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What is righteousness?
I'm sitting here listening to a preacher preach that righteousness is right living. My bible says that all of our righteousness are as filthy rags. ( OT) After the death, burial and resurrection, we are given the gift of righteousness. That is to say, I am righteous before the Lord because when he sees me, he see's Jesus because I have received him as my savior.
I'm not suggesting that we should continue in sin, I'm saying that when we really believe we are righteous before a Holy God, we will ACT accordingly. No more striving.. no more guilt shame and condemnation and If I blow it I get back up and go on. This preacher and many like him are the perfect example of mixing law with grace. What say you? |
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Righteous and Justification are related terms... and ones that are often misunderstood since Scripture does not firmly define them. In Matthew 5:20 Christ instructs his followers, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven." This is an important, though often misunderstood verse... Our righteousness DOES come from God. By ourselves we cannot produce any righteous acts. God, through Christ, helps us to become righteous but it needs our active cooperation. His help comes in the form of His Grace and this Grace will first move us to do righteous acts. Using our freedom we decide whether to cooperate with this given Grace or not. Scripture says: He who does right is righteous (1 John 3:7), indicating our active participation. Certainly we do need the righteousness that comes through faith (Romans 4:3, 13, Philippians 3:9). To do what is right includes believing in Christ, but it is not the only one we need. In Timothy 6:11 and 2 Timothy 2:22 Paul would not bother to ask Timothy to aim for righteousness – if the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ, which Timothy already had as Christian, was the only one he need. Is being righteous necessary? Scripture says whoever does not do right is not of God but the children of devil (1 John 3:10) and the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9) while the righteous will go to eternal life (Matthew 25:46). The Psalmist cried: O LORD, who shall sojourn in thy tent? Who shall dwell on thy holy hill? (Psalms 15:1). The next verse gives the answer: He who walks blamelessly, and does what is right, and speaks truth from his heart. Christ said: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6) and “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20). Blessed are those who do righteousness at all times (Psalms 106:3). Keep in mind that being righteous is not the same as being sinless. “To do what is right” in 1 John 3:7 certainly includes “to repent” but nobody needs to repent unless he/she sins in the first place. Scripture says (Proverbs 24:16): “for a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again.” So in short (my words): We are made Righteous and Justified... BUT we are also expected to "actively contribute" in order to retain Righteousness and Justification. "Salvation" is a related term also. In Scripture we can affirm that we are "Saved", "Being Saved" and "Will be Saved". 1. Saved: When we commit to follow God. 2. Being Saved: When we continue to battle life's day to day challenges. 3. Will be Saved: Looking forward to hearing "they good and faithful servant" (Mt 25:23). References: 1. Righteousness Done Right 2. Righteous acts are like filthy rags. 3. Justification 4. Assurance of Salvation? |
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Yes of our own selves we are fifthy. That is why we need the righteousness of Christ. Without him we are nothing. I totally agree with you. We are in His righteousness and when he does see us he sees Jesus. We are to repent of our sins and try and live a life that Jesus would approve of according to His word. We are not perfect "For ALL have sinned and fall short of the Glory of GOD" Rom 3:23. The pastor has mixed the law with Grace. Romans 6:14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. Hope this helps. God Bless you!
