Breastplate of Righteousness

The breastplate covered the vital organs, the heart and the chest, the seat of life itself, and Paul's placing of righteousness there is deliberate: nothing strikes more directly at the believer's confidence than an accusation against the heart, a suggestion that he is not truly acceptable before God. But the righteousness that guards the Body of Christ in this dispensation of grace is not a righteousness built up through law-keeping, circumcision, or the ordinances given to Israel under the kingdom program; it is, as Paul makes plain, the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe (Romans 3:22), and even more, that we are made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). This is not a righteousness that must be maintained by the believer's own performance under law, but one already reckoned, already imputed, already finished at the cross, quite apart from the kingdom righteousness required of Israel in the Gospels or the righteousness yet to be established under Messiah's earthly reign.

Because this righteousness is not our own, but Christ's own righteousness set to our account (Philippians 3:9, that I may 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), the breastplate cannot be pierced by the accuser's favorite weapon: reminding the believer of his failures and suggesting those failures unfit him for God's presence. The old man is already reckoned dead and buried with Christ (Romans 6:6), and the new standing in Christ Jesus is fixed, not fluctuating with daily performance. Where a believer under law lived with a conscience perpetually exposed, forever offering sacrifice and forever uncertain, the member of the Body of Christ wears a breastplate forged once for all at Calvary, a righteousness that does not rise and fall with sanctification's daily progress but stands complete the moment faith lays hold of Paul's gospel.

To put on this breastplate practically is to refuse the accuser's suggestion that standing before God is earned or maintained by works, and instead to rest the whole weight of one's confidence on what Christ accomplished and what grace has already reckoned. This does not remove the call to a holy walk worthy of the calling (Ephesians 4:1), for practical righteousness in conduct is always to follow; but the order matters; the breastplate that guards the heart in the evil day is the settled knowledge of a righteousness already possessed by faith, not a righteousness still being anxiously assembled by effort. The believer who has confused the two, who looks to his own performance to know whether his heart is safe, leaves that breastplate unbuckled and exposed. But the one who rests in the righteousness which is of God by faith stands protected, heart guarded, ready with the rest of the armor, to stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:13).