Here are two verses, both by St. Paul, both from his letter to the Romans. I want to see if you can spot the difficulty.

There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.
‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬-‭12‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭7‬-‭8‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Do you spot the tension here? In the latter passage, the Apostle mentions that there are righteous men, and good men. But in the former, he has already asserted—with a chain of citations from the Old Testament—that: There is none righteous, no, not one; and, There is none who does good, no, not one.

How then can Paul turn right around and speak of righteous men and good men; when he’s already rather forcefully stated that there aren’t any?

I’m going to give the TL;DR up front, then explain it below. When the Bible speaks of a person as righteous, it means either a) civic righteousness; or b) righteous by faith. The second kind will save you. The first kind will not.

The answer to that question lies in understanding the concept of the two Kingdoms. There is the Kingdom of Heaven, and then there’s the Kingdom of this world. Augustine distinguished them as the City of God, and the City of Man.

This doctrine of two Kingdoms—one heavenly and one earthly—is established by passages like John 18:36, where Jesus tells Pilate: My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here (NKJV).

Jesus made a distinction between His heavenly Kingdom, and the earthly kingdom Pilate represented. To be sure, this distinction will not remain forever. For example, in Revelation 11:15, we read that a day is coming when it will be said: The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever! (NKJV) But that glorious Day has not yet dawned. Until it does, even the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven must live as sojourners in the Kingdom of the world.

Now, from this important distinction arises a brute fact: What is rightly called righteousness and goodness in the Kingdom of this world is not the same as the righteousness of the Kingdom of Heaven.

What I mean is, an unbeliever is not the same as an outlaw. An unbeliever may live a quiet life, not harming his neighbors, conforming to the laws and customs of his city, and be called righteous. He is not notoriously good or notoriously wicked. He’s just regular folk, as we might say in my native Alabama.

Likewise, even Christians have historically known of virtuous pagans. An atheist could provide heroic service—and some do. A nonbeliever could be virtuous, upright, a pillar in the community, a loving husband and father. And you could rightly say, in the Kingdom of the world, in the City of Man: This is a good man.

In the City of Man, being righteous would simply mean you couldn’t be convicted of anything in a court of law. You’re not a criminal. You’re a “law-abiding citizen.” And being good means that you might be the kind of person they might name the wing of a hospital after.

This kind of righteousness is civic and social righteousness. If you think of this distinction between the Kingdom of Heaven—our vertical relationship with God; and the Kingdom of the world—how we interact horizontally with other people, with animals, and with our surroundings—then you begin to see what is meant by a civic or social righteousness.

That’s the kind of righteousness to which St. Paul was referring in Romans 5:7. It’s perhaps also the sort of righteousness used to describe Joseph’s reaction to finding out Mary was pregnant not by him: Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her. So he decided to divorce her privately (Matthew 1:19 EHV). In other words, Joseph was a decent chap who didn’t want to humiliate Mary.

This is a kind of righteousness anyone could muster up. It’s really just being a law-abiding citizen with a modicum of what St. Paul calls natural affection (Romans 1:31 KJV), and what we might call common decency.

And pretty much anybody—Christian or not—could easily lay claim to that sort of righteousness, simply by not killing, raping, or robbing anyone. It’s not that difficult.

Jesus spoke of this kind of righteousness, and likewise found it not very impressive: If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matthew‬ ‭7‬:‭11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬) Literally, He said: Even you rascals don’t feed your kids rocks and scorpions. You know how to be good to your own children, at least!

Again, righteousness in the City of Man is a pretty low bar.

But righteousness before God, the kind that would gain you a plot in the Kingdom of Heaven, the kind that God would actually count as righteousness—that’s an impossibly high standard for fallen man. And unless you want to join up with the Church of Pelagius, and deny that we’re all by nature children of wrath as it says in Ephesians 2:3, you need to confess this. Because you can’t be saved in the Pelagian Church.

That’s the sort of righteousness Paul meant when he said: There is none righteous, no, not one; and, There is none who does good, no, not one.

Child of Adam, listen here: All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a filthy cloth (Isaiah 64:6 EHV). Your best deeds on your best day, judged by God’s standard of righteousness—and what other standard matters in His Kingdom?—are a stinking, festering pile of used tampons and soiled diapers.

Tell me, child of Adam, what does Jesus say is the first and greatest commandment in all of Scripture? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and great commandment (Matthew‬ ‭22‬:‭37‬-‭38‬ ‭NKJV‬).

Now answer honestly: Have you ever for a minute of your life ever loved God with all your heart? With all your strength? With all your mind?

If you answered, Yes, you’re either a liar, or a fool, or you lack all self-awareness.

So, let’s cut to the chase: If you can’t even obey the first and greatest commandment, what do you think the chances are you’re doing better on any of the others?

