Relationship With God Without Righteousness

The question of whether one can maintain a relationship with God while remaining unrighteous strikes at the very heart of the Reformed understanding of the gospel. Scripture is unequivocal that God is a holy and righteous Judge who cannot look upon sin with favor. As Job 4:17 asks, “Can a human being be more righteous than God, or can a man be more pure than his Maker?” This rhetorical question highlights the absolute gap between divine holiness and human depravity. Without a mediator who satisfies God’s justice, there is no access to His presence, for our own efforts to be righteous are like filthy rags. The relationship is not based on our inherent moral standing, which is always insufficient, but on the imputed righteousness of Christ.

This truth is anchored in the doctrine of imputed righteousness, which reveals that believers are made right with God not by their own obedience, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Torrey’s Topical Textbook notes that Christ “Is made to his people” the righteousness of God (1 Cor. 1:30), and that we are “made the righteousness of God, in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:21). This is the core of sola fide: justification is a forensic act where God declares the sinner righteous because Christ’s perfect obedience is credited to them. A common misconception is that this leads to lawlessness, but true faith inevitably produces a new nature that desires to live in right relationship with God. As the Tyndale House commentary on 1 John 3:9 explains, to live righteously means to live in a right relationship with God, contrasting with the false teachers who believed the spirit could be contaminated by physical behavior.

Theologically, this distinction preserves both the honor of God and the hope of the sinner. Calvin reminds us in the Institutes that we must be “impressed with fear of the Divine anger” and recognize that “without Christ God is in a manner hostile to us.” This awareness of our inability to be just with God (Job 9:2) drives us to Christ alone for divine favor. The relationship with God is therefore not a casual association with a moralist who tolerates sin, but a covenantal union with a Holy King who has forgiven us through the blood of His Son. We do not have a relationship with God despite our lack of inherent righteousness; we have it because His righteousness has been given to us. This gospel truth frees the believer from the anxiety of self-justification and anchors their identity securely in the unchanging character of Christ, who is the Lord of our righteousness (Jer. 23:6).