Imagine you are sitting in a prayer meeting and you hear someone pray, “God, you are a righteous judge. Would you judge me according to my righteousness? In the past, you have dealt with me according to my righteousness; would you do it again?” What is your guttural reaction? I imagine some of you are feeling a little uncomfortable and wondering if the pastor will go and set the person straight. After all, we have no righteousness to plead before God; we only have the righteousness of Christ. Yet, this is exactly what David says in the Psalms.¹

Sometimes I think we allow our fear of popish doctrine to harm our biblical practice. We are so afraid of accidentally falling into Catholic heresy that we give up the benefits of a proper biblical approach to God. Don’t misunderstand me, we definitely don’t want to touch the heresy of Rome with a forty-foot barge pole. However, there is also something we want to keep in our grasp.

We need to understand that biblically there is grounds to come before God based off what we have or haven’t done. When David says, “Judge me according to my righteousness”, he doesn’t mean, “Judge me according to Christ’s righteousness.” David believes he has acted innocently and is being attacked without cause. Therefore, he asks God to act on his behalf because he is being attacked unjustly or unfairly.

We do need to pause for a second here. It is essential that we realize that the reason David can pray this is that he knows his actual sin and sinfulness are forgiven by the mercy of God alone. It is because David knows that God has accepted him in the Savior that he can now approach God with his own righteousness and integrity in a specific issue. David is not claiming anything meritorious or salvific in himself. He is simply laying out what he believes to be true before God.

There is a place for believers to declare their innocence in a matter and ask God to act on their behalf. This is a freeing reality. All too often, we can fall into the trap of thinking that our sinfulness means we can never declare innocence; that in everything that happens, we must find some filthy sin at the bottom of it. Biblically, this is not the case.

We should feel encouraged by the Scriptures to go to God, the righteous judge, and plead our case before Him. He sees and knows all things. Man may be impressed by false humility, but before God it counts for nothing. Lay out your case and let the judge of all the earth do what is right.

1. Psalm 7 & 18 ↩︎