And even if you were keeping other commandments well, what would it matter if you failed at the first one? The Law of God—the standard for righteousness in His Kingdom—requires perfect, perpetual obedience at every point. This is what we read in James 2:10: For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all (NKJV‬‬).

Righteousness by the Law is kind of like a power line. So long as it’s perfectly intact, everything is fine. But if you cut it at any point, all is lost—you’re in the dark. You can’t make it work anymore.

So, how might a sinner—and that’s every last miserable one of us, Romans 3:23—be called righteous under the standard of heaven?

There is only one way, and it’s the only way anyone in Scripture—Old or New Testament—has ever been called righteous in God’s sight. And that’s through faith in Christ.

Paul explains it like this: by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin … Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law (Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭20‬, ‭28‬ ‭NKJV‬). Outside of Christ, the only thing God’s Law can do for a man is convict him and condemn him.

This was what Paul was getting at when he said by the law is the knowledge of sin. The Law can show us our sin, but it cannot remove from us the power, guilt, or damnation of sin. Thus, the Apostle says: by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified [declared righteous] in His sight.

That’s still true even you could boast, like St. Paul, that concerning the righteousness which is in the law, you were blameless (Philippians‬ ‭3‬:‭6‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). Because that would only be good civic righteousness. Outward righteousness. But God’s gaze penetrates into the secrets of a person’s heart, and sees evil that is hidden even from ourselves. God hears your inner grumblings against your duty to Him and your neighbor. He sees the lusts that you never dared to act upon—not because you are righteous, but because you’re a coward about the consequences. He sees all of your secretly selfish motivations for your outward righteousness and piety.

It doesn’t impress Him. He’s offended by it, and by you for trying to fool an all-knowing God with the tissue of lies you’ve used to pad your moral resume. There are warlords and sex workers with whom He is less displeased than you, because they don’t compound their wickedness with disingenuousness. They harbor no illusions about who they are, and they don’t expect anyone else to, either.

For all these reasons, even though Paul could boast of blameless conduct under the Ten Commandments; he still declared: Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith (Philippians‬ ‭3‬:‭8‬-‭9‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

Paul learned an important lesson, the most valuable lesson anyone could learn when coming to the Lord: Faith in Christ requires me even to repent of my own righteousness.

When it comes to thinking that I can be declared righteous by my conformity to the Law of God—even in part … even a watered-down version of the Law—St. Paul slams the door right on my fingers! He says: if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law (Galatians‬ ‭3‬:‭21‬ ‭NKJV‬). I don’t know how much plainer he could have been.

Faith in Christ means I even have to repent of my own righteousness, so that my faith rests utterly upon Christ’s righteousness. Otherwise, I become like the Jews who did not believe in Christ: For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Romans‬ ‭10‬:‭3‬-‭4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

Child of Adam, ruined and wrecked by the Fall, Jesus Christ alone is your righteousness—indeed, He is all of your virtue before God, and all of your salvation. He has become for us the wisdom from God, namely, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30 EHV). Or do you imagine you can add to Christ’s righteousness by your own? That you will add your works to His?

Let’s go back to that passage we read earlier: There is none righteous, no, not one. He was quoting from Ecclesiastes 7:20: There is surely not a righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin (EHV). That includes you. You didn’t inherit the good genes so it doesn’t apply to you.

But, you might ask, what about after I’m a Christian? Can’t I at least be a little bit righteous then?

No, you cannot—at least not in the sense of possessing any inherent righteousness, or righteousness that comes from you. Even as an old saint, an Apostle, and perhaps the greatest missionary and theologian the Church has ever known, St. Paul said: For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find (Romans‬ ‭7‬:‭18‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

He said that in the present tense. While he’s writing Scripture, as he’s suffered much for the cause of Christ and for the Gospel, the old Apostle is quite open about his struggle with indwelling sin. And he says: in me—in the natural me—nothing good dwells. Why? Because all of his righteousness and goodness is found in Christ alone, and is his as a gift, through faith.

Likewise in 1 Timothy 1:15, an even older Paul writes this to his son in the faith: This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief (NKJV). Notice again the present tense. Although he speaks of his earlier persecution of the Church and blasphemy against Christ in the past tense (vv13, 16), he still sees himself as the worst sinner he knows.

Brother Paul would not call it slander for me to say so. He would remind us all of his candid discussion about his ongoing struggles with sin in Romans 7. Likewise, he would point us to his description of the life lived in the flesh, by faith in the Son of God, in Galatians 5:17: For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish (NKJV‬‬). The fact is that the Christian life is a perpetual civil war between our fallen flesh and the Holy Spirit.

