The Righteousness of God, the Ministry of New Covenant, and our Experience of Christ

The righteousness of God is what God is in His action with respect to justice and righteousness; our experience of Christ rests on the foundation of God’s righteousness, and the new covenant ministry ministers the Spirit into us as our supply and life for us to live in spirit and be right with God and man.

Praise the Lord for God’s righteousness becoming our righteousness to be the righteousness of the bride!

This week, we come to a particular aspect of the bride of Christ seen in Revelation 19, the righteousness of the bride. What a blessed people we are to be under the Lord’s speaking today and be prepared to be the bride of Christ!

The prophets and seeking ones of God in the Old Testament longed to hear these things and see these things, and here we are, under the ministry of the age with a clear sky, hearing and seeing these wonderful things!

The goal of the Lord’s recovery is the preparation of the bride of Christ. Many Christians today realise that we are close to the end of this age and the Lord Jesus will soon return.

But what does He come for? Will He come only to rapture all believers in Christ and then pour out God’s judgment on the earth?

The New Testament tells us that Christ returns to have a wedding; He has been longing to marry His bride and have a wedding feast. This is what is in His heart, and we need to prepare ourselves to be the bride of Christ.

The Lord is even more anxious and eager to return today, two thousand years after He ascended to the heavens. As the time draws to the end, as we see the signs of the Lord’s coming, may we be those who give the Lord our best cooperation for us to be prepared as His bride.

There is just one bride of Christ; there’s no such thing as the bride of Christ in England and the bride of Christ in the USA; there is one bride of Christ, and we all need to be blended and built together, even joined and knit together.

This bride has to grow and be brought on to maturity; Christ cannot marry an infantile bride – He wants a mature bride, a bride that is of full age, having the full stature of the measure of the fullness of Christ.

This bride has to be beautiful; today we’re in the process of being beautified to be without spot or wrinkle.

We are beautified by the washing of the water in the Word of God; as we remain under the Lord’s present speaking, we are washed, cleansed, and sanctified, and we are made one with Him to say, Come, Lord Jesus! This week, we come to the aspect of righteousness – the righteousness of the bride of Christ.

The Righteousness of God is what God is in His Action with Respect to Justice and Righteousness; our Experience of Christ Rests upon the Foundation of God’s Righteousness

What is the righteousness of God? On the one hand, God is holy; holiness is related to God’s inward nature. On the other hand, God is righteous; righteousness is related to His outward acts, ways, actions, and activities.

The righteousness of God is what God is in His action with respect to justice and righteousness (Rev. 15:3; Rom. 1:16b-17a; John 3:16; 1 John 1:9).

Everything God does is righteous.

In Revelation 15:3, when the overcomers are standing on the sea of glass, they are singing the song of Moses and declare that God’s ways are righteous and true, and His works are great and wonderful.

In Romans 1:16-17, Paul said he is not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation in everyone who believes, both to Jew first and to Greek, for the righteousness of God is revealed in it, out of faith to faith.

Have we ever realised that the gospel of God is so powerful not because of God’s love and kindness but because of God’s righteousness?

God is love, but love may change; He is full of grace, but grace may be stopped for a while. God is not obligated to love, although He does; He is not obligated to give us grace, although He gives us grace.

However, God is righteous; according to His righteousness, God is obligated to forgive us whenever we repent.

When a sinner repents, God is obligated by His righteousness to forgive him. Praise the Lord for His righteousness!

The gospel is powerful unto salvation because the righteousness of God is revealed in it. When we repent and believe into the Lord Jesus as our Saviour, God is obligated to save us.

We may sin in our Christian life, but when we repent of our sins and confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Our experience of Christ rests upon the foundation of God’s righteousness.

Not only our salvation but even our experience of Christ rests on the foundation of God’s righteousness. We need to know this and be assured of this.

If we don’t know that our salvation and experience of Christ rests on God’s righteousness, we will be swept away by the things in the world, we will not be assured of God’s salvation, and we will be like the weather, changing all the time and not being assured of God’s grace.

But when we know God’s righteousness, we will stand firm in it.

We do not live in our feelings or according to our thoughts; we do not base our experience of Christ on our condition. God’s salvation to us is altogether based on His righteousness, which is the foundation of His throne.

In order for us to grow in our Christian life and continue to experience the Lord, we need to know God’s righteousness. It’s not about our feelings. It is not about our condition.

