Do any of you like to learn about the history and meaning of words? I have to admit—I’m kind of in that category myself. I like learning about words and their history and how they’ve changed over time. Most words tend to change their meaning a little bit over the years, and this is particularly true of words that get picked up as slang words. When a word catches on as a slang word, it usually ends up with a meaning that barely resembles its original meaning.
Such is the case with the word that we are going to study today, the word “righteous” or “righteousness.” Some of you might remember when “righteous” was a fairly popular slang word. Well, I did a little homework on this and found some interesting information. Apparently some of the slang synonyms of “righteous” include: awesome, cool, sweet, gnarly, rad, and tubular. One website had some examples of “righteous” being used in a sentence to help us get it right. Apparently after you finish a nice Italian dinner you can say, “Oh, man, that lasagna was righteous!” Or if you find yourself in a group of surfers you could say, “That wave was righteous man! That so totally rocked!” Or if you’re a fan of action movies you could apparently say, “Did you see Chuck Norris kick those guys in the head? That was righteous!”
Well, to some people, the word “righteous” might be nothing more than a slightly out-of-date slang word, but in the Bible it is a very significant word that we run across quite a bit. In the New American Standard translation, the words righteous, righteousness, or righteously occur 619 times! That means that if we don’t understand this word, then we’ll be lost throughout a fairly large portion of the Bible. And what’s more, this word plays a very important role in passages that talk about our standing before God. So today I want to spend a moment defining this word from the Bible and then we’ll apply it in an important passage that deals with how God looks at us and our sin.
I. What does the word “righteous” mean?
A. Synonyms of righteous
One of the best ways to get a quick handle on what a word means is to look at its synonyms. The Bible provides us with several synonyms for the word “righteous,” many of them in describing the character of God. Deut. 32:4 is one verse that describes God as righteous and gives us several synonyms to help us understand what that means [READ Deut. 32:4] You can see that we have several synonyms here that describe God’s character and the actions that flow from his character. He is called “upright,” which is the opposite of crooked; he is called “faithful,” which means that he is trustworthy and honest. Also, the idea of justice is mentioned twice—the verse says that His ways are just and He is without injustice. So the things that he does are fair. If we measure his actions by the standard of justice, we find that his actions line up exactly. Thus, a basic summary of this verse gives us the idea that righteous character is character that meets the standard of justice.
This idea also comes through in verses that use the word righteous as a virtual synonym for “innocent” [READ Deut. 25:1]. The righteous person in this verse is the one who had not violated the standard of law; he is the innocent party. Other verses convey the same idea. In 1 Kings 8:31–32, Solomon is saying a prayer of dedication for the temple in Jerusalem and he says, “If a man sins against his neighbor and is made to take an oath before Your altar in this house, then hear in heaven and act and judge Your servants, condemning the wicked by bringing his way on his own head and justifying the righteous by giving him according to his righteousness.”
Or you may remember that when Jesus was on trial before Pilate, Pilate’s wife “sent him a message saying ‘Have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him’”[Matt. 27:19]. Jesus could be called righteous because he had not violated the standard of law—he was innocent of all of the charges that were being brought against him.
So I believe that the synonyms of the word “righteous” start to give us a basic definition for this word—“righteousness” is character that meets the standard by which it is judged. It is character that conforms to proper standards.
B. Descriptions of righteous people
I think this definition becomes even more evident when we look at descriptions of righteous people that are found in the Bible. One of the first people described as “righteous” is Noah. Genesis 6:9 says, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God.” This is not to say that Noah had never sinned, but by the standard of pursuing a relationship with God, Noah was apparently the only one who met the standard, and so God spared him from the flood.
Luke 1:6 is a great example as well. In that verse, Luke talks about the parents of John the Baptist and says, “They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord.” Again, this doesn’t mean that they had never sinned; it simply means that they lived according to God’s law and took the proper steps when they did sin. So their lives matched the standard that God laid out in his law.
C. A word picture of righteousness
Finally, we also have a word picture of righteousness to help us understand this term. In the Old Testament, the picture of having clean hands was used as a synonym for righteousness. For example in 2 Samuel 22:21, David sings a song of praise to the Lord and he says, “The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me.” David repeated the same idea in Psalm 18:20. You might also remember in the New Testament when Pilate washed his hands after he turned Jesus over to the people. That was a symbolic way for Pilate to claim that he was innocent with regard to Jesus’ death.
