Righteousness / Justification
The book of Hebrews in the New Testament is a letter written to first-century Jewish (Hebrew) disciples of Jesus. If we take the standard of that letter, then many of us, even perhaps after a lifetime, remain infants sucking on milk. If you do not understand the teaching about righteousness, says the writer, you are still a baby who cannot tolerate solid food (chapter 5), reiterated in 1 Corinthians 3.
And what we are faced with is a double problem: the first issue is getting a handle on the original concept that comes to us in the Greek text of the New Testament (what was the original concept in the writers’ minds?); the second issue is the English words we now use to communicate the original concept (what English words are in our bibles, what did they mean five centuries ago, and what do they mean today?).
This next section is, unashamedly, a bit of an analysis of the concept of ‘righteousness’. And the first thing we note is that righteousness and justification are not the same even though the two words share a common Greek root and the New Testament Greek words are quite similar in appearance.
The figure above is a snip from the ‘biblestudytools’ website shown. The English word ‘righteousness’ comes from the Greek root dikaioo, but so does the English word ‘justification’. However, the form of the word used and its context generally determine its translation into English. It is also worth noting that the verb form of the word ‘righteousness’ is essentially the verb “to right” [to redress or to correct] while ‘justify’ is a common verb in English. The “NAS Word Usage” section in the figure above shows the English translations (other than ‘righteousness’) given to this word in the New Testament.
Another important thing to note from the above
figure is the clause “ought to be” (twice) or “wishes himself to be considered”. This actually is a pointer to an important
aspect of the meaning of the root word, and we shall come to that in a moment.
Before we get there though, please take a look
at an excellent piece of work by Lionel Windsor of Sydney, Australia. He has a blog post “Justification and
Righteousness are not the same” [http://www.lionelwindsor.net/2011/02/21/justification-and-righteousness-are-not-the-same/]. It really is worth the
time to read this post. He has a very
useful table that highlights the difference between the usages of the word.
As you can see from the figure above, two-thirds
of the occurrences of this word in the New Testament are from Paul. And as Windsor points out, they display a
“forensic” or legal context and meaning.
Imagine a courtroom setting and/or legal proceedings. Note his paragraph (in reference to his table
on his blog page):
The
fairly obvious conclusion from this table is that the “righteousness” of a
defendant and the “justification” of a defendant are not the same.
Righteousness, in the normal forensic usage, is a quality that the defendant
possesses on the basis of something which is not strictly dependent upon the
courtroom – it means being in line with moral / legal standards.
“Righteousness” is a quality, not a status. Justification is the outcome
of the courtroom process, if the courtroom finds that such righteousness is
indeed present. Therefore, in its noun form, “justification” is a status
conferred by the court.
God justifies, but He doesn’t have to justify
Himself; He is, according to Paul who received this revelation from the Holy
Spirit, both just and the justifier of the one who has faith
in Jesus. The result of the just God justifying we who totally put our faith in Jesus is righteousness. We are, in God’s reckoning, righteous.
Now I want to combine this forensic
understanding with the “ought to be” phrase I pointed to earlier. Imagine, if you will, a couple of practical
illustrations that I think serve us well in this matter. Consider the two pictures below.
The Costa Concordia ran aground and listed badly; the truck skidded and flipped onto its side. In both cases, they could no longer perform the functions and duties they were designed, built and put into service for; they were not as they “ought to be”
On the left, the Costa Concordia we now know has actually been righted (put back in the position it “ought to be”, i.e. right) so it can possibly be salvaged and re-commissioned as a cruise ship.
Both vessels, if they had human personalities,
might very well have spent some time “wishing themselves to be” right; but, for
a time, they were not. For a time, they
were “unrighteous”; with outside help they were “justified” (because they
couldn’t right or justify themselves); now they are “righteous” – given a new
life and placed in a state and condition where they can be what they “ought to
be” and do what they were made to do.
This is the teaching about righteousness in relation to the truck and
the Costa Concordia.
In similar terms, this is the teaching about
righteousness in relation to us humans:
For a time, we were unrighteous, sometimes wishing
ourselves to be right. While we were
still in that state, outside help came in the form of Jesus. We couldn’t right or justify ourselves, so
God did it for us in the sacrifice of Jesus.
Now those who fully trust in Jesus for their right standing before God
are righteous – given a new life and placed in a state and condition where they
can be what they ought to be and do what they were made to do.
The word ‘righteousness’ is an Old English
word. It consists of three parts:
right-eous-ness or right-wise-ness. ‘Ness’ means ‘a state of being’; ‘eous’ (or wise,
wards or ways) means ‘in the direction of’ (like clockwise, backwards,
sideways); and ‘right’ means how a thing ‘ought to be’ or ‘as it was made to
be’. Hence, righteousness is the state of being in the direction or way
of right – as a thing ought to be or was made to be. It is the state of being right, true, correct
when measured against original intention and specifications.
This lies at the heart of the Ephesians 2
passage quoted earlier; and this is the central teaching of apostle Paul as we
find it in his letters to the Romans and the Ephesians particularly. And the righteousness that is credited to us
is not earned, it is given; it is the flip-side of the repentance, faith,
baptism and gift of the Holy Spirit that the first apostles taught and
proclaimed as we see in the book of Acts.
And so we come to what I believe is actually
the most important question of all: not
‘are you going to heaven when you die?’, but ‘are you fully trusting in
Jesus for your righteousness before God?’
Self-righteousness, priest-righteousness, church-righteousness,
law-righteousness simply don’t, can’t and won’t cut it. We as humans can be reconciled to God, but if
we imagine we can be reconciled on our own terms, not His (i.e. being ‘wise in
our own eyes’), there is, as wise King Solomon noted many years ago, more hope
for a fool than for us. We do not get to
dictate or determine our righteousness or the terms of it; that righteousness
and those terms were established on the day Jesus rose from the dead; and they
are the same no matter who we are or who we think
we are.
Hence Paul would say: “we beg you on
behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20) and then note:
There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither
male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
There
is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all,
abounding in riches for all who call on Him. Romans 10:12
There
is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave
or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Colossians 311
This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who trust.
There is no difference between Jew and Gentile. Romans
3:22
- CONTINUES -
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