The squirrel in his wire cage continually in motion but making no progress, reminds me of my own self-righteous efforts after salvation, but the little creature is never one half so wearied by his exertions as I was by mine. The poor chiffonier in Paris trying to earn a living by picking dirty rags out of the kennel, succeeds far better than I did in my attempts to obtain comfort by my own works. Dickens's cab-horse, which was only able to stand because it was never taken out of the shafts, was strength and beauty itself compared with my starveling hopes propped up with resolutions and regulations. Wretches condemned to the galleys in the days of the old French kings, whose only reward for incessant toils was the lash of the keeper, were in a more happy plight than I when under legal bondage. Slavery in mines where the sun never shines must be preferable to the miseries of a soul goaded by an awakened conscience to seek salvation by its own merits. Some of the martyrs were shut up in a dungeon called Little-ease; the counterpart of that prison- house I well remember. Iron chains are painful enough, but what is the pain when the iron enters into the soul! Tell us not of the writhings of the wounded and dying on the battlefield; some of us, when our heart was riddled by the artillery of the law, would have counted wounds and death a happy exchange. O blessed Saviour, how blissful was the hour when all this horrid midnight of the soul was changed into the day-dawn of pardoning love!

The term ‘righteousness’ does not convey a very definite or even a very attractive meaning to the reader of modern English, and the meaning which it does convey is only part of the full significance which the Greek term (δικαιοσύνη) would carry for a Christian reader in the Apostolic Age. In ordinary speech, a man is not usually called ‘righteous’; the term has a certain formality and archaic flavour about it. But when he is, it means that he is just, that he will observe the moral code strictly, or that he will be punctilious in the discharge of such obligations as are incumbent on a man in his position. A ‘righteous’ man will be high-principled, but the adjective suggests limitations. It does not necessarily follow that he will be kind or affectionate. As a matter of fact, we speak of a man as ‘just but not generous,’ and ‘righteous’ has come upon the whole to be associated with ‘just’ in this connexion. A person who is ‘righteous’ is estimable rather than attractive. It is curious that once at least in the NT we come across a similar use of the Greek equivalent, in St. Paul’s remark: Why, a man will hardly die for the just (ὑπὲρ δικαίου)-though one might bring oneself to die, if need be, for a good man’ (ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, Romans 5:7). Here there certainly seems to be an implied distinction between the ‘righteous’ or ‘just’ man and the ‘good’ man; the former lacks those qualities of human kindness and affection which enable the latter to inspire enthusiasm and devotion in others. It is one thing to be scrupulous in respecting the rights of others, or even, as perhaps St. Paul meant, in fulfilling one’s religious duties; it is another thing to have an instinctive sense of helpfulness and beneficence. The godly man may not be particularly human or humane. Even when he is, his beneficence sometimes lacks the warmth and heart which the ‘good’ man puts into his relations with others. ‘He that works me good with unmoved face, Does it but half: he chills me while he aids, My benefactor, not my brother man.’ (Reflections on having left a place of retirement, 49 ff.). What Coleridge describes in these words resembles the character of the righteous or just man as distinguished from the good man. If we take Cicero’s definition of the good man as ‘he who assists those whom he can, and hurts nobody’ (‘vir bonus est is qui prodest quibus potest, nocet nemini’ ^[1]), we get a similar stress upon the positive and active interest of the good man in his fellows, as opposed to the more negative attitude associated with ‘righteous.’ ^[2] But this is merely one of the meanings of ‘righteousness’ in the literature of the Apostolic Age. The Greek term δικαιοσύνη is employed by St. Paul in a technical sense, and by him and other writers in a variety of non-technical senses. One of the latter has just been noted, and, before passing on to the technical Pauline sense, it will be well to survey the other passages in which it is employed by him and later writers of the Apostolic Age without any specific theological reference. 1. Non-technical use of the term in apostolic literature (including St. Paul).