilling God’s prophecy, Abraham’s offspring became the nation of Israel and were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years. During that time, God multiplied His descendants, heard their cries, and delivered them from bondage through Moses (Ex. 1–12). That deliverance from Egypt, through the Red Sea, is called the great exodus . God’s presence accompanied Israel on the way to the promised land as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Ex. 13:21–22). And along the way, God gave Israel the law through Moses (Ex. 20–23), which is known as the Mosaic covenant.
1 Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 204. 2 https://www.challies.com/resources/the-essential-righteousness/
8 | Lesson 1
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