In the beginning, God had given Adam (mankind) everything freely in the garden, including the Tree of Life (eternal life). But man chose to try to do works to become like God by eating from the tree of knowledge of good/evil. God then barred access to the tree of life because man wanted to become righteous by works which was impossible (Genesis 2-3).

God could not give the free gift until man realized that they cannot attain it by their works. This is why God gave the law to show mankind that nobody is righteous like God and to make people conscious of sin (Romans 3:10-20).

The righteousness/holiness of God is His unconditional love. God is love and therefore His righteousness is love.

The law may have had 613 commands but the entire law was summed up in this one command of loving everyone (Leviticus 19:18, Romans 13:10, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8-10)

Nobody was righteous because no man could be as perfectly loving as God.

Jesus explained that nobody else had fulfilled the law therefore He came to do it. The righteousness of God is divine perfection and love even for enemies. It was sinless perfection (Matthew 5:1-48).

Jesus alone fulfilled the law in His life and He learned obedience to the law by suffering on the cross.

His obedience fulfilled the law and abolished it on the cross (Ephesians 2:10-14, Colossians 2:13-14)

God gave the law to show that no man could be as loving as God. He also gave the law to show that only Jesus is perfectly righteous (loving) as God.

By Christ’s obedience, He ended the law to make us righteous freely by faith.

Romans 5 “¹⁸ Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. ¹⁹ For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”

Romans 10 ” ⁴ Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.”

Everyone who believes in Jesus is forgiven all sins and made righteous by Christ’s obedience to the law.

When we realize that we are not loving/righteous as Jesus/God then we can receive the Righteousness of God by faith.

By faith, we received God’s kingdom and righteousness!

Colossians 1 ” ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

In God’s kingdom we have the forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus.

The forgiveness of sins means that our sins (breaking the law of not loving) has been removed.

We received God’s righteousness – God sees us perfectly sinless because we believe in Jesus.

To be righteous by faith means that we have received God Himself.

Luke 15 “³¹ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours”

Genesis 15 “I(God) am your great reward”

God is Righteous, Sinless, Holy, Perfect love.

The believer has received everything that God has. He gave us Himself.

We have God’s Righteousness that could never be attained by our works but we received the FREE GIFT by faith in Jesus.

We have God’s kingdom and Righteousness by faith in Jesus and not works!

We are complete in Christ and God does not command us to become like Jesus.

God does not command any works of law to us. He does not command us to be loving like Jesus because He already made us righteous and sinless by faith by grace!!

We are not trying to be like Jesus under law but we are already sinless like God/Jesus by faith under grace!