One of the most powerful and beloved hymns in the Christian faith is My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less. At church this week, we sang these beautiful words, and they struck me afresh:

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.

I love this imagery—the idea of standing before God clothed, not in my own righteousness, but in the righteousness of Christ. It’s a deeply biblical theme.

Paul expresses it most powerfully in Philippians 3. After listing all the reasons he once trusted in his own religious achievements, he declares that he now desires to “be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Philippians 3:9).

What a beautiful summary of the gospel. In the great exchange, Jesus takes our sin, guilt, and shame upon Himself, and in return He gives us His perfect righteousness. We are clothed in Christ, covered completely by what He has done rather than by anything we have accomplished.

Paul says the same in 2 Corinthians 5:21:

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

That promise still leaves me in awe. The sinless Son of God bore our sin so that we might receive His righteousness.

This imagery stretches across the whole Bible. Isaiah rejoices, “He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10). Zechariah sees Joshua the high priest stripped of his filthy garments and clothed in clean ones. Jesus speaks of wedding garments in His parable, and Revelation pictures God’s people dressed in radiant white robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb.

From beginning to end, Scripture points to the same glorious reality: our hope is never in our own righteousness. On the day Christ returns, we will not stand before God because we measured up, but because Christ did.

When the trumpet sounds and we stand before the throne, our confidence will not be in our record, our obedience, or our worthiness. It will be in His righteousness alone.

And because we are clothed in Him, we will stand faultless before the throne.

What a life-changing promise.