Dressed in His Righteousness Alone?

Note: After I finished writing this post, I realized how much I'm indebted to Michael Gorman and his idea of "cruciformity" that he develops in his book Cruciformity and subsequent books of his that build on the essential foundation laid in that work.  Specifically, Gorman argues convincingly from Scripture that the obedience of Jesus to the point of death on a cross (Philippians 2:8) is the ultimate demonstration of faith in/faithfulness to God, which then becomes the pattern of all human faith in/faithfulness to God.  To say it another way, it has always been God's intention from the beginning that the cruciform shape of Christ's story would become the cruciform shape of the story of all who follow Him.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,

Oh, may I then in him be found,

Dressed in his righteousness alone,

Faultless to stand before the throne.

In the final stanza of this beloved evangelical hymn written by Edward Mote, a song that multitudes hold precious and love to sing (myself included), I recently found myself asking: what is the biblical basis for the line "Dressed in his righteousness alone"?

In the context of the second coming of Jesus Christ, where in the Bible does it say that we will be dressed in the righteousness of Christ, leave alone the righteousness of Christ alone?

One brother I asked told me the only passage he could think of to biblically substantiate that line is from Philippians 3:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through Christ's faithfulness, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
Philippians 3:8–9

In truth, this passage was my first thought as well.

But, upon honest examination, the context of this passage has nothing to do with the second coming of Christ.

Furthermore, Paul doesn't say anything about the righteousness of Christ being what he is found in.  He speaks of being found in Christ Himself, not in Christ's righteousness per se.

Paul contrasts a righteousness of His own that comes from the law (which he rejects) with a righteousness of God that depends on faith (which he embraces).  I would argue that he then goes on to further describe the latter in verses 10-11: "that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

Rather than a righteousness that is shaped by the Mosaic Law and is produced by Paul, it's a righteousness that is shaped by the cruciform faithfulness of Jesus Christ (the first mention of "pistis" in Philippians 3:9 I take Christ to be the subject: Christ's faith/faithfulness) in His death and resurrection and thus finds it's origin in God—a righteousness that Paul himself participates in as Paul in union with Christ enters into an experience of suffering and death that bears fruit in resurrection.

The important thing to note here is that it's a righteousness that characterizes Paul's life through his faith relationship (the second mention of "pistis" in Philippians 3:9 I take Paul to be the subject: Paul's faith/faithfulness) with the crucified and risen Jesus as Paul's life takes the cruciform shape of Jesus' life, not simply a righteousness of Christ that Paul is clothed in/covered with.

This gives me reason to doubt the biblical validity of the line penned by Mote: "dressed in His righteousness alone."

But there is another passage that gives me even more reason to doubt because it speaks of a righteousness that saints are covered with and does so in the context of the second coming, but it is not the righteousness of Christ:

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
Revelation 19:6–8

This passage is crystal clear.  What is the fine linen that the Bride is clothed with on this final day of the marriage supper of the Lamb?  She's dressed in her own righteous deeds.  Not the righteousness of Christ.  It's by walking in these righteous deeds that she has been preparing herself for this climactic day (note that the Bride has made herself ready, Revelation 19:7) .

There's an interesting passage in Titus 2:1-10 where Paul instructs Titus about the kind of conduct that accords with sound doctrine.  He tells Titus how to instruct different groups within the church to conduct themselves in a way that accords with sound doctrine: older men, older women, younger women, younger men, and bondservants.  And in his instructions for bondservants he caps off this section about conduct that accords with sound doctrine by saying that the goal is to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior (Titus 2:10).  A bride adorns herself for her wedding in preparation to be united to her husband (Revelation 21:2).  In the wider context of Titus, believers don't just hold to sound doctrine; they adorn themselves with the good works (Titus 2:7, 14; 3:1, 8, 14) that accord with the sound doctrine they confess and proclaim.  They dress themselves up with righteous deeds, the very word picture John utilizes in Revelation 19:6-8. 

The passage in Revelation 19 is the fulfillment of a prophecy in Isaiah 61:

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.
Isaiah 61:10–11

He has covered me with the robe of righteousness.  Is this the righteousness of Christ?

A few verses earlier in Isaiah 61:8, God is rejoicing in the justice He sees in the midst of His people with the absence of robbery and wrong.  In context, His people had previously been characterized by injustice and robbery and wrong (Ezekiel 22:29, Isaiah 58:1-4, Isaiah 59:1-15, Romans 3:15).  But they are no longer characterized by injustice and robbery and wrong.  Why?  Because God sent forth Christ Jesus to demonstrate cruciform faithfulness to God in His life, death, and resurrection in a way that Israel had failed to do (Ezekiel 22:30, Isaiah 59:16-17, Romans 3:21-25).  And by virtue of being united to Christ via a faith relationship (Romans 3:26) in which the Holy Spirit empowers them to imitate Christ, God creates a people who are characterized by justice and righteousness.  God creates a people who are characterized by the same pattern of self-sacrificial death and resurrection that characterizes His chosen Christ.  Which is all to say, God creates a people who are characterized by righteous deeds or good works.  And it is these righteous deeds or good works that God's people are covered in or adorned with, a manifest righteousness that the kings of the earth and the nations will see as a light that reflects what God is really like so that all might come to the mountain of the Lord (Isaiah 2:1-5).  This was the purpose God created the nation of Israel to fulfill from the beginning but which they failed in until the Servant of Israel would come to make sure that Israel's mission wouldn't abort (Isaiah 42:1-6, Isaiah 49:1-7).

When it's all said and done and we shine like the sun in the kingdom of our father (Matthew 13:43), it's not the righteousness of Christ per se that we will be covered with in the sense of a righteousness that Christ accomplished apart from anything we do.  We will be covered with a righteousness that is composed of the good works or righteous deeds that we ourselves actually do, but only as enabled and empowered by the Spirit of Christ who dwells in us, the Spirit apart from which we can do no good works or righteous deeds.

The first two lines of that last stanza by Mote are spot on:

When He shall come with trumpet sound,

Oh, may I then in him be found,

But let's not undersell what it means to be "in him."  To be "in Him" means that "it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20).  And if He lives in me, then you better believe I will be walking in good works because that's what resurrection power produces.  And the mystery of mysteries is that though I'm dead and He lives, it is still I who live in the flesh.  So they really are my good works that I'm dressed with but they are never apart from Christ.

So, now, what about that third line? When He comes one day with trumpet sound, will we be dressed in His righteousness alone?

Well, if we truly are found in Christ, it couldn't be any other way.  When it's all said and done, if we are found in Him, we will most certainly be dressed in His righteousness alone.  But it will not be the imputed righteousness of Christ that alone covers us; it will be the imparted righteousness of Christ that alone covers us.

If that is what you mean by singing about being "dressed in His righteousness alone", then there appears to be much biblical evidence for that confession.  And so, by all means, please keep on singing that line with all your might.