-The usage of the term in 2 Cor. is particularly instructive. The verb ‘justify’ does not occur in this Epistle, hut, as we shall see, one of the profoundest passages on righteousness in its technical application to the doctrine of justification falls within the scope of this letter. Yet side by side with this lie two non-technical meanings of the term. (a) One of these is δικαιοσύνη in the sense of almsgiving, which it had already began to acquire. In urging the Corinthians to be prompt and generous with their contributions to his fund for the relief of poverty among the Palestinian Jewish Christians, he quotes the Septuagint version of Psalms 112:9 and applies it to the situation of his readers (Psalms 9:9): ‘as it is written, He scatters, his gift broadcast to the poor, his charity (δικαιοσύνη) lasts for ever. He who furnishes the sower with seed and with bread to eat will supply seed for you and multiply it; he will increase the crop of your charities (τὰ γενήματα τῆς δικαιοσύνης ὑμῶν). In this use of the term we can overhear the meaning which it had begun to gather in the religious ethic of Judaism (as early as the period of Sirach), where almsgiving or charity was regarded as so characteristic an expression of the truly pious life that δικαιοσύνη could be used as an equivalent for it upon occasion. Rabbinic piety now and then made this a feature of the imitatio Dei, as in the well-known saying ^[3] of Rabbi Chama ben Chaninah (Sota, 14a): ‘As He clothes the naked (Genesis 3:21), so do thou clothe the naked; as He nurses the sick (Genesis 18:1), so do thou nurse the sick; as He comforts the mourners (Genesis 25:11) so do thou comfort the mourners; as He buries the dead (Deuteronomy 34:5), so do thou bury the dead.’ In other directions, it fitted in with the stress on charity as one of the surest means of acquiring merit before God, ‘Almsgiving is a strong mediator between the Israelites and their father in heaven; it brings the time of redemption nigh’ (Baba Bathra, 10a). This still prevails in popular Islâm. C. M. Doughty, speaking of his hospitable host Maatuk, observes that ‘if the camels came home be milked a great bowlful for the stranger, saying, it was his sádaka, or meritorious human kindness, for God’s sake,’ ^[4] As the context indicates (see 2 Corinthians 9:6 : ‘he who sows generously will reap a generous harvest’), St Paul thinks of δικαιοσύνη here in the sense of an action (or rather, a character in action) ^[5] which is pleasing to God, because it harmonizes with the Divine nature; bountiful, generous actions done to others will enrich a man with God’s bounty as nothing else will. St. Paul would have been the last to teach any doctrine of charity as a merit, on which one could base some claim to God’s approval. But he is free to recognize that such spontaneous expressions of kindness and mercy between man and man are inspired and rewarded by God. (b) The other general sense is reflected in 2 Corinthians 6:7; 2 Corinthians 6:14. In the former passage St. Paul, speaking of his methods in the Christian propaganda, claims that he employs ‘the weapons of integrity for attack or for defence,’ where δικαιοσύνη, as the preceding words indicate (‘the holy Spirit, unaffected love, true words, the power of God’), is opposed to foul play, misrepresentation, and rancour; in evangelizing and in controversy, even when controversy is personal, he professes to be clean and honest. The second reference opposes δικαιοσύνη to iniquity or unregulated conduct, almost as goodness to wickedness; ‘What have righteousness and iniquity in common, or how can light associate with darkness?’ ‘Morality’ would be inadequate here, for what St. Paul has in mind is the religious life, but it is the religious life as expressed in conduct; he is certainly not using δικαιοσύνη in the technical sense in which he employs it elsewhere. ‘Conduct is the word of common life,’ says Matthew Arnold, ‘morality is the word of philosophical disquisition, righteousness is the word of religion’ (Literature and Dogma, ed. London, 1883, p. 16). It is in this sense, or in the allied sense of integrity, that it occurs in the Pastoral Epistles ^[6] (e.g. 1 Timothy 6:11, 2 Timothy 2:22; 2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Timothy 4:8), as well as in Ephesians 4:24; Ephesians 5:9; Ephesians 6:14. Similarly, the technical usage in Philippians is accompanied by the non-technical expression in Ephesians 1:11, where the Apostle prays that the life of these Christians may be ‘covered with that harvest of righteousness Jesus Christ produces to the glory and praise of God.’ This is equivalent to ‘the harvest of the Spirit’ (Galatians 5:22), the good character produced by the influence of Christ or of the Spirit. We have, indeed, no exact equivalent in English for what δικαιοσῦνη meant to a Greek or to a primitive Christian, especially if he had been born in Judaism. ‘Righteousness’ is too formal and abstract in its associations for a modern mind; ‘justice,’ again, is too narrow and, like ‘integrity’ and ‘morality,’ it is insufficiently charged with religious feeling. The technical Pauline content of the term especially spills over when it is emptied into any of these modern words. They occasionally reproduce the sense of the Greek word in non-technical passages, but even in its restricted sense of political virtue, as applied to the man who obeys the law or who is a good citizen of the Sate, the term had impressed Aristotle, four centuries earlier, with its variety of meaning (Nic. Eth. V. i. 7), ^[7] and when it passed into the vocabulary of Judaism and of early Christianity its range became still wider, stretching from ‘justice’ across a broad field of meaning to ‘piety’ or ‘goodness.’ It may sound like a confession of defeat to say that we cannot reproduce the word precisely in English. But it is something gained, at any rate, to realize that the conception, even in St. Paul, is not stereotyped, and that the Apostle uses it in more senses than one. Much of the investigation into the Pauline usage has been vitiated by the assumption that the term invariably represented a single, well-defined idea in the writer’s mind. St. Paul was not the slave of words, even of a great religious word like δικαιοσύνη. If his arguments on righteousness are sometimes puzzling, it is rather because he overtaxed this term and its family; he forced them to serve a variety of purposes, some of which were not obviously relevant to their original object and contemporary employment. Like Jesus, though more often, he uses ‘righteousness’ for the religious ideal, the relation to God in which all devout persons seek to stand. Thus, in Romans 9:30-32 he writes: ‘Gentiles who never aimed at righteousness have attained it-that is, righteousness by faith; whereas Israel who did aim at the law of righteousness ^[8] has failed to reach that law, And why? Simply because Israel has relied not on faith but on what they could do.’ Similarly in the next section (Romans 10:3-11): ‘They would not surrender to the righteousness of God ^[4], because they were ignorant of his righteousness ^[8]5 and therefore essayed to set up a righteousness of their own. Now Christ is an end to law, so as to let every believer (emphatic, as opposed to the man who relies on what he can do in the matter of obedience to law) have righteousness. Moses writes of law-righteousness: anyone who can perform it shall live by it. ^[11] But here is what faith-righteousness says: Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, ^[12] and you will be saved; for with his heart man believes and is justified, with his mouth he confesses and is saved. No one who believes in him, the Scripture says, will ever be disappointed.’ These passages bring out two features of St. Paul’s conception: (1) the contrast between God’s righteousness and the religion which men make sincerely, and passionately for themselves, and present as their own to God (‘a righteousness of their own’ here is equivalent to ‘a legal righteousness of my own’ in Philippians 3:9); and (2) the remarkable substitution of Christ for the Torah as the means of establishing a right relation to God, involving so supreme and novel a conception of faith that St. Paul speaks of devotion to the Torah as though it really did not make faith count at all. ^[13] But, over and above these characteristics, it is noticeable that, probably owing to the particular argument he has in hand, he retains the classical term ‘righteousness’ for the great end which men sought by right and wrong ways of religious discipline. Even in more general passages, ‘righteousness’ is the direct opposite to ‘sin’ (cf. Acts 13:10, 2 Corinthians 11:15). Thus in Romans 6:13, ‘you must not let sin have your members for the service of vice; you must dedicate yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, dedicating your members to God for the service of righteousness’ (and similarly in Romans 6:18-20). The expression in Romans 8:10 is less obvious. When St. Paul says that ‘the human spirit is alive διὰ δικαιοσύνην,’ does he mean, as in ch. 6, ‘for the sakeofrighteousness’ (i.e. to practise righteousness) or ‘as the result of righteousness’ (i.e. of the new, vital relation to God which the Divine righteousness has created through Christ-the thought of Romans 5:17 f.)? Probably the latter is uppermost in his mind. In Romans 14:17, however, we have the term used in what is apparently a more restricted sense: ‘the reign of God is not a matter of eating and drinking; it means righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.’ As peace is defined Immediately to mean harmony and good feeling between members of the Church (Romans 14:19), the likelihood is that righteousness denotes primarily either integrity or just dealing as an expression of the Christian spirit (so Clem. Rom. lxii. 2), the very opposite of ‘injuring your brother’ (Romans 14:15). The larger interpretation of the three terms is not, of course, to be ruled out, especially as all three have been already conjoined in Romans 5:1, and as the distinctively religious basis would never be far from St. Paul’s mind. But the context (Romans 14:18, ‘he who serves Christ on these lines’) suggests that the stress falls upon what may be called, for the sake of convenience, though inaccurately, the ‘ethical’ bearings of righteousness and peace at any rate. (It is quite unlikely, however, that St. Paul had in mind the saying of Matthew 6:33, ‘Seek God’s reign and his righteousness.’) Matthew Arnold has somewhere described this verse as one of the texts in shadow, which ought to be brought into prominence to correct materialistic, popular views about the Kingdom of God. But this was not St. Paul’s point, even on the ‘ethical’ interpretation of his words; he was not opposing conduct to supernaturalism in thus defining the nature of the reign. In the cognate sense of justice, i.e. of the moral goodness which makes an authority act fairly and