We could all cry out with St. Paul, and ought to: O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans‬ ‭7‬:‭24‬-‭25‬ ‭NKJV‬‬) The venerable old Apostle has been delivered from this body of our common deathliness, tradition has it, when he was martyred by Emperor Nero ca. A.D. 68. He has been saved to sin no more. When the final trumpet sounds, he will be raised incorruptible (1 Corinthians 15:52)—that is, no longer able to sin.

That will happen for all of us who die in Christ. I look forward to that day with hungry hope. In the meantime, I live in the shadow of the cross.

And in the meantime, I live by faith in a righteousness not my own. I am declared righteous for Christ’s sake, just like Abraham of old:

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt. But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.
‭‭Romans‬ ‭4‬:‭3‬-‭5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

What did Abraham believe, exactly? Galatians 3:8-9 answers that question: Foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, Scripture proclaimed the gospel in advance to Abraham, saying, “In you, all nations will be blessed.” So then, those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith (EHV). Abraham trusted God’s promise that a Son would be born through his line, and destroy the devil and His works (Genesis 3:15; 1 John 3:8). Abraham believed the Gospel. He had faith in the promises of God. He had faith in Christ.

And Scripture says this faith was accounted to him for righteousness. This is how Abraham was declared righteous before God, and this is how any of us will be declared righteous.

Not because we are righteous. Not because we’re becoming more righteous than we once were. But because God credits our faith in Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1), as if it were our own righteousness. According to what we have read, God justifies the ungodly. He declares the ungodly and unrighteous for the sake of Christ.

If you say: I am righteous, I am godly—then you will never be justified before God. He doesn’t justify those who would seek to justify themselves. He tells them to go to Hell (Matthew 7:21-23).

Rather, when you trust Christ alone as all of your righteousness and sanctification and redemption, as we read above; these are freely given to you, by God’s grace, in Christ. The righteousness that God imputes to believers isn’t fictitious. It’s not like when the Fed just prints off more money to cover the national debt. The perfect righteousness of Christ is credited to the believer, who is joined to Christ by faith.

That’s why Paul continually tells believers that we are in Christ. For example, we read: there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1 EHV). On what basis is there now no condemnation for the believer? Because Christ suffered our just condemnation on the Cross; and gave His own righteousness to us.

The believer declares: My beloved is mine, and I am his (Song of Solomon‬ ‭2‬:‭16‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). Christ takes what is yours and gives you what is His. He took your sin and misery, as if it were His; and gave you His perfect righteousness and holiness, as if they were yours.

This is exactly what we read in 2 Corinthians 5:21: God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (NKJV).

Are you righteous? In yourself, no. In Christ, yes. You dare not say: I am righteous. But you may boldly declare: I am righteous in Christ. This is why the Prophet Jeremiah foretold that Christ would be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (Jeremiah‬ ‭23‬:‭6‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

And so it has been since our first parents fell into sin. They tried to weave together a righteousness of their own, to cover them in the day of judgment. But those were made of fragile stuff that could not withstand the penetrating gaze of God, and would quickly wilt and burn under His fury (Genesis 3:7-8). But God, in His mercy, made tunics of skin, and clothed them (Genesis‬ ‭3‬:‭21‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). This preached to them, and to every generation after them, that God would clothe us in Christ’s perfect righteousness: For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness (Isaiah‬ ‭61‬:‭10‬ ‭NKJV‬).

Thus, when we read, for example, that: Noah was a righteous man, a man of integrity in that generation. Noah walked with God (Genesis 6:9 EHV); this means that Noah was the only one left in his generation who still believed God’s first promise: to send a Son who would destroy the Devil and his works. Incidentally, according to Genesis 5:28-29, Noah’s father Lamech had believed the first promise, too—that’s why he named his son Noah. Noah believed in Christ.

Like I’ve said before: No fallen human has ever been called righteous in the sight of God, but through faith in Christ. Hebrews 11:7 confirms this: By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith (NKJV‬‬).

How was Noah righteous? Through faith. He is called an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.

And so, here is the truth about your righteousness, Christian. Until the day you go to be with the Lord, you remain in the words of Martin Luther simul justus et peccator: “At once righteous and a sinner.” In yourself, a sinner; in Christ, righteous.

Don’t ever be ashamed of that. God only saves sinners and justifies the ungodly. Instead, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians‬ ‭1‬:‭31‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). Do not speak of your own righteousness. Christ is your sole righteousness. Glory in His righteousness, which is yours by grace through faith.

Salvation is like one of those group projects where one person does all the work, and the whole group gets the A. Jesus is the One who has done all the work. The A still goes on your report card. But you’d never dream of calling yourself an A student, or claiming it as your A, as if you had earned it. It is the same with Christ, and the righteousness that’s imputed to us in Him.