John MacArthur said – Imputed righteousness makes practical righteousness possible, but only obedience to the Lord makes practical righteousness a reality.
Paul gloried in his imputed righteousness, which only God’s saving grace can bestow. But he did not presume on it as many believers throughout the history of the church have done. Christians who say that it doesn’t really matter how they think or talk or act, because all sins—past, present, and future—are covered by Christ’s blood, reflect this presumption and vulnerability to the enemy. It is this irrational and unscriptural argument that Paul counters in Romans 6. “Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? … Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (vv. 1–2, 11–13). Jesus died to save us from every aspect of sin, its presence as well as its power and penalty.
To put on the breastplate of righteousness is to live in daily, moment–by–moment obedience to our heavenly Father. This part of God’s armor is holy living, for which God supplies the standard and the power but for which we must supply the willingness. God Himself puts on our imputed righteousness, but we must put on our practical righteousness.
First – Not to be armored with the breastplate of righteousness will cost the Christian his joy. John’s first epistle contains many warnings and commands to believers, and these are given—along with the other truths of the letter—“so that our joy may be made complete” (1 John 1:4). In other words, lack of obedience brings lack of joy. The only joyful Christian is the obedient Christian.
Many, if not most, of the emotional and relational problems Christians experience are caused by lack of personal holiness. Many of our disappointments and discouragements do not come from circumstances or from other people but from our own unconfessed and uncleansed sin. And when circumstances and other people do manage to rob us of happiness, it is because we are unprotected by the armor of a holy life. In either case the cause of unhappiness is our own sin. After David committed adultery with Bathsheba and ordered the death of her husband, Uriah, he had no peace. That is why his great psalm of penitence for those sins includes the plea, “Restore to me the joy of Thy salvation” (Ps. 51:12). Unholy living does not rob us of salvation, but it robs us of salvation’s joy.
The church today is often guilty of supplying believers with the paper armor of good advice, programs, activities, techniques, and methods—when what they need is godly armor of holy living. No program, method, or technique can bring wholeness and happiness to the believer who is unwilling to confront and forsake his sin.
Second, failure to be armed with practical righteousness will cause fruitlessness. The disobedient Christian is unproductive in the things of the Lord. Whatever accomplishments he may seem to achieve will be sham, hollow hulls that have no spiritual fruit inside.
Third, unholy living brings loss of reward. Whatever the worldly, fleshly believer does will never amount to anything worthy of heavenly praise. It is no more than wood, hay, or straw in God’s sight, and when he faces the Lord his worthless work will be burned up and his reward forfeited (1 Cor. 3:12–15).
Fourth, unholy living brings reproach on God’s glory. The greatest evil of a Christian’s sin is its reflection on his heavenly Father. Unholiness fails to “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect” (Titus 2:10).
“Beloved,” Peter implores, “I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul” (1 Pet. 2:11). Fleshly lusts and every other form of sin are part of Satan’s arsenal with which he wages war against our very souls. Our armor must therefore include the breastplate of righteousness, the genuine holiness of the genuine Christian whose “every thought [is] captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5) and whose mind is set “on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col. 3:2). “The night is almost gone,” Paul says, “and the day is at hand. Let us therefore lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. … Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts” (Rom. 13:12, 14).
Many Christians are so sad and are just like the world around them. They do not walk in the joy of the Lord because they are not willing to give up and give into the Lord of life – Jesus Christ. Turning from the sin and completely stopping it (this may mean specific action must be taken)- that which so easily pulls us down – is the key to the Joy that God wants me and you to have. Did He not say – I have come to give you life and life more abundantly? But He did not say – that you can, at the same time – keep your sin. I must remember to walk in Holiness and submit to my Father who is in Heaven.