How Can a Righteous God Bring Unrighteous People to Himself?

Psalm 85, Jesus as the Way, and the Great Exchange

Psalm 85 is a prayer for restoration. God had shown mercy to His people, yet the psalmist longs for Him to restore them again and make His saving presence known among them.

Near the end of the psalm, we are given a remarkable picture:

“Steadfast love and faithfulness meet;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.”

Psalm 85:10

Then:

“Righteousness will go before him
and make his footsteps a way.”

Psalm 85:13

Together, these verses raise an important question that becomes increasingly significant across Scripture: How can righteousness and peace come together when sinful people stand before a righteous God?

God is perfectly righteous. Everything He does is right, just, and consistent with His holy character. What is right is ultimately grounded in who God is, not in our judgment or changing ideas of goodness.

Yet Scripture also reveals Him as merciful, gracious, and willing to forgive.

The question is not whether these qualities conflict within God. They do not. The question is how God can forgive unrighteous people while remaining completely faithful to what is right according to His holy character.

The cross gives us the answer.

Righteousness Makes the Way

Psalm 85:13 describes righteousness going before God as He comes to restore His people.

Throughout the Old Testament, the language of a way or path often describes living according to God’s will. Psalm 23 speaks of “paths of righteousness.” Psalm 119 repeatedly connects God’s commandments with righteousness. God teaches His people His ways because we do not determine for ourselves what is right. He reveals what is right because He Himself is the standard.

God has shown us what is right, yet we repeatedly turn from His ways. Righteous living is living in right response to the God who has revealed Himself and shown us grace. We need more than a righteous path to follow; we need a remedy for our failure to walk it.

Isaiah describes us as sheep who have “turned every one to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6).

This brings the problem into focus. If God is righteous and we have turned from His ways, how can He bring us into fellowship with Himself without simply overlooking our sin?

Jesus Is More Than a Guide

Jesus’ words in John 14 are especially significant:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6

Jesus does not merely say that He knows the way or teaches the way.

He says, “I am the way.”

If our problem were only that we did not know how God wanted us to live, Jesus could simply give us better instruction. But our problem is deeper.

We have not merely failed to understand what is right. We have failed to respond rightly to the God who has revealed Himself to us. We have sinned against Him and cannot repair that guilt through better behavior afterward.

Something must therefore be done about our sin.

That is why Jesus is not merely the teacher who points toward the way back to God. He must accomplish what is necessary to bring us there.

Propitiation and the Righteousness of God

Romans 3 explains what happens at the cross.

Paul says that God presented Christ as a propitiation by His blood (Romans 3:25).

Propitiation describes Christ’s sacrifice in relation to God’s righteous judgment against sin. God’s wrath is not uncontrolled anger. It is His holy opposition to everything contrary to His good and righteous character.

At the cross, God does not ignore sin.

Christ bears its judgment.

Paul says this demonstrates God’s righteousness so that He can be both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

That statement is central to the question this article is asking.

God remains just. He does not set aside what is right or pretend that sin does not matter. Sin is truly judged, yet the sinner can be justified.

This helps us understand the picture in Psalm 85:

“Righteousness and peace kiss each other.”

Peace with God does not come because God relaxes what is right according to His holy character. Christ bears the righteous judgment our sin deserves.

God does not choose mercy instead of justice. At the cross, His saving mercy is exercised without compromising His justice.

The Great Exchange

But removing our guilt is not the whole story.

We also need a righteous standing before the God to whom we are being reconciled.

Paul writes:

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

2 Corinthians 5:21

This is often called the Great Exchange.

Our sin is laid upon Christ, and in Him we receive a righteousness that is not our own, a right standing before God that we could never establish for ourselves.

Paul describes the same reality in Philippians 3:9, where he rejects “a righteousness of my own” and speaks instead of the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ.

The theological term imputation describes this credited or reckoned righteousness.

Christ does not become morally sinful at the cross. He remains the sinless Son of God, but He bears the judgment our sin deserves.

Likewise, believers do not become morally perfect the moment they believe. They receive a new standing before God because they belong to Christ.

This is justification. God declares the believer righteous because of Christ, received through faith, not because the believer has produced sufficient righteousness of his own.

The Righteous One Walked the Path for Us

This also shows why the life of Jesus matters along with His death.

Jesus lived in perfect righteousness before the Father. His entire life was a right response to the Father: perfect trust, obedience, faithfulness, and love.

Where Adam disobeyed, Christ obeyed. Where Israel failed, He remained faithful. Where we have turned to our own way, Jesus walked faithfully in the Father’s way.

Theologians often describe this as Christ’s active obedience, His lifelong and perfect obedience to the Father.

Christ therefore did more than die the death we deserved. He lived in perfect obedience to the Father, the life of faithful response to God that we failed to live.

His obedient life and sacrificial death belong together in His saving work.

Now John 14:6 becomes even clearer.

Jesus is the Way because He has done what is necessary to bring unrighteous people to a righteous God.

The Way to the Father

Psalm 85 is not a direct prediction of John 14:6. It speaks first about God restoring His people and coming to them in righteousness, faithfulness, steadfast love, and peace.

But read within the larger story of Scripture, the pattern reaches its fullest expression in Christ.

God comes to save in a way completely consistent with His holy character.

Christ comes as the Righteous One.

He lives in perfect response to the Father.

He bears the judgment of those who have turned to their own way.

Those who trust Him receive a righteousness that is not their own, a right standing before God they could never achieve for themselves.

Then Jesus says:

“I am the way.”

The gospel is not the story of sinful people finding the right path and successfully making their way back to God. It is the story of God coming to us in Christ and doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Jesus lived in perfect obedience to the Father, bore the judgment our sin deserved, and provides the righteous standing we could never establish on our own. Through Him, we are brought into peace with the Father.

This is how a righteous God brings unrighteous people to Himself. He does not overlook sin or lower what is right according to His holy character. In Christ, sin is judged, guilt is dealt with, and righteousness is credited to those who trust Him.

Psalm 85 gives us the picture of righteousness and peace meeting together. The cross shows us how that peace is possible. And in John 14:6, Jesus tells us where the way to the Father is found: not in our ability to make ourselves righteous, but in Him.

The Righteous One is Himself the Way.

Study References

• Psalm 23:3 — God leads His people in paths of righteousness.
• Psalm 85:10–13 — Righteousness, peace, steadfast love, and God’s saving way.
• Isaiah 53:6 — Humanity turns to its own way.
• John 14:6 — Jesus identifies Himself as the Way to the Father.
• Romans 3:21–26 — God’s righteousness, propitiation, and justification through Christ.
• 2 Corinthians 5:21 — The Great Exchange: our sin laid upon Christ and righteousness received in Him.
• Philippians 3:8–9 — A righteousness not our own, received through faith in Christ.
• Romans 5:18–19 — Christ’s obedience contrasted with Adam’s disobedience.