“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”~ Isa. 64:6
There seems to be a growing emphasis on man’s “righteousnesses,” rather than God’s righteousness. It has to do with the singular and the plural. In spite of the old prophet telling us that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,” we persistently pursue, flaunting both ours and others’. Daniel, one of the Bible’s godliest men prayed, “[W]e do not present our supplication before thee for our righteousnesses, but for thy great mercies.”
The Scriptures know nothing of any righteousness other than God’s inward, imputed righteousness. Any and all outward righteous acts performed by us must come as a result of His working in us. All righteous acts not originating from God are “ragged rags.”
It’s time we put the emphasis back on God’s righteousness and realize who and what we really are. The song writer got it right when he penned, “I am all unrighteousness/ False and full of sin I am/ Thou art full of truth and grace.”
In C.S. Lewis’ book Surprised by Joy, He writes a description of his heart, after God had revealed it to him: “A zoo of lust; a bedlam of ambitions; a nursery of fears; and a harem of fondled hatreds.”
"The self-righteous man sits self-governed in his own right; he is his own god."(Oswald Chambers)