The most awful place for a Christian to be is to doubt the faithfulness and righhteousness of God. It is here that the fall began in Eden with Adam and Eve, it is at this place the despair of the two on the road to Emmaus began and it is at this place we find Elijah in Horeb in 1 Kings chapter 19. The righteousness of God in Romans chapter 3 verse 21 has 2 sides, 2 faces. The righteousness by the law condemns, as it did in Leviticus chapter 13, identifying and rejecting the leper. It took the work of Jesus Christ in atonement and propitiation to bring cleansing of sin and justification. God's righteousness is a righteousness which can either judge or justify.
Dr J Stewart Gillespie