RTWW 4: Righteousness

Reflection

At campus evangelism recently, I had one of my jewish friends come up and bring up an apparent contradiction in the bible. He said that Jesus could not have been God, because he was sinful. This was because in deuteronomy, it prophesied that the savior of Israel would be “righteous.” He then said that the definition of someone righteous is someone who falls and gets up seven times “for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes” - proverbs 24:16. Thus, Jesus was a sinner since he by definition was righteous, and had to sin and get back up. Now I’ll let you think on your own how you would respond to this argument, or if you’re interested in how I answered feel free to message me. But the focus today is on what righteousness is.

Through my studies, this is how I view righteousness. Righteousness is not a behavior, a discipline, an action, or a mindset. Righteousness is a status bestowed to you by God. When we look at the very first occurrence of the word righteousness in the bible, we turn all the way back to Genesis 15:6 - “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.” If you know Abram, you would know he was a liar, a doubter, a coward. Yet God still called him righteous. Why? Because righteousness has nothing to do with just following the law, nothing to do with being perfect or holy. Righteousness is when you are in right relationship with God.

Now when you think of someone righteousness, you’ll probably think of someone who does things right. Who always follows the rules. Who is upright. Who falls and always gets back up. We are often times not this type of person! Myself, I am someone who falls and stays in the dirt. Someone who gives up, someone who fails to trust, someone who turns his back to God. If we think in this way, we put a rather legalistic view on righteousness. We once again become bound by the law, and thus by sin, constantly worrying if we are doing the right thing, watching out to make sure we don’t sin, lest we lose our righteousness.

If you happen to be caught in this view (which I’ve had my entire life), let me challenge you with this. What is our relationship with God? Is it one of a prisoner in a jail, obeying all the rules? A student in a school, having to learn and obey? Or is it one of a father and his child which he sacrificed all for to adopt into his family? Take care not to forget that we are children adopted into the family of God, at the cost of his one and only son. So when we think about our responsibilities in our relationship with God, how does that affect our view of righteousness? When a child disobeys, are they any less a child of their father? When a child turns away in a tantrum because they didn’t get what they want, are they any less a child of their father? When we fail to trust in God because we don’t see the bigger plan, when we refuse to listen to his commandments, when we doubt him, when we challenge him, when we hurt ourselves even when God warned us, are we any less his children? The answer is no.

If you turn to Genesis 15 and read about the cutting of the covenant with abraham, you’ll see that the responsibility is on God, and God alone to uphold the covenant. The covenant is not dependant on our works or our obedience, it depends solely on the nature of God. In the new testament, it follows up on this idea clearly stating what our status with God is: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” - 2 Corinthians 5:21. Our relationship with God is completely bound up in the sacrifice that Christ made for us. It is and never was dependent on what we can do, but purely on what Christ has already done. So live a life reflecting this righteousness, a life dependent on Christ, with his life and death at the center of your life, and live knowing that your worth and your value is all from Christ!