“Thy righteousness is in Heaven”

I am currently partway through writing my thesis chapter on John Bunyan (1628-88), the Bedford tinker and preacher best known for writing The Pilgrim’s Progress.

In honour of Good Friday in 2007, I posted the famous passage from The Pilgrim’s Progress in which Christian comes to the cross.

Today I’d like to share an episode from Bunyan’s spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. This is a somewhat disorienting book to read because it traces lots of ups and downs through which Bunyan struggles to believe that he is accepted by God. He reads verses which seem to offer hope, but then verses which plunge him into despair: this pattern goes on for dozens of pages.

At one point he thinks that if he was a true believer he would be able to “say to the puddles that were in the horse pads, Be dry; and to the dry places, Be you the puddles”. At another point he worries that perhaps the quota of those that that God would save in his area was already full:

After this, that other doubt did come with strength upon me, But how if the day of grace should be past and gone? how if you have over-stood the time of mercy? Now I remember that one day as I was walking into the Country, I was much in the thoughts of this, But how if the day of grace be past? and to aggravate my trouble, the Tempter presented to my mind those good people of Bedford, and suggested thus unto me, That these being converted already, they were all that God would save in those parts, & that I came too late, for these had got the blessing before I came.

One day, walking through the fields near Bedford, he has a realisation that is worth remembering on Good Friday. The wording may sound a bit archaic in places, but I hope the message comes through:

But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my Conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my Soul, Thy righteousness is in Heaven; and methought withall, I saw with the eyes of my Soul Jesus Christ at Gods right hand, there, I say, as my Righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was a doing, God could not say of me, He wants my Righteousness, for that was just before him. I also saw moreover, that it was not my good frame of Heart that made my Righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my Righteousness worse: for my Righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, Heb. 13.8.

Now did my chains fall off my Legs indeed, I was loosed from my affliction and irons, my temptations also fled away: so that from that time those dreadful Scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoycing, for the grace and love of God: So when I came home, I looked to see if I could find that Sentence, Thy Righteousness is in Heaven, but could not find such a Saying, wherefore my Heart began to sink again, onely that was brought to my remembrance, He of God is made unto us Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption; by this word I saw the other Sentence true, 1 Cor. 1.30.

For by this Scripture, I saw that the Man Christ Jesus, as he is distinct from us, as touching his bodily presence, so he is our Righteousness and Sanctification before God: here therefore I lived, for some time, very sweetly at peace with God thorow Christ; O methought Christ! Christ! there was nothing but Christ that was before my eyes: I was not now onely for looking upon this and the other benefit of Christ apart, as of his Blood, Burial, or Resurrection, but considered him as whole Christ; as he in whom all these, and all his other Vertues, Relations, Offices, and Operations met together, and that on the right hand of God in Heaven.

'Twas glorious to me to see his exaltation, and the worth and prevalencie of all his benefits, and that because of this; Now I could look from my self to him, and should reckon that all those Graces of God that now were green in me, were yet but like those crack'd-Groats and Four-pence-half-pennies that rich men carry in their Purses, when their Gold is in their Trunks at home: O I saw my Gold was in my Trunk at home! in Christ my Lord and Saviour! Now Christ was all; all my Wisdom, all my Righteousness, all my Sanctification, and all my Redemption.