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Quoting RickJ:
"God, through Christ, helps us to become righteous but it needs our active cooperation." OK then how would you explain this ? "...that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you." Exodus 31:13. "And they that found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron." (Numbers 15:33) "And the LORD said to Moses the man shall surely be put to death..." Numbers 15:35 |
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 Originally Posted by HeadStrongBoy
I can only rely on Scripture, my Faith in God and His son, and in my best interpretation of Scripture based on my own understand and the explanations of others who are far more knowledgeable than me... like those that I cited in my earlier answer. We can only accept the Gift that we have been given and then use it for His glory - or we can ignore it (or otherwise not use it) or discard it. His gift can be used, misused or ignored or discarded just like any other gift that we are given. |
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Quoting RickJ:
I can't explain it. If I didn't know better, I'd say you're evading my point. But you wouldn't do that. Nah ! Would you ? You didn't earn your reputation without knowing how to sidestep a few land mines. I'll bet. The scriptures I've referred to have a direct bearing on your quote "God, through Christ, helps us to become righteous but it needs our active cooperation." In case you haven't guessed it, I'm trying to refute your quoted statement. But perhaps I should more carefully analyze it before I endeavor to "take on" such a distinguished personage as yourslf. |
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My minister father always explained it this way: First is Justification, the work that Jesus did on the cross to take away our sins so that we become right again with God. Sally is a prostitute. She can do nothing to save herself or even bring herself to faith. That's the work of the Holy Spirit who goes to her where she is in her life of sin. (The Spirit doesn't ask her to change first before he comes to her.) He brings her to faith, so that she realizes she is living an ungodly life. Now, with the help of the Holy Spirit, Sally can work/make an effort to change her life and to do good things instead of bad ones. This is Sanctification, living a sanctified life. Now I suppose you'll want proof passages for all this. |
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Headstrong, I disagree with RickJ... but he came in here and gave a great answer and backed it up. I don't understand your attitude. Why are you so rude? If you are a christian, if you aren't a christian.. whatever... where does the attitude come from? It isn't from the Bible so knock it off... it is getting OLD. If you are 62 ( and we aren't really talking dog years.)... GROW UP! You are taunting RickJ?? Really?? It is embarrassing. Come on. Your posts are written well it is obvious you aren't lacking in wits... get it together. Someone might actually take you seriously. |
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https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/christ...ss-548359.html Tess - I am still working on a response to our other conversation. I happen to be going through Romans now so a lot of the discussions you are raising are addressed at length in Romans. Ok, what is righteousness? I'd like to say that righteousness is not the quality of being a good person as some people think it to mean. Biblically speaking, righteousness can be used in two different manners. It can be used to describe the nature of someone's deeds (zedeq) in relationship to the Covenant of God or a person's standing before God (how one is seen in the eyes of God). First off, the term righteousness is derived from the Greek word dikaios, which means: just, right, or innocent. As it relates to the covenant, someone was dikaios (righteous) if they kept the commandments of God. What I mean is that under the Old Testament or Covenant, someone was in right standing with God by taking the covenant seriously and keeping it. A person was adikias (unrighteous) if they did not keep the commandments of God. Let me explain. Let me first say that this concept has been confused by the modern church culture and in my opinion, we have to reconsider what righteousness and unrighteousness is in the context of the Jewish culture. If you were a Jew under the Old Testament, you were one of two people. You either loved God and obeyed his Covenant or you hated God and observed the Covenant outwardly only or openly disobeyed the Covenant. To say that someone was righteous under the Mosaic Covenant meant that he was someone who delighted inwardly in the law; someone who when it came time to offer a sacrifice to God, did so willingly and from a heart committed to live his life according to the moral vision of God embodied in the Covenant. Now, such a person was a sinner, of course. And built into the very fabric of the Covenant were provisions for sin: if you sinned, depending upon what the sin was, there was a prescribed sacrifice that you needed to offer to God in order to be dikaios (righteous) in God's eyes. Dikaios in this sense means that when God “sees” you he looks upon you with mercy…even though you have sinned, he will not judge you; he will instead meet you with mercy. So such a person is in right standing within the community of the Covenant and in the eyes of God. The interesting thing about keeping the Covenant (and this is what Paul means when he says that the Covenant was our tutor to bring us to God) was that in keeping it, you actually learned what sort of person you were. Let's think about this for a second. Every time you became aware of a way in which you broke one of the Commandments, you were instructed