Breastplate of Righteousness – PART 1

Ephesians 6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness.

What is the Spirit of God trying to get us to see in showing us a breastplate?  What was it used for?  It protected all the soldiers’ vital organs.  If a sword or spear went through your heart, lungs, or any other internal organs, you would die.  So, these vital organs had to be protected.  Righteousness is our defense against the enemy.  It is a defense against the wiles, devices, and schemes of the devil.  One thing that is very certain is that born-again believers who don’t know their righteousness will struggle with condemnation.  They will struggle with their identity and will try to run off the devil and his accusations by will power and by their flesh, which won’t work.  Righteousness is a position that you and I have obtained in Christ, and it is vital that you have a revelation of your righteousness, so you can stand against the works of the devil.

Your righteousness was a gift you received when you were born again.  You may not have realized it, but it was part of the new birth package.  In 2 Corinthians 5:21 it says, “For he has made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him [Christ Jesus].”  Jesus was made to be sin.  He didn’t just take your sin.  His blood didn’t just cover your sin (sin covering is old covenant).  His blood removes your sin and the guilt and shame of it.  When you become a new creation in Christ Jesus, old things are passed away.  When you were born again, you became a new man, who is righteous.  Again, you didn’t earn your righteous position; it was gifted to you in the new birth.  You got it by faith when you believed in Jesus, that He was raised from the dead.  Let’s look at Romans 5:19 which says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.”  You don’t get more righteous as you walk with God; you are as righteous as you will ever be the moment you got born again.  Adam’s sin caused us all to be born with a sin nature.  The new birth caused us to get a new nature and be made righteous. 

Let’s be very careful not to come to God trying to protect ourselves from the devil with our own righteousness.  What do I mean by that?  We are so good at starting in the spirit, or by faith, but then, trying to do it in the flesh.   We are warned in Galatians 3:3 about starting in the spirit and then, trying to be made perfect by our flesh, or our own effort.   Romans 10:3-4 says, “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes.”  To operate in our breastplate of righteousness, we must understand that it’s not the righteousness we earn in the natural that protects us because our righteousness is as filthy rags.  Jesus even warned us in John 16 that our righteousness wouldn’t get us anywhere with God, the Father, or protect us from the devil.  We can only acquire this righteousness one way, by faith in the resurrected Jesus Christ.  Philippians 3:9 says, “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”  My point to you is that this righteous position can only be obtained by faith; and it is through this righteous position that we are protected and can resist the devil in our full, complete armor.