impartially, δικαιοσύνη for the Greeks was not only a human but a divine virtue. There is a remarkable passage in Plutarch’s Life of Aristides (6) which brings out this usage of the term. Plutarch observes that the justice of Aristides was what impressed his contemporaries most, and won for him ‘that most royal and divine title or “the Just.” ’ He then proceeds to moralize upon the disinclination of men to imitate and reproduce this quality of the divine nature. The quality of incorruption (ἀφθαρσία) and eternity (τὸ ἀΐδιον) they envy and felicitate God an possessing; the quality of power (τὸ κύριον καὶ τὸ δυνατόν) they dread and fear; they love and honour and revere the deity for his δικαιοσύνη and yet, Plutarch sadly reflects, the first of these three emotions the passion for immortality (‘of which our nature is not capable’), is the strongest, while the divine ἀρέτη, i.e. justice which alone of the divine excellences is within our reach, commands least interest. Plutarch is thinking specially of men in authority, and his language illustrates the use of the term in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 1:9), where the writer quotes Psalms 45 as a description of the Messianic king, ^[14] ‘Thou hast loved justice and hated lawlessness,’ and later on (Hebrews 7:2) recalls the meaning of Melchizedek’s name as ‘king of justice.’ After St. Paul, the idea of righteousness ceases to occupy any special position in the apostolic literature; the term either echoes his technical usage, though this is rare, or is employed in one or other of its general meanings. The sole occurrence in the Fourth Gospel (John 16:8-10) is remarkable, because it gives a turn to the word which is unfamiliar even to St. Paul. One of the three converging lines along which the Spirit, acting through the Church, confounds and condemns the unbelieving world is the witness to the Resurrection, which proves that Christ was not a blasphemous Messianic pretender, as the Jews held, but innocent, just, acting according to the Divine will. ‘He will convince men of righteousness, because I go to the Father and you see me no more.’ The overcoming of death by Jesus, which is testified by the presence of His alter ego, the Spirit, in the Church, is a convincing proof that He was ‘right’ in His claims, and that Christians who believed in Him, not the Jews who murdered Him, were ‘righteous,’ i.e. fulfilling the Divine will. The obscure line from the primitive hymn quoted in 1 Timothy 3:16, ‘he was vindicated by the Spirit’ (ἐδικαιώθη ἐν πνεύματι), probably is an allusion to this point of view. ^[15] It is singular that this is the only ^[16] NT application of the OT sense of the phrase, which meant the open vindication of Israel, by some signal act of Divine favour, before the nations who had been scoffers and persecutors. The justification of Jesus came up, however, not long afterwards in different from. Trypho told Justin (Dial. 67) that if Christians could prove from Scripture that Jesus really was the Messiah, it would be better to argue that He deserved this honour on account of His dutiful obedience to the rites and regulations of the law than that He owed it to a legendary virgin-birth. Justin’s reply is that Jesus was circumcised and obedient to the other ordinances of the Mosaic code, but ‘not us if he were justified thereby.’ Justin’s position is practically that of Matthew 3:15; Jesus fulfils every religious requirement (πᾶσαν δικαιοσύνην) of the Law, but only as that is part of His obedience to the Father. It is noticeable, in this connexion, that St. Paul never speaks of Jesus Christ as righteous,’ nor of His righteousness, although this was a familiar predicate of Messiah not only in the OT but in the later Judaism, especially in the Enochic Parables, where righteousness is one of the leading characteristics of Messiah as well as of the saints. Messiah as Son of Man is ‘born to righteousness’ (lxxi. 14) and possesses it as an essential quality of His nature; it is primarily the virtue of a conqueror, who establishes the right and vindicates the faithful by over throwing the strong anti-Divine powers of earth; but it is beginning to be more than the equipment of the Divine champion or law-giver, and (cf. Test. Judah, xxiv. 1) it is associated with sinlessness as well as with wisdom or knowledge. Even when St. Paul speaks in terms of this militant Messianism (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 1-2), he refrains from calling Jesus ‘The Righteous One.’ ^[17] Otherwise, be describes Him as ‘born under the law’ and as serving the Jews un earth in fulfilment of God’s promises; in Philippians 2:6 f. he does not suggest that the obedience of Jesus under the Law amounted in any sense to ‘Justificatio

When the lofty spire of Old St. Paul's was destroyed by lightning, there were many superstitious persons who were amazed beyond measure at the calamity, for in the cross there had long been deposited relics of certain saints, which were counted fully sufficient to avert all danger of tempests. With what amazement will ignorant, self-righteous sinners see their own destruction come upon them, notwithstanding all the refuges of lies in which they trusted.

