We have been looking at devotions that are interconnected. We’ve looked at perfection and just. (We should include holy in that list.) This daily devotional looks at righteousness.
Nuggets
- God is righteous because He is pure.
- Righteousness comes from God’s character.
- God wants to shower his righteousness on us.
- God’s righteousness brings us joy and increases our reverence for Him.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the Finding Our Center series
For a while, I have been wondering if I am understanding righteous and righteousness correctly.
Part of the problem is when I read about God’s righteousness. He can’t have a solid relationship with Himself.
I am hoping to get more insight with this study. I keep telling you I do these devotions to learn myself and share them to help you learn. I don’t have all the answers.
Join me as I try to figure it out.
Let's Put It into Context #1
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Let's Put It into Context #2
Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
Righteousness is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments.
What Is God’s Righteousness?
“They will give a testimony of your great goodness and will joyfully sing of your righteousness” (Ps. 145: 17 CSB)
God is righteous because He is pure and works for us.
Whenever I see a definition about righteous or righteousness, it invariably defines it as being right. I can see that, of course, but I also think that is simplistic.
Part of me is shouting, “But what is right?” I don’t care for circular definitions.
Everything is connected like Dem Bones, but there are differences. For example, the Blue Letter Bible explained that “righteousness is similar to goodness and holiness, but differs in that it requires works to establish it.”
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We haven’t defined goodness — yet (that is a couple of devotions from now). Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart. Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
The works being discussed is the good works described in Ephesians 2: 10. Good works means that we give God our best to complete whatever tasks He assigns for us to do.
The Blue Letter Bible implied that good works is synonymous for righteousness. I can see that as our definitions says that the righteousness comes from our obedience — doing the good works.
But what about God’s righteousness? What are His good works?
One of God’s good works is providing for us through the Plan of Salvation. He also provides for us through life, health, safety and a long list of other things.
But it is more than that.
Righteousness Comes from God Himself
“For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith” (Rom. 1: 17 CSB)
Righteousness comes from God’s character.
Righteousness stems from God Himself. Horton wrote, “The foundation and standard of all righteousness are to be found in His nature and character.”
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If righteousness stems from His character — to me — that makes the “right” His character. His character is the holiness. He is holy because He is pure. He is pure because He doesn’t sin.
Ooo, baby. I think this devotion is going to be one quote after another.
Horton also said, “The gospel is not merely a display of mercy, but of righteousness. He could not bestow forgiveness on sinners in violation of righteousness.”
God’s mercy is an act of sovereign will that produces an unexpected response from God as He responds in love to our needs. Forgiveness is, when we ask, God pardons us because we have broken His laws and commandments and restores our relationship with Him.
We violate God’s pure character when we sin. He showed us mercy in designing the Plan of Salvation, but He won’t give us a pass on sinning. We will be held accountable for unconfessed sins.
God’s whole purpose with the Plan of Salvation is to make us righteous again. We were before the original sin — He wants us to be again.
Glossary
Hmmmm. This is a new wrinkle. Moinet wrote, “The gospel is the saving power of God, because it reveals a Divine righteousness which is itself salvation.”
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Man. I was trucking along in that sentence until is said righteousness is salvation. Let me process.
- The Gospel is the saving power of God because it infuses a morality of purity and completeness.
- It shows us Who God is.
- But it is built on the revelation of what righteousness is.
- We can’t be saved unless we understand what righteousness is.
Okay. Elaine-speak. Righteousness is the foundation of salvation. We’ve known righteousness was an attribute of God since the Old Testament, but we can’t see how righteousness is a saving power.
Righteousness originates with God. He shares it with us. Nothing we could do will ever earn us salvation and, therefore, righteousness.
God will freely give us salvation when we admit that mankind was separated from God after the original sin, making us sinners; believe Jesus paid the penalty for those sins to become our Savior and Redeemer; confess God as Sovereign God; and demonstrate that commitment by submitting to living our lives following His laws and commandments.