by God to offer a sacrifice. You had to go and take an animal, kill it, and its blood was to be used as a means of atoning for your sin. You can imagine that after years of living under such a covenant and sacrificing all of the animals that you did, it would become increasingly clear that there was something fundamentally wrong with you…every time you had to go and offer the sacrifice it was as if you were saying “here I go again.” Some commentators say that the Covenant was a tutor in the sense that it taught us that we couldn't keep it. Well, I don't think that was the case. The Covenant could be kept it was just that in keeping it, it sent home the message quite powerfully that I was an evil person…all of the sacrifices that I offered left a trail of blood behind me that left no question as to the kind of person that I was. When Isaiah said that “all of our righteousness is like filthy rags”, he was saying that as a nation, Israel was not following the Covenant. Isaiah himself was just lumping himself into the same category as the nation because he recognized that the Covenant was one that needed to be kept as a nation. Isaiah himself was in right standing with God (righteous) but Israel as a whole was not. They were going after other gods; when they would offer a sacrifice, they would offer it profanely, not with a contrite heart and not after the prescribed manner that God had told them to. Look at Isaiah 1: 11 “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. 12 “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? 13 Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. 14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. 15 When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. 16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, 17 learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.” I haven't quoted it but God goes on to say “come now and let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be made white as snow.” How was this forgiveness going to come? By taking the Covenant that God made with them seriously and by committing themselves to the moral vision of God that the Covenant embodied. The idea that when God sees me he sees Jesus is something that Augustine first introduced and Martin Luther probably expounded upon even more. I believe they were attempting to reconcile how it was that a righteous God can look upon evil creatures. If God cannot look upon evil and I am evil, then how can God really see me from the perspective of being rightly related to him? Ahhh, it must be that Jesus is who God sees when he looks at me since I am made righteous through Jesus (is the way the logic goes). Well, I think that this idea is kind of strange. God can look upon evil. Many times the bible says “he looked upon their evil” or he “visited their evil” or “I have seen your wicked deeds.” God cannot look past evil as if it didn't exist…he doesn't turn a blind eye to evil. So in that sense, he cannot look at evil…he cannot look at it with a neutral, ambiguous attitude. But with respect to me, God looks squarely into my face when he decides to grant mercy to me. The part Jesus plays is that he reconciled me to God. He gave is life for me to satisfy God's desire for justice and for his desire to grant mercy. But I don't think that righteousness (Dikaiosune) can be transferred to me from Jesus. But as a gift of mercy, God does declare people righteous (dikaios) by believing in what Jesus did for them. Righteousness is a state of being declared “pardoned” in the eyes of God. When God comes to judge the world at the end of this age, he will either declare me guilty or innocent. To be righteous in this sense is the idea of God saying to me “even though you are evil and deserve to be condemned; nonetheless, because you have believed in my Son who gave his life for you, I will not punish you but I will overlook your sins.” That is far more dramatic for me to see that God is not seeing Jesus when he looks at me but that he really sees me and has had compassion and mercy upon me because of my faith in Christ Jesus. I may have left some ends untied so pick up the discussion if you think I am overlooking something. |
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Quoting classyT:
" here is your time to shine....." Much as I'm tempted to accept your challenge, NO. Really this should not be about me and my ego. It's about truth from the Bible. Regardless of WHO makes the presentation. And perhaps you're right about me being too harsh with RickJ. But I'm going to go after anyone who puts his own interpretation above that of the Bible. This subject of righteousness is every bit as important as salvation itself. That's why we should take our time and proceed only according to what can be correctly understood from the Bible. |
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The basic problem I have with RickJ's answer is that he says that we can help ourselves to become righteous TOWARD salvation. That is the very same assertion many Christians make when they profess that by "Believing we beome saved." Or at the very least our believing HELPS us to become saved. I see the Bible as saying: ABSOLUTELY NOT !!!
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Moreover, the reference you've given about Paul telling the jailer at Philipi how to become saved is a very valid one. BUT, and this is a very big but,. it's a trap. God put that kind of APPARENTLY crystal clear language into the Bible to test us. And the test is this: Will we look at EVERY passage in the ENTIRE Bible that has anything AT ALL to say about salvation BEFORE we DARE to draw ANY FINAL CONCLUSION about how salvation actually works ? A tall order indeed. But NOT impossible. In fact my understanding is based on such information. That is why I'm SO ADAMANT about this issue.