God the Father is righteous (just); Jesus Christ his Son is the Righteous (Just) One; the Father through the Son and in the Spirit gives the gift of righteousness (justice) to repentant sinners for salvation; such believing sinners are declared righteous (just) by the Father through the Son, are made righteous (just) by the Holy Spirit working in them, and will be wholly righteous (just) in the age to come. They are and will be righteous because they are in a covenant relation with the living God, who is the God of all grace and mercy and who will bring to completion what he has begun in them by declaring them righteous for Christ's sake. The noun righteousness/justice (Gk. dikaiosune ^[1]) bears meanings in the New Testament related to two sources. The major one is the Hebrew thought-world of the Old Testament and particularly the sdq ^[2] word group, which locates the meaning in the sphere of God's gracious, covenantal relation to his people and the appropriate behavior of the covenant partners (Yahweh and Israel) toward each other. The other is the regular use of the words in everyday Greek as spoken in New Testament times, which fixes the meaning in the sphere of a life in conformity to a known standard or law—thus honesty, legality, and so on. This latter meaning in terms of doing God's will is of course also found in the Old Testament. When we translate the Greek words based on the stem dikai- into English we make use of two sets of words based on the stems, just and right. So we have just, justice, justify and right, righteous, righteousness, rightwise (old English). The use of two sets of English words for the one set of Greek words sometimes causes difficulties for students of the Bible. This is especially so when the verb "to justify, " describing God's word and action, is used with the noun "righteousness, " pointing to the result of that action. The Gospels . The appropriate background to bear in mind for understanding the teaching of both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ on righteousness/justice are two of the dominant ideas of the Old Testament. First, Yahweh-Elohim, the Lord God, is righteous in that he speaks and Acts in accordance with the purity of his own holy nature; further, what he says and does for Israel is in accordance with his establishment of the covenant with this people (see Psalm 22:31 ; 40:10 ; 51:14 ; 71:15-24 ; Amos 5:21-24 ). Micah declared the righteousness of God as his faithfulness to keep and act within the covenant and thus to save Israel from her enemies, as well as to vindicate the penitent. Second, the covenant people of God are called to live righteously, that is, in conformity to the demands of the covenant and according to God's will (see Psalm 1:4-6 ; 11:7 ; 72:1 ; Isaiah 1:16-17 ). Having within the covenantal relation with God the gift of salvation, they are to behave as the people of the holy Lord. Hosea, the prophet of divine love, ties righteousness with mercy, loving kindness, and justice (2:19; 10:12). John the Baptist called for repentance and righteous behavior such as is pleasing to God (Luke 3:7-9 ). Further, it was because of the demands of such righteousnessfulfilling the will of Godthat he actually was willing to baptize Jesus (Matthew 3:15 ). Likewise Jesus presents righteousness as conformity to the will of God expressed in the Mosaic law (Matthew 13:17 ; 23:29 ; 27:4,19 , 24 ) and also conformity to his own teachings concerning the requirements of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:17-20 ). However, conformity to his own teachings presupposes that he is the Messiah, that he fulfills the Law and the Prophets, and that what he declares is the morality of the kingdom of God relating to the totality of life, inward and outward, seen by God. Further, Jesus does allow that conformity to the norms of the scribes and Pharisees is a certain kind of (inferior) righteous living, but he contrasts it with the proper righteousness he exhibits, proclaims, and looks for (Luke 5:30-32 ; 15:7 ; 18:9 ) in the disciples of the kingdom. So in a fundamental sense, in the four Gospels righteousness as a quality of living is intimately related to the arrival and membership in the kingdom of God and is only possible because God has come to his people as their Redeemer. The Gospel of Matthew makes clear that from the beginning Jesus' mission is to fulfill God's righteousness (3:15). This is brought to realization in his words and ministry so that the kingdom and salvation of God are in him and come through him. Alongside this is the righteousness in the new covenant, which is right thinking, feeling, speaking, and behavior on the part of disciples of the kingdom, who do what God approves and commands. This moral substance is very clear from the detailed contents of the Sermon on the Mount (chaps. 5-7), where the will of God is set forth by Jesus and is contrasted with a mere legalism. Yet what Jesus proclaims and outlines is certainly not a self-righteousness, for it is portrayed as the outflowing of a life that is centered on submitting to, worshiping, and seeking after God and confessing Jesus as the Messiah (see especially 5:17-42). In the Gospel of Luke, we read of Zechariah and Elizabeth, Simeon and Joseph of Arimathea being called righteous (1:6; 2:25; 23:50) because they embody genuine religion according to the norms of the Old Covenant. They trust in and obey God. Further, Jesus himself as the Servant of Yahweh is the righteous or innocent one (23:47), even as the centurion confessed at the cross. The righteousness of the kingdom of God is practical and reverses the standards of the regular social order (3:11,14; 6:20-26). At the last day it will be those who have been genuinely righteous in terms of doing the will of God who will be declared just (14:14). In the Gospel of John, God is righteous (17:25) and the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, has a specific role with respect to righteousness (16:8,10). It is the unique work of the Spirit, who comes into the world in the name of Jesus the Messiah, to convince/convict the world of