We stand on the fact that God is righteous. If we fail, if we sin, if we are defeated, we apply 1 John 1:9, standing on the word of God, confessing our sins, and believing that God is righteous to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

We need to forget about our up and down condition and stand on the fact of God’s righteousness. The foundation is God’s righteousness, the unshakable foundation of God’s throne (Psa. 89:14).

God’s throne is upheld by His righteousness; if He is not righteous, His very throne collapses.

It has nothing to do with our thoughts, feelings, or condition; we simply repent, confess our sins, and God is righteous to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

He upholds His throne by being righteous toward us. If we see this, our entire Christian life will have a drastic change; we will no longer live in our feelings or by looking at our present condition, but we will stand on God’s righteousness. We will appeal to His righteousness.

The enemy will no longer defeat us by his accusations in our conscience; we will simply trust in God’s righteousness.

We will go on with the Lord without relying on how we feel. We simply know God’s righteousness, stand on God’s righteousness, and we will no longer be deceived or cheated by the enemy.

Oh, the enemy can defeat us and defraud us by simply accusing us and reminding us of our sins, but we can stand on God’s righteousness and defeat the enemy! Praise the Lord!

Lord Jesus, cause us to see God’s righteousness and stand on it. May we realise that God is righteous, and righteousness is the very foundation of God’s throne. Amen, Lord, may we realise that the righteousness of God is what God is in His action with respect to justice and righteousness. Praise You, God, for being righteous. You are righteous in all that You are and do. Thank You for Your righteousness, the foundation of Your throne! Hallelujah, our salvation and experience of Christ are based upon the foundation of God’s righteousness! Amen, Lord, we believe that, when we repent and confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness! Hallelujah, God is righteous in the blood of Christ and faithful in His word to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness! Amen, Lord, we believe into You, we repent, we confess our sins, and we stand on Your righteousness! Praise the Lord, the enemy is defeated and he can no longer deceive us by his accusations, for we stand on the unshakable foundation of God’s throne, the righteousness of God!

The Ministry of the New Covenant Ministers the Spirit as our Supply Inwardly for us to Live Christ as our Righteousness Outwardly

The matter of God’s righteousness is very important; we need to see it and apply it in our Christian experience.

In 2 Corinthians 3:8-9 Paul speaks of the ministry of the Spirit, which is the ministry of the new covenant; there is glory with this ministry, for it is the ministry of righteousness abounding with glory.

The new covenant ministry is not about speaking in tongues, healing, or any kind of supernatural miracles; it is the imparting of the Spirit into us as our supply inwardly to live Christ as our righteousness outwardly.

The ministry of the new covenant is the ministry of the Spirit, imparting and dispensing the Spirit into our being as our life and life supply inwardly so that we may outwardly express Christ as our righteousness. Amen!

On the one hand, this ministry is of the Spirit; on the other hand, it is of righteousness. If we want to understand what is the ministry of righteousness, we must have a proper understanding of what righteousness is.

Righteousness is a matter of being right, that is, of expressing Christ as our righteousness.

It is not merely being right in ourselves and always being on the right side in an argument; it is a matter of being right with God, with others, and with ourselves.

This is the most basic definition of righteousness. But even more, righteousness is having the Spirit being dispensed into us inwardly to be our supply so that we may express Christ as our righteousness outwardly.

Being right with God and man should issue out of our inward enjoyment and experience of the Spirit, not out of our effort to be right in everything.

This is why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15:34 that we should awake from the drunken stupor righteously and do not sin, for some are ignorant of God.

What does it mean to awake from a drunken stupor righteously? Today the whole world is in this drunken stupor; very few are right with God, right with man, right with themselves, and right with all things.

We need to become sober righteously by enjoying the supply of the Spirit inwardly so that we may express Christ as our righteousness outwardly in our daily living.

A believer in Christ who is sober righteously will be right with his wife, with his children, with his neighbours, with all the saints, with the church, and also with himself.

However, those who are not right in all these ways are in a drunken stupor. Oh Lord!

May the Lord have mercy on us today and cause us to awake from the drunken stupor righteously and enjoy the inward supply of the Spirit of life so that we may live out Christ as our righteousness outwardly!

Thank the Lord that we have a new covenant ministry, by means of which we receive the Spirit and therefore have righteousness!

We all can testify that, after coming into the church life and enjoying the Lord in His word and in the meetings of the church, we have been inwardly supplied and we sense that the Spirit is in us in a living, real, and substantial way.

When we exercise our spirit and open to the Lord, turning our heart to Him and receiving His dispensing, the Spirit in us causes us to be joyful, peaceful, and restful! Amen!

