Catholic Explanation of “Christ Is Our Righteousness” (1 Cor. 1:30)

St. Robert Bellarmine, De Justificatione, Book 2, Chap. 10: “Correctly is Christ called our righteousness, not because we are righteous by that righteousness which is imputed to us in Christ, but for two other reasons. First, because Christ is the efficient cause of our righteousness. For Christ is called our righteousness just as God is called our fortitude in Psalm 17 and our patience in Psalm 70 and our salvation in Psalm 26, which is explained in Psalm 36 when it is said: the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. Finally, Christ is called our righteousness just as He is called our wisdom and our redemption, and elsewhere our peace – namely, because He redeemed us and made us righteous and wise, and reconciled us to His own Father, making peace between those things which are on Earth and in Heaven.

Next, Christ is called our righteousness because He has made satisfaction to the Father for us, and gives and communicates that satisfaction to us when He justifies us; so that our satisfaction may be called righteousness. For although, through the righteousness inherent in us, we are termed (and indeed are) genuinely righteous, nevertheless it is not through this that we make satisfaction to God for our faults and the eternal punishment [that we deserve]. No, this inherent righteousness, along with the remission of guilt and eternal punishment, is the effect of the satisfaction of Christ, which (as the Council of Trent teaches in Sess. 6, Chap. 7) is conveyed and applied to us in justification. And in this way it would not be absurd were someone to say (i) that the righteousness and merits of Christ are imputed to us (provided that it is not denied that they exist in us), since they are given and applied to us as though we ourselves had satisfied God; and (ii) that this inherent righteousness is that genuine and absolute righteousness to which, by the just judgement of God, there is owed not punishment but glory.”