We have a very similar word picture in English when we talk about someone being caught “red-handed.” The idea is that the person who is caught is guilty and we know they’re guilty because we caught them in the act. And so we say that we caught that person red-handed.
So the word picture of having clean hands communicates the idea of innocence, the idea that someone has not violated the standard of judgment. So if we could pull all of this information together, I think we could come up with a good definition of the word righteous. Since the idea behind this word is the idea of meeting a standard, I think we could say that righteousness is character that meets God’s standards. Thus, righteous actions are actions that line up with God’s standards. A righteous person is someone who meets God’s standards.
But you may notice a little problem at this point—the rest of the Bible tells us that on our own, we haven’t met God’s standards; we have fallen short of them. Romans 3:10 says, “no one is righteous—not even one.” So what can we say then? Is there any hope for us? How can we be righteous in the eyes of God?
II. How can we be righteous in the eyes of God? Romans 4:1–8
This is a question that Paul answers in Romans 4:1–8. Turn there with me if you would. In this passage, Paul uses the example of Abraham to illustrate how we can be seen as righteous in the eyes of God [READ 4:1–8]. This passage is loaded with bookkeeping terms, or accounting terms. Picture in your mind your bank statement or your credit card statement. In one category you have your debits—all of the withdrawals you’ve made or the charges that you have on your credit card. In another category you have your credits—all of the deposits you’ve made or the payments you’ve made. Now think about this in spiritual terms for a moment—picture that debits category. The debits category contains all of the sinful things you’ve ever done; that’s a big category. And then picture your credits category. What Paul is telling us is that when we place our faith in Jesus Christ, God pulls up our account and writes the word “righteous” in the credits category, so that now in his eyes, we have met his standards. Even though we haven’t earned it, God gives us that status as a free gift.
This is so important for us to understand—when you place your faith in Jesus Christ, God looks at you and says, “You have met my standards. On the basis of what my Son has accomplished for you, I accept you according to my standards.” It is so important for us to understand this because it really colors the way that we look at our relationship with God. Far too often we feel like God demands that we earn his love and acceptance, and that’s because of the way that we usually relate to one another. In human relationships, we often use our love and acceptance like bargaining chips to manipulate the behavior of others. We hold back our full love and acceptance from each other because as long as we do we feel like we still have something to dangle over the heads of others to get them to do what we want.
And it is so easy to think that God is doing the same thing when we pick up the Bible and read his commands. So what we have to realize is that when we place our faith in Jesus, we are fully and completely accepted by God. That means that his commands for us must serve some other purpose. In fact, his commands for us show us the way to live out the meaning of life; they show us how to fulfill the purpose for which we were created, which was to be God’s representatives in this world. Because when we follow the commands of God, he receives glory from our obedience, and we fulfill our created purpose, and then we get to enjoy all of the things that come from that, like inner peace, joy, fellowship with God, and so many other things.
So even though we in ourselves are not righteous, we can still be seen as righteous in God’s eyes by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. But being declared righteous is not the same as actually living a righteous life. That is the great struggle of the Christian life—becoming what God says we are in Jesus Christ. So…
III. How can we pursue righteous behavior in our lives? 2 Timothy 3:16
Fortunately, God has given us a tool that will train us in righteousness if we will allow it to shape our minds and our hearts. It’s called the Bible. In 2 Timothy 3:16–17, Paul writes, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” If we are going to try to meet some kind of standard for living, we have to know what the standard is and how to get there, and that is what the Bible reveals to us. It spells out the standard in God’s commands; it gives us a living, breathing picture of the standard in what it records about Jesus; it tells us how God has given us His Holy Spirit to empower us to live up to that standard. So if we are going to live righteous lives, we’ve got to follow the advice of our trainer! We must allow the Bible to shape our opinions and attitudes; we must choose to act in the way that it tells us to act rather than just follow our own desires. And when we do, it will shape our character after the pattern of Christ’s character, which will allow us to live out the status of righteousness that we now enjoy in Jesus Christ.
I believe the last word on righteousness should be that of Paul from 2 Cor. 5:21 where he describes the great trade-off that Jesus accomplished for us in his death. Paul states, “God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” On the basis of Jesus’ death, God offers us the free gift of salvation, and everyone who will receive it can rest assured that they are accepted according to God’s standards. Because we have no righteousness of our own, God offers to credit the righteousness of Christ to our account so that we might be forgiven. Praise be to God for His indescribable gift!
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