Short answer — God gives us salvation when we admit we sin and promise to turn away from sin. Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
Don’t miss something else. Tyson reminded us we can’t gain righteousness just by keeping God’s laws. We’ve got to have the faith that goes with it. Faith is the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives.
In fact, it isn’t through anything we do. Spurgeon wrote, “No man can put on the robes of Christ’s righteousness till he has taken off his own. Christ will never go shares in our salvation.”
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Tyson wrote that the righteousness of God “… is that one righteousness of Christ which He affected for us in His obedience unto death.” Again, righteousness is because of obedience.
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But this was the ultimate obedience. It paved the way for salvation, justification, propitiation, atonement, and regeneration. If salvation is the soufflé, those are all the ingredients.
Dykes contended that an aspect of righteousness was the acquittal of our sins by God. He can do this because of Jesus’ sacrifice.
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Okay. I figured out why I am struggling so much with this concept. Tyson wrote, “The righteousness itself, in its true ground and nature, had not been before revealed. Indeed, till the Holy One and the Just had given exhibition of it in His own actual human history, it could not be.”
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One of God’s attributes is that He is mysterious. We can’t fully understand because He hasn’t fully revealed everything to us.
God Shows His Righteousness to Us
“But the one who boasts should boast in this: that he understands and knows me — that I am the Lord, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things. This is the Lord’s declaration” (Jer. 9: 24 CSB)
God wants to shower his righteousness on us.
God created us even though He knew we were going to disobey Him. He didn’t abandon us when we did. (His turning us out of Eden was not abandonment because He still had access to us.)
It was in faithful love, justice, and righteousness that God designed the Plan of Salvation. The Homilist added mercy to that list.
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The Homilist also noted judgment and righteousness can been seen in the results of sin. Think about the contrast there.
Judgment occurs when we sin. Righteousness is the reward when we don’t sin. When we look — even worldview people — we can see God’s presence on the earth doing both. We see His hand working in our lives.
The judgment and righteousness God bestows on us is not a negative. As Le Pla said, he judges and rewards through his loving kindness and justice. We talked not long ago that trials are spa days for us.
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God loves us and wants to grow us.
God’s Righteousness Brings Fear and Joy
“The instruction of the Lord is perfect, renewing one’s life; the testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise. The precepts of the Lord are right, making the heart glad; the command of the Lord is radiant, making the eyes light up. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are reliable and altogether righteous” (Ps. 19: 7-9 CSB)
God’s righteousness brings us joy and increases our reverence for Him.
Okay. I always get tripped up when I see the word precepts. Basically, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it is a general rule that is given by a superior to a subordinate.
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We would say that the laws and the commandments are right. Since we know that the laws and the commandments show us God’s character, we can say that His character is right.
Verse 9 talks about fear of the Lord. We know that it means awe, reverence and love, not terror.
Glossary
All of this adds up to joy. Sowden said that the psalmist purposefully tied it to our feelings and interests.
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Being right with God brings us joy. We see the perfection. We feel the trustworthiness. We see that His commands are predicated on His Love for us.
It makes us love and revere God more.
Making the Connections
God’s righteousness is based on His purity.
God rewards our righteousness and punishes our unrighteousness. In a way, righteousness is its own reward.
If righteousness is the result of being free from sin and the product of a solid relationship with Him, that means we have to choose to obey His laws and commandments.
How Do We Apply This?
“You are righteous concerning all that has happened to us, because you have acted faithfully, while we have acted wickedly” (Neh. 9: 33 CSB)
- God will always be righteous and act faithfully to us, even when we sin.
- The only way we are right with God is when we do not sin or ask for His forgiveness.
- Then, we have to do His good works.
Now, we can’t think we can do these works without God and still end up with righteousness. We can’t. Righteousness is only in relation to God.
The good works are our obedience to God’s laws and commandments. It isn’t the abilities or the results of our actions itself.
Okay, righteousness is about our relationship with Him. It is about our obedience to Him. It is all about Him.
Gracious Lord. It is difficult to understand Your righteousness. We don’t need to fully understand it. We need to obey You. We will. Amen.
What do you think?
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