The "righteous" are the forgiven. Never could anyone be truly "righteous," that is, be righteous as far as God is. Only a substitute for us could match this standard of perfection. The human race is all under the curse of sin. Only a Son of Man who is truly righteous as God is, could be the right substitute for us. Only God can obtain His own righteousness, so God became Man and fulfilled all the law for us.
Jonah
Chapter 3:
8. And they shall cover themselves with sackcloth, both man and beast, and they shall call mightily to God, and everyone shall repent of his evil way and of the dishonest gain which is in their hands.
9. Whoever knows shall repent, and God will relent, and He will return from His burning wrath, and we will not perish.
10. And God saw their deeds, that they had repented of their evil way, and the Lord relented concerning the evil that He had spoken to do to them, and He did not do it.
Psalms
Chapter 51
19. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; O God, You will not despise a broken and crushed heart.
20. With Your will, do good to Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem.
21. Then You will desire sacrifices of righteousness, a burnt offering and a whole offering; then they will offer up bulls on Your altar.
Torah 101 = G-d is not a man. If Hashem has to cheat the rules to fulfill the Law with his own man-god hybrid, something isn't kosher.
The law is fulfilled when it is irrelevant... that is, the righteous are by nature lawful. A righteous person need not even concern himself with the laws or the punishment for theft or murder or even blasting his music system at 3 AM in his neighborhood, etc. He knows better than to do those things. Same as he knows [and wants] to assist an injured or lost person... no need for a law (and threat of punishment) to make him stop to help his fellow man.
Hosea 6:6 For I desired chesed, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.
Too bad that much of christianity perceives the Messiah as someone who will happily stand in traffic court all day every day, so that the lawless can continue to speed headlong down the broad road to destruction, with impunity. Not much thought goes into actually minding the speed limit, so that there is no need for a savior to sacrifice his time over and over again in traffic court. Kind of disrespectful to say the least.