righteousness. The Spirit both vindicates Jesus as the Righteous One, whom the Father has raised from the dead and exalted into heaven, and also makes clear what kind of righteous life is required by, and, in grace, provided by God. The Letters of Paul . The uses the noun dikaiosune [ Isaiah 46:13 ). Thus God's people are righteous when they are in a right relation with him, when they enjoy his salvation; they are considered by God as the Judge of the world as righteous when they are being and doing what he requires in his covenant. So it may be said that the concept of righteousness in Paul belongs more to soteriology than to moral theology, even though it has distinct moral implications. God's righteousness is, for Paul, God's saving activity in and through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his Son. It is activity that is directly in line with the saving activity of God in the Old Testament. The acceptance of the unique saving deed of God at Calvary by faith in the person of Jesus Christ is that which God has ordained to be the means for sinners (the unrighteous and the disobedient ones) to enter into the right with God, the Father, and receive the forgiveness of sins. God as the Judge justifies believing sinners by declaring them righteous in and through Jesus Christ; then he expects and enables these sinners to become righteous in word and deed. Faith works by love. The righteousness of which Paul speaks, especially in the letters to Galatia and Rome, stands in contrast to the righteousness that is based on the fulfillment of the law by man as the covenant partner of God. It is "the righteousness of faith" and "the righteousness of God" (Romans 10:6 ; Philippians 3:9 ), and is most certainly the gift of God. From the human standpoint what God looks for in those who receive the gospel is "faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20 ). God's gift to those who believe is a righteousness that exists and can be given only because of the sacrificial death of Jesus for sinners and his resurrection from the dead as the vindicated Lord of all. So God as the righteous Judge justifiesplaces in a right relation with himself within the new covenant of gracethose who believe the gospel of the Father concerning his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he justifies Jew and Greek alike on precisely the same basis, by faith alone without works, and he makes no distinction whatsoever between the people of the Old Covenant and the Gentiles. Abraham, says Paul, was himself justified by faith alone (Genesis 12:3 ; 15:6 ; 18:18 ; Romans 4:3 ; Galatians 3:8 ). In fact, Paul confessed that the power of the gospel to be the word of salvation to both Jew and Greek was based on the revelation of the righteousness of God thereinof God the Father acting justly for the sake of his Son (Romans 1:16-17 ). The gift of a right relation with the Father through the Son in the Spirit, which is justification, creates a relationship for believers both with God and fellow believers that they are to dedicate to righteousness in the sense of obeying Christ (Romans 6:12-14 ; cf. 2 Corinthians 6:7,14 ; 9:10 ; Ephesians 4:24 ; Philippians 1:11 ). Though they could never become righteous before God by their efforts to conform their lives to his will, out of gratitude and love they are to serve him because he has given them the gift of salvation through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has pronounced them righteous, he has reconciled them to himself and removed their alienation, and he has transformed their relation to him into that of friendship. Therefore, since God has made them his own and given to them his righteousness, their duty and privilege is to be righteous in conduct. And he promises that on the last day and for the life of the age to come he will actually make them to be truly and effectually righteous in all that they are, become, and do. The word "eschatological" is often used with reference to this gift of righteousness. The reason is this. It is in anticipation of what God will do for the sake of his Son Jesus Christ at the last day that he pronounces guilty sinners righteous now in this evil age. At the last day, God the Father will be vindicated and all will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Those who believe will become and remain righteous in their resurrection bodies of glory. Now and before the new age arrives, by the proclamation of the gospel and by the presence of the Spirit, that which is not yet (the fullness of righteousness of the age to come) is actually made available by the will and declaration of the Father, through the mediation of Jesus Christ the Lord and by the presence and operation of the Holy Spirit. Already there is the provision of a right relation with God through the preaching of the gospel, but there is not yet the experience of the fullness of righteousness as an imparted gift. Now believers merely have the firstfruits of that which awaits them in the age to come. It would be a mistake, however, to think that Paul does not use the word "righteousness" in its more familiar meaning as a virtue. In fact he does so particularly in 1,2Timothy. He commends striving for righteousness (1 Timothy 6:11 ) as the right motivation of a person of God; and he sees the use of the inspired Scriptures as being to train Christians in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16 ). Further, as a reward for his efforts for the kingdom of God he looks for "the crown of righteousness" (2 Timothy 4:8 ). Other New Testament Books . Righteousness in terms of the actual doing and completing the will of God is found outside the Gospels in various places. It is found in Acts 10:35 in terms of fearing God and doing righteousness. In Hebrews 12:11 we read of the peaceful fruit of righteousness. In 1Peter Christians are to die to sin and live to righteousness (2:24) and be prepared to suffer for righteousness' sake (3:14). In 1John the doing of righteousness in terms of following Jesus Christ, the righteous One, who came in flesh and will come again in glory, is what vital