“. . . that I may win Christ, 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” (Philippians 3:8,9).

We have been looking at the song, “The Solid Rock,” and have seen that the words rehearse the many facets of our foundation rock, that on which we base our sure hope of His acceptance. Verse four has His ultimate return in view, and the standing we shall have in Him before the Father.

When He shall come with trumpet sound
O may I then in Him be found
Dressed in His righteousness alone
Faultless to stand before the throne

“For the Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (I Thessalonians 4:16,17).

Our holy God demands nothing less than absolute purity, but even “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6) in His sight. But when we enter His presence we shall have “washed [our] robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14).

As our text explains, when we are “found in Him,” our righteousness is really Christ’s, and when God the Father sees us, He sees instead Christ’s sinlessness imputed to us. This is “The Immutable Basis of a Sinner’s Hope.”

“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen” (Jude 24,25). JDM