Morality can never make you righteous, but righteousness will make you moral.
You cannot counterfeit morality for righteousness. Would a man give plastic roses to his wife for their anniversary as a sign of his love or real ones? Refined morality is as cold as ice.
Morality is the effect or righteousness, not the cause. It is fine adorning attribute; in fact, God demands excellent morals. Moral rectitude can keep you from indecent exposure in public, flirting with a married spouse, over-dubbing social dialogues, or from causing a rude embarrassment to your family. However, morality can never make you righteous. [1]
Without submitting by faith to Christ and without being led by his Spirit, we cannot achieve righteous standing before God. In Christ’s day, the Pharisees thought obedience to a self-regulated rule of moral law would offer sufficient righteousness before God: “For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” (Rom 10:3) The problem with this is that our self-prescribed righteousness is muddied with our agenda because we all have and all will sin against the glory of God, thus our need to rely on God to help us overcome daily. (Rom 3:23-27; Isa 64.4,6)
Righteousness is a gift we can only receive by faith in Christ. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”(2 Cor 5:21) When we exercise faith in Christ, His righteousness becomes imputed to us, as Paul notes, “so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” (Rom 5:18-19)
The only hope of being found right-doing with God is to “…be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own…but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him” (Phil 3:9-10)
The words are clear, righteousness is not the effect of moral behaviour, but rather it is dependent on faith, when we know Christ, enjoying a personal walk with Him. By abiding in Him, we can with sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, discern and “…approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” (Phil 1:10-11 ESV) Right living reveals a moral life when you live by His principles of love.
In the parable of the wedding garment, we find a man of moral confidence, who wears his best citizen’s suit to the king’s wedding feast, instead of the wedding garment provided by the king, metaphoric of Christ’s offered righteousness. The man was condemned for his self-sufficient righteousness. (Matt 22:1-4)
The parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector is another example of the emptiness of refined moral behaviour. The Pharisee lived by a prescribed checklist of rules and adjudged himself as righteous. Self-righteousness is no substitute for Christ’s righteousness when imputed to a man’s record. The tax collector was a sinner yet he obtained acquittal of all his sins. His faith, evidenced by his humble confession, before God, brought the verdict — justified, a theological term meaning forgiven. The man stood clothed in the glory of Christ’s righteousness. (see Luke 18:9-14)
Morality alone without Christ will not make you righteous. It is a dangerous delusion that bars you from true spirituality. (See Gal 2:21) Thomas Mertin noted in the New Seeds of Contemplation:
“it is more than just a moral union or an agreement of hearts. The union of the Christian and Christ is not just a similarity of inclination and feeling, a mutual consent of minds and wills…it is a mystical union in which Christ himself becomes the source and principle of divine life in me.”
Our righteousness is a gift through our faith in Jesus Christ. Christ is our righteousness, as He displays His glory in a Spirit-led life. “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe”. (Rom 3:22)
[1] Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics have helped many form a life of good conduct, of renowned civic character. Thomas Aquinas and many church fathers have been influenced and perhaps some misled by an over-appreciation of Aristotle.