Christianity is all about. Believers who act righteously in word and deed proclaim their righteous Lord and show the error of the false teachers (2:29; 3:7-10). The most discussed passage outside the Pauline corpus with respect to righteousness and justification is James 2:14-26 . Here, at least on the surface, it appears that James is disagreeing with Paul. In fact the truth is that they have different starting points and are facing different missionary and pastoral situations. A faith without works is said by James to be a dead faith, and Abraham is presented as being justified by his works because he was prepared to sacrifice his beloved son. For James, faith comes to completion in practical works and it was this completed faith of Abraham, says James, which was reckoned to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6 ; James 2:23 ). Thus for James a person is placed in a right relation with God by a faith expressed in works. It is possible to reconcile Paul's approach and that of James if it is remembered that Paul himself spoke of "faith expressing itself through love" (Galatians 5:6 ; cf. James 2:1,8 ). Peter Toon See also Ethics ; God ; Justice Bibliography . B. Przybylski, Righteousness in Matthew and His World of Thought ; J. Reumann, et al., Righteousness in the New Testament ; P. Stulmacher, Reconciliation, Law and Righteousness ; J. A. Zeisler, The Meaning of Righteousness in Paul .

See STAR, MORNING.

(n.) The quality or state of being self-righteous; pharisaism.

(1): (n.) The quality or state of being righteous; holiness; purity; uprightness; rectitude. (2): (n.) A righteous act, or righteous quality. (3): (n.) The state of being right with God; justification; the work of Christ, which is the ground of justification. (4): (n.) The act or conduct of one who is righteous.

RIGHTEOUS, RIGHTEOUSNESS It is very highly important and interesting to have clear apprehensions of the Scriptural meaning of the term righteous. What notions we annex to it is of little consequence if the word of God decides other wise. Certain it is, that in the world's dictionary the term righteous is very freely and commonly bestowed, and upon characters that call in question many of the Lord's declarations concerning sin, and the sinfulness of our fallen nature. It is highly important therefore to hear what the word of God saith on this point, and not lean upon the human opinion of vain men. Now the Scriptures with one voice, and in the most unqualified and unaccommodating manner, declare that when the Lord looked "down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek after God," the result of that enquiry was, that "they were all gone aside, and altogether become filthy, that there was none that did good, no not one." (Psalms 14:2-3) And the apostle Paul quotes this passage, and confirms it by enlargement. (See Romans 3:1-19) It is in vain for any man to make an appeal against this decision. No comparative statement can, in the least, alter the case. No man, not a single man of the whole race of men sprung from Adam, can be an exception to this universal decree of God. What then is the righteousness of the Scripture, and who is the righteous man before God? The answer is direct. None but the Lord Jesus Christ. He, and he only, is set forth under this title; and he alone is the Righteousness of his people. It is high treason to talk of any other; and it is equally high treason to talk of any comparative statement between man and man concerning righteousness. The account from heaven is, "All have sinned, and come short of God's glory. The whole world is become guilty before God.%And by the deeds of the law can no flesh be justified before God." Hence, therefore, it undeniably follows that Christ is the only righteousness of his people; and he is what Scripture declares his name is, and shall be, JEHOVAH our Righteousness. (Jeremiah 23:6) Now then the conclusion from this statement of Scripture is evidently this—if Jesus be the only righteousness of his people, either this is my right eousness, or I have none at all. Wholly sinful in myself, and wholly righteous in him I must be; or I have no part nor lot in this matter. If there be not in me a total renunciation of every thing the mistaken calculation of men calls righteousness, yea, more than this, if there be not a full and unreserved confession of universal sin and unworthiness in me, I cannot be wholly looking for acceptance to, and living wholly upon, the Lord Jesus Christ as the Lord my Righteousness. And the gospel knows no mixture, no mingling the righteousness of the sinner with the righteousness of the Saviour. "A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." Blessed and happy souls who, from a deep conviction of the total corruption and depravity of their own nature, are resting all their high hopes of acceptance and justification before God in the perfect and complete righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ; who behold him, and accept the authority of JEHO VAH for this well-grounded confidence of beholding him, and rest with full assurance of faith in him, as the Lord their righteousness; and to whose spirits the Holy Ghost bears witness that "he is made of God to them wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, that, according as it is writ ten, he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 1:30-31)

Righteousness is an attribute of moral purity belonging to God alone (John 17:25 ). It is He alone who is truly righteous. No one in the world is righteous in the eyes of the Lord, that is, except the Christian. We are counted righteous in the eyes of God when we receive Jesus by faith (Philippians 3:9). Our righteousness is based on what Jesus did on the cross. The righteousness that was Christ's is counted to us. We, then, are seen as righteous in the eyes of God. Though we are actually worthy of damnation, we are made righteous (Isaiah 61:10) by Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. As a result, we will spend eternity in the presence of the holy, pure, loving, kind, gentle, and righteous God who is our righteousness.

