Breastplate of Righteousness

¹³Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. ¹⁴ Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ¹⁵ and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 

Ephesians 6:13-15

Today we’re continuing to develop our defense against the devil by learning about the breastplate of righteousness.

Meriam Webster’s Dictionary defines righteous as “acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin”.

As a children’s leader in my church, I’ve learned that a more conversational definition of righteousness is:

To do what God says is right.

Once again I am overcome by God’s perfect teaching sequence for us. The breastplate of righteousness comes after the belt of truth, and I have to think it’s because we cannot hope to attain righteousness if we do not know the truth about Who God is and who we are first.

So, Who is God?

• The Creator, Mighty and Strong (Genesis 1:1; Isaiah 45:18).
• The Most High God (Genesis 14:18; 2 Samuel 22:14).
• The Everlasting God (Genesis 21:33; Exodus 15:18).
• The Lord of Righteousness (Jeremiah 23:5-6, 33:16).
• The Lord Who Sanctifies (Leviticus 20:8; Exodus 31:13).

And, who are we?

• We are His creation, made in His image (Genesis 1:26-28).
• We are sinners, fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) .
• We are redeemable, made possible by Jesus Christ (Romans 3:24).
• We are called, according to God’s purpose (Romans 8:28-30).

You see friends, the breastplate of righteousness is not something that we can forge on our own. If it were, it would be called the breastplate of self-righteousness, and it would break the first time the devil came at us. Sure, on our best behavior, we can follow most of the rules that God has written in His Word for us most of the time, but we can’t follow them perfectly because we are all of us sinners, fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). On our own, we could never hope to be completely free from guilt or sin. On our own, we would suffer the wages of sin which is death (Romans 6:23).

But God – how precious those words are to me! – God is the Lord of Righteousness, and He has designed and delivered a perfect plan to redeem us, to make us righteous in His sight, to save us from the wages of sin and give us eternal life (Romans 5:1-11; 6:23). Because Christ carried our sin on the cross, when we believe on Him as our Lord and Savior, God stops seeing us as sinners and starts seeing us as covered in Jesus’ righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21); Jesus makes us right with God!

The breastplate of righteousness, forged by Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection, protects us against the devil’s accusations that we deserve eternal condemnation. God’s Word tells us that the devil stands before God “day and night” and informs God of our every unrighteous thought, word, and action (Revelation 12:10), but that God justifies those who believe on Jesus and that He will not change His mind no matter what the devil drags up to say about us (Romans 8:38-39).

Beloved, I don’t have to tell you that I’m not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and neither are you. Jesus is our only hope of being right with God! I am thankful for the breastplate of righteousness! I am thankful that no matter how many times I mess up, God still sees me as right with Him because of Jesus!

Now, that’s not to say that I have an excuse to go looking for trouble, but let’s save that discussion of righteousness for tomorrow. Today, let’s just thank God for Jesus, our righteousness!

To explore God’s righteousness further, check out this post:

If you missed them earlier, make sure to check out Posts 1-3 in this series:

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