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Originally Posted by jakester
Interesting ideas when it comes to righteousness. I think you are going to have a problem of, 'getting round' virtue ethics. When you say, "righteousness is not the quality of being a good person............" O.T. Ethics fits in well with virtue ethics and has a long history in Western thought. A righteous person is a person who practises virtue. In other worlds, the moral character of a person is determined by how well a person adheres to rules and commands. If this were the case then it would be the end of the story. Unfortunately, things get a bit complicated when people bring up the topic of deeds or consequences of actions. This immediately creates a problem because it is difficult to reconcile the two, especially if they happen to come into conflict. This becomes evident when we look at later Christian writers such as Aquinas. The problem then becomes reconciling the two ideas.( This is where the disagreement begins). Virtue ethics doesn't taken into account consequences. As suggest in the O.T. we can make atonement for our weakness of character by going through a ritual or procedure. We don't have any obligation to other people to do what is 'right' by them. So long as we are following 'the rules' then this is all that matters. Going back to Ananias and Sapphiria. If A and S came to the conclusion that withholding money from the common purse was wrong. Clearly in terms of virtue ethics this is the case. The rules and commands made it a necessary requirement. If they knew their actions were wrong and admitted to themselves they are not going to do anything about it then this would seem rather strange to say the least. It would be like me saying I think it is morally wrong to cheat on my taxes, however I am not going to do anything about it. I am still going to cheat. It would be strange if I didn't even make some type of effort. A and S no doubt suffered from the same thing we all suffer from, i.e. weakness of will from time to time There is an obvious connection between people's moral beliefs and what they do or attempt to do. There is also the knowledge that God approves of certain actions and can dramatically demonstrate his disapproval of other actions. Such a demonstration is a motivation for others to follow commands and regulations that have been put in place. This was a motivation for everyone who witnessed the event to do the right thing but is is not an objective account of morality. It may well motivate you but it doesn't motivate you in any moral way. If God is sufficiently like us then he has attitudes towards actions. This is clearly evident with A and S. We may Well say that it is God's attitudes that count. The puzzle is that this is an objective account of something but it's not an objective account of morality. The thing about objectivity in morality is that the truths that can be discovered should be a motivation to action. I might have an attitude towards the tax department. My attitude is that I am going to cheat on my taxes. If I change my mind (not worried about jail time), and think it is morally wrong then I have discovered there must be something 'more' to morality then simply an attitude. Is God sufficiently like us? This is the best I can do on the topic. Regards Tut |
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HSB- Ok. Well I disagree with you because I do NOT see faith as a work. It is faith. I'm not working to believe that Jesus is my savior... I just believe it. I accept it. How can that be work? If it is work I'm not sweating.. I'm not fasting, I'm not hoping and praying, I'm not striving, I'm just breathing.. breathing and believing. If that's work... okie dokie. Honestly, I think we need to look at the book of Romans and see the difference between the law and grace. I'm so ADAMANT about grace and how awesome it is. It is what the Apostle Paul preached. The thing is you do not have any assurance. What is the point? Why did Jesus come here to have a relationship with us if really we can't know him? I don't have a problem with every passage in the bible as LONG as it is put in context. |
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Originally Posted by jakester
Oh my Jake GRACE is sooo much more than that. Just as Jesus didn't deserve to be MADE sin for me... I don't deserve to be make RIGHTEOUS but in God's eyes I AM. He sees perfection when he looks at me.. just like he saw SIN when he looked at the LordJesus at calvary. It is EVEN STEVEN. That is what makes grace the most outstanding, awesome thing in the world. Now I'm not saying I can go out and do something boneheaded and there is no consequence. He always disciplines his own.. but never punishes. It is KNOWING that I am accepted in the beloved no matter WHAT that makes me long to please him. I'm righteous.. I can boldly enter the throne of grace without shame. It is about WHO I am now.. not what I do. I have verses to back all this up but I can't get to them right now. There is so much more I want to say but alas my son needs the computer for school. Thanks for your post... it is good and is making me think. |
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Originally Posted by classyT
I think you and Jakester are saying essentially the same thing. He speaks of compassion and mercy, you speak of grace. They're various sides of the same coin, in a very real sense. I really don't see any essential disagreement between what he said and what you're saying. And for what it's worth, I wholeheartedly agree with both of you. |
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