The Spirit of life is ministered into us as our life supply by the ministry of the new covenant.

When we enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit, we simply cannot argue with others, for we’re inwardly supplied to live Christ outwardly, and all things turn out to our salvation (Phil. 1:19-21).

As we experience the Spirit as our life supply, something within us restrains us when we want to argue.

We may want to blame our spouse for something or point out one of their mistakes, but deep within, we have a feeling that it’s best for us to call on the Lord and be filled with the Spirit.

Such experiences come from the Spirit as the life supply that is ministered into us through the new covenant ministry.

May we all come to the Lord again and again to enjoy the Spirit as our inward life supply, and may we be in the meetings of the church to be supplied with the rich Spirit so that we may live Christ as our righteousness outwardly!

Lord Jesus, we acknowledge that, in ourselves, we are not right with God, with man, and with things; we come to You and we open our being to You! We want to be infused with the Spirit under the new covenant ministry! Oh Lord, only when the Spirit becomes our inward life supply can we live Christ as our righteousness and be right with God and man! Save us from trying to be right with God and with man; keep us coming to You to enjoy the bountiful supply of the Spirit. Amen, Lord, may we awake from any drunken stupor righteously and not sin but be one with the Lord! Save us from being swept away by the flood of dissoluteness in the world today. Save us from having our own righteousness. Oh, Lord, we want to remain under the ministry of the new covenant so that the Spirit would be dispensed into us to be our life supply inwardly to cause us to live Christ as our righteousness outwardly! We want to heed the inner speaking of the Spirit and go along with the Spirit’s leading so that we may be right with God, right with man, and right with all things!

Read this article in the Romanian language – citiți acest articol în limba română la următorul link, Dreptatea lui Dumnezeu, slujba noului legământ și experimentarea lui Cristos de către noi.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brother James Lee in this conference, and portions from, Life-study of 2 Corinthians, pp. 236-239, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Maturity of the Bride (2025 Memorial Day Blending Conference), week 5, The Righteousness of the Bride – day 1.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – A ministry in the Lord’s image, a portion from, Life-Study of 2 Corinthians, Chapter 28.
  – God’s Righteousness as the Power of the Gospel, via, Living to Him.
  – Experiencing the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, a portion from, The Subjective Experience of the Indwelling Christ, Chapter 8, by Witness Lee.
  – 2 Corinthians (Program #35) – A New Creation in Christ Becoming God’s Righteousness (2), via, Bible study radio.
  – Righteousness, a portion from, Conclusion of the New Testament, The (Msgs. 001-020), Chapter 9, by Witness Lee.
  – Knowing the Truth concerning God’s Cleansing, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – The ministry of the Spirit and of Righteousness of the New Covenant in Contrast with the Ministry of Death and of Condemnation of the Old Covenant, a portion from, The Ministry of the New Testament and the Teaching and Fellowship of the Apostles, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee.
  – 7 Ways to Gain Christ as Your Enjoyment Every Day, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – 2 – The Ministry of the Spirit and of Righteousness (1) – From chapter two of The Ministers in the Lord’s Recovery – Genuine Ministers of the New Covenant, via, Shepherding Words.
  – Perfect Righteousness, via, New Jerusalem blog.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – O holy Father, righteous One, / Thy righteousness upholds Thy throne, / ’Tis a foundation sure. / ’Tis through this righteousness of Thine / That reigns in Christ the grace divine, / And peace we thus secure. / Thy righteousness has caused Thy Son / To die for us that we be won, / Redemption thus was bought; / Thy righteousness has justified / When Christ’s redemption was applied, / Salvation thus was wrought. (Hymns #21 stanzas 2-3)
  – O Jesus Lord, we come to Thee, / Thy presence to enjoy; / Our entrance now with boldness is, / As we Thy blood employ. / Not by our merit do we stand, / Nor in our righteousness, / Thy blood and righteousness we need; / Their worth we now confess. / Thy judgments, Lord, we must admit, / Are holy, righteous, fair. / We own our sins as crimson are, / We’ve no excuse to bear. / We’ve no argument, no plea; / No veil our sin can hide. / But, praise Thee, Lord, Thy precious blood / Is to our sin applied! (Hymns #1126 stanzas 1-2)
  – Jesus, my Savior! Thou art mine, / The Father’s gift of love divine; / All Thou hast done, and all Thou art, / Are now the portion of my heart. / Poor, feeble, wretched, as I am, / I now can glory in Thy name; / Now cleansed in Thy most precious blood / And made the righteousness of God. (Hymns #211 stanzas 1-2)