All your toiling to do better and to obey the law, will do no good; for it is not your righteousness that is called for; it is God’s righteousness. It is not your righteousness that is demanded by the law; it is God’s. It is not your righteousness that will be accepted by the law; it is God’s righteousness alone that will be accepted. It matters not how hard you try, nor how much you do, the law will never witness to your righteousness; the law will witness only to the righteousness of God. --A. T. Jones
"But to be forgiven is to be made righteous. Forgiveness is not an imaginary thing, but is real. If I forgive a fellow man, it makes no difference in him; the effect is only upon him. But when God forgives us, He continues the same, but the forgiveness effects a change in us. It takes away the sin. But when sin is taken away, righteousness must take its place. A new life—the righteous life of Christ—is given in place of the old life of sin." Ellet J. Waggoner
"When God calls a man a sinner, he is a sinner; and when He calls a man righteous, he is righteous in reality, as much so as if he had never sinned. There is no virtue in mere intellectual assent. God never declares a person righteous simply because he makes an acknowledgment of the truth. And there is an actual, literal change from the state of sin to righteousness, which justifies God in making the declaration." Ellet J. Waggoner
"The statement is that whoever abides in Christ brings forth much fruit; while separate from Him we can do nothing. Doing nothing is made equivalent to not bearing fruit. So then bearing fruit in the vine is identical with doing something. There is nothing more passive than the bearing of fruit; and yet there is nothing in which more intense activity is shown than in a fruitful vine or tree. The tree can do nothing to make itself bear fruit, yet the bearing of fruit is a period of activity." Ellet J. Waggoner
"God does not propose to try to bring goodness out of evil, and He never will call evil good. What He proposes to do is to create a new heart in man, so that good can come from it. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10)." Ellet J. Waggoner
With the 1888 Message Dynamic
Lesson 2: “Jew and Gentile”