Men talk bravely of believing whilst whole and sound; few know it. Christ is the mystery of the Scripture; grace the mystery of Christ. Believing is the most wonderful thing in the world. Put any thing of your own to it, and you spoil it. Christ will not so much as look at it for believing. When you believe and come to Christ, you must leave behind you your own righteousness, and bring nothing but your sin: (Oh, that is hard!) leave behind all your holiness, sanctification, duties, humblings, and so on; and bring nothing but your wants [lacks] and your miseries, or else Christ is not fit for you, nor you for Christ. Christ will be a pure Redeemer and Mediator, and you must be an undone sinner, or Christ and you will never agree. It is the hardest thing in the world to take Christ alone for righteousness; that is to acknowledge Him Christ. Join anything to Him of your own, and you un-Christ Him. Thomas Willcox
The biblical teaching concerning the righteousness of Christ is that His righteousness and His righteousness alone is accepted before God. The only way for a person to obtain that righteousness is for grace to give this to the sinner. The Gospel is of the free-grace of the sovereign God and it can only be obtained by receiving it by faith, which is not the same thing as receiving because we have come up with faith. If we receive Christ and His righteousness because we have come up with faith on our own, then we have joined something to Him and His righteousness and so our faith has become a work. If faith is a work of the human flesh, then receiving Christ by faith is to receive Christ by a work and so the Gospel is mostly grace plus one human work. Romans 11:6 is quite clear that to add a work to grace is to make “grace no longer grace.”
For grace to be grace it must be grace and grace alone. For grace to be grace it cannot be given to sinners who do one work or many, but instead it must be given by a sovereign God who gives according to His will and not according to the will of sinners or a work or works of sinners. The worst of sinners who obtains a free-grace is counted righteous in Christ while the best of men who trust in anything of themselves are counted as having no righteousness at all. Oh how sinners need to examine themselves and their hearts to see what they go to God on the basis of. When a sinner tries to add one work or any element of his own righteousness that sinner shows Christ not to be a complete and perfect Redeemer or Messiah. Sinners should and must flee from anything they have done or can do as the worst of poisons and seek Christ alone by His grace alone. How sinners (believing and unbelieving alike) should flee from any hint or taint of self-righteousness and look to the righteousness of Christ alone.
The Gospel is of free and sovereign grace and sinners have a great reason to look to that. Christ came to save the vile and the worthless, so real sinners have hope in grace alone. All those who are outwardly righteousness in their own eyes are disqualified because they are in reality the worst of sinners who would trust in their own righteousness as if it is superior to that of Christ. What a wicked act it is for a sinner to trust in his own righteousness rather than to look to grace alone for righteousness, yet that is precisely what is taught to so many in evangelism and to those who want to grow in the faith. It is and will always be Christ and Christ alone and grace and grace alone as opposed to anything the sinner can do.
Oh how sinners must be instructed and pled with to examine their hearts to see how much of self, pride, and self-righteousness they are trusting in. How sinners must know that this self-righteousness is sneaky and hides behind pride and self. A proud person who is orthodox will refuse to think that s/he is trusting in self-righteousness because that is not orthodox, but that person may be trusting in his or her belief in orthodoxy rather than Christ alone. Poor sinners who are true believers and God has opened their eyes to see the depths of their own hearts may not recognize that this is a mercy of God to push them to glory in free grace and His perfect gift of righteousness in Christ. It is a glorious thing for sinners to recognize and see themselves as completely undone if this drives them to stop resting and trusting in self and anything else in or about self. It is a glorious thing when believing sinners are delivered from a vile self-righteousness that has been hidden under the cloak of sanctification and God opens their eyes to show them how utterly undone they are but then shows them the perfect righteousness of Christ that He gives by grace alone. Oh sinner, look to Christ and not to yourself, your repenting, your works, or your believing. Look to Christ and ask God to give you grace for the sake of His name because there is nothing in you worth saving your for. Don’t un-Christ the Lord Jesus, bow in utter nothingness and being completely undone look to Him, His righteousness, and His grace. There is nothing else.
God Loves... Himself 
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