justice, holiness. The righteousness of God is the essential perfection of his nature; sometimes it is put for his justice. The righteousness of Christ denotes, not only his absolute perfection, but, is taken for his perfect obedience unto death, and his suffering the penalty of the law in our stead. The righteousness of the law is that obedience which the law requires. The righteousness of faith is the justification which is received by faith.

See JUSTIFICATION .

Rectitude, justice, holiness; an essential perfection of God's character, Job 36:3 ; Isaiah 51:5-8 ; John 17:25 ; and of his administration, Genesis 18:25 ; Romans 3:21,22 ; 10:3 . It is the wonder of grace that as the righteous guardian of the law, he can acquit the unrighteous. "The righteousness of Christ" includes his spotless holiness, his perfect obedience the law demands; and "the righteousness of faith" is that imputed to the sinner who believes in Christ. With reference to personal character, righteousness is used both for uprightness between man and man, and for true religion, Genesis 18:23 ; Leviticus 19:15 ; Isaiah 60:17 ; Romans 14:17 ; Ephesians 5:9 .

A term frequently occurring in scripture expressing an attribute of God which maintains what is consistent with His own character, and necessarily judges what is opposed to it — sin. In man also it is the opposite of lawlessness or sin, 1 John 3:4-7 ; but it is plainly declared of man that, apart from a work of grace in him, "there is none righteous, no, not one." Psalm 14:1-3 ; Romans 3:10 . But God has, independently of man, revealed His righteousness in the complete judgement and setting aside of sin; and of the state with which, in man, sin was connected. This was effected by the Son of God becoming man and taking on the cross, vicariously, the place of man as under the curse of the law, and in His being made sin and glorifying God in bearing the judgement of sin. Hence grace is established on the foundation of righteousness. The righteousness of God, declared and expressed in the saints in Christ, is thus the divinely given answer to Christ having been made sin. On the other hand, the lake of fire is an eternal expression of God's righteous judgement. At the present moment God's righteousness is revealed in the gospel and apprehended by faith. This is an entirely different principle from that on which the Jew went, namely, that of seeking to establish their own righteousness, and not submitting to the righteousness of God. Romans 10:3 . Their father Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness; and the faith of the believer is counted to him for righteousness, apart from works. Romans 4:3,5 . Christ Jesus is made unto us righteousness from God. 1 Corinthians 1:30 . He is the end of the law for righteousness to all those who believe. Besides the above, there is the practical righteousness which characterises every Christian. By knowing God's righteousness he becomes the servant of righteousness. The bride of the Lamb is represented as "arrayed in fine linen, clean and white:" which is "the righteousnesses of the saints." Revelation 19:8 . The doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ, though largely acknowledged in Christendom, is not found in scripture. The explanation generally given of the doctrine is that Christ having perfectly kept the law, His obedience has formed a legal righteousness that is imputed to the believer as if the latter had himself kept the law. One passage of scripture proves this view to be incorrect: "If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." Galatians 2:21 . The force of the doctrine is to maintain the validity of the law in application to believers; and it stands in the way of their apprehending their death to the law by the body of Christ, so as to be married to Christ raised up from the dead, to bring forth fruit to God. Romans 7:4 .