RIGHTEOUSNESS

I. The meaning of the term linguistically. The technical term as it appears in the OT is צֶ֫דֶק, H7406, fem. צְדָקָה, H7407. It is universally tr. righteousness, with the adjective צַדִּיק, H7404, righteous. The NT term (δικαιοσύνη, G1466) is also rendered righteousness, with the adjective δίκαιος, G1465, righteous, and with the cognate verb δικαιόω, G1467.

In its general use, it represents any conformity to a standard whether that standard has to do with the inner character of a person, or the objective standard of accepted law. Thayer suggests the definition, “the state of him who is such as he ought to be.” In the wide sense, it refers to that which is upright or virtuous, displaying integrity, purity of life, and correctness in feeling and action. In a somewhat negative sense, it means faultlessness or guiltlessness; with reference to man it has to do with man’s conformity to God’s holiness. In a false sense, it may refer to those who pride themselves on their own virtues—sometimes real, sometimes imaginary—and such “righteous” ones are really under the condemnation of a righteous God (cf. Matt 9:13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32; 15:7).

II. Righteousness in the OT. Among the uses just suggested, the Biblical approach preeminently concerns itself with the man whose way of thinking, feeling, and acting is wholly conformed to the righteousness of God. In this sense, only Christ can be called dikaios (cf. Acts 7:52; 22:14; 1 Pet 3:18; 1 John 2:1). It is not to be found in men, i.e. perfect conformity to the will of God (Rom 3:10, 26). This raises the theological question, therefore, which is the burden of the NT; namely, how a man may be righteous in the presence of the absolute holiness of God. If God requires righteousness and if man is not righteous, how may a man be “justified,” i.e. “declared righteous”?

A. As related to the nature of God. The center of reference in Biblical theology for the question of righteousness is first of all the righteousness of God. The fundamental idea, a starting place for any Biblical view of righteousness, is very simply this: there is no law above God, but there is a law in God. Holiness is of His essence, and righteousness is a mode of this holiness. Berkhof speaks of righteousness as “transitive” holiness. Strong speaks of it as a “relative” or “transitory” attribute of God. What is being clearly said is that God is, in His essence, by His very nature, holiness itself; and righteousness is the mode or way by which His essence is expressed toward His created world or toward anything apart from Himself. To take a clue from Tillich and his discussion of “Being” or his very useful expression, “Ground of Being,” then what God is (His aseity) is the basis or ground upon which existence and creation rest. Everything apart from God’s essence is dependent and contingent upon what He is Himself; He is what holiness and righteousness must be. Righteousness is “rectitude of the divine nature by virtue of which God is infinitely righteous in Himself..., that perfection of God by which He maintains Himself over against every violation of His holiness.” In other words, there is a sense in which God cannot help Himself when He resists anything in the universe contrary to His own nature. Evil can no more survive in the presence of God than a microbe can survive in the light of the sun. However man might wish it otherwise, this is something which is of the nature of ultimate reality. It cannot be swayed or tampered with any more than the nature of God can be changed. When this has been said, not everything has been said; for no mention has yet been made of the love of God nor of His grace (which are also of His essence). Theological discussion in so far as it is Biblical and Christian may be reduced to superficial sentimentalism unless the absolute holiness of God and the perfect coincidence which exists between His nature and His action are made clear and strong at the outset.

At this point there can be no caprice or passion, no shiftiness in absolute standards. In the infinite depths of reality there is the automatic, essential revolt against moral evil. It is not a matter of arbitrary will; it is a necessary moral requirement of the essence of God. God being God, He is what He is, and He is bound by His nature to do what His nature requires. If God is big enough, i.e. infinite and eternal, there is no other source of righteousness, justice, law, or integrity.

On the face of it, this looks narrow and harsh and the religion of the Jews, reflected in the OT, is criticized as being legalistic; and any phase of the Christian religion which appears to rest on the OT, as for example, extreme Calvinism or Puritanism, is also condemned as legalism, or harsh moralism. The question is whether this is so.

Apparently the Jews believed not only that they were a people chosen of God, but also that they were directed by revelation from God. Perfectly clear in this revelation is God’s absolute righteousness. By means of revelation, the righteousness of God was made known through such prophets as Moses, was codified basically in the Decalogue, became relevant to the complexities of living in the Levitical code and the Deuteronomic code, and is also basic to the proper worship of God as seen in the symbols and activities of the Tabernacle and the Temple. There is no hesitation reflected in the OT that the basis of operation for both the nation and the individual is clearly set before them in the Holy Writings. One can easily judge, therefore, that the whole system is rightly criticized as legalistic if one may assume that things legalistic ought to be criticized.

What shall be done, then, with the strange gladness with which the whole law is treated in the OT? If one may generalize, the law of God, as it reflects the righteousness of God, is the gift of God. It is not a series of harsh demands, but a joyous reality which not only makes the Jew different from the other nations, but somehow makes him better; and by this he means that somehow it makes him happier. The law is something to share with his children, to talk about with his friends, to carry with him when he walks abroad, to meditate on “day and night.” “Oh, how love I thy law!” is a frequent theme of the psalmist. It is something to sing about, and the singing in the great Temple choirs were frequently shouts of joy.

It needs to be said very strongly therefore, in this day when the law of God is made subservient to the love of God (and such love can be sentimentalism apart from law) that the Jew saw no conflict. How else could God love him more than being always and forever Himself? How could a universe possibly hang together without absolute rectitude at its core? How could a nation survive without some dependence on absolute righteousness? How could a people be happy where the lines of truth were anything less than perfectly clear? What physics means to the scientist in the 20th cent., moral law meant to the ancient Jew. What is “fit-for-man” is “well-for-man.” What the Jew discovered, or better, what he knew had been revealed to him providentially, was that it is only in conformity to God’s righteousness that man can possibly experience the highest felicity for which his nature has been created. To bring one’s self into conformity with God’s righteousness is to righten one’s self, and so discover harmony and peace. The laws of God are the directions on the package of life. To disobey means confusion; to obey means fulfillment.

Perhaps some light on this—for it does seem a strange doctrine in the 20th cent.—will be shed if one glances at another world religion, Taoism—the religion of the Way. Significantly, Christians were first called “those of the Way.” Jesus said of Himself, “I am the way” (John 14:6). The Taoist sought what was called “The Way of the Universe” and attempted to harmonize his life with the law of the heavens. Stoicism, with all its Gr. sophistication, was speaking of the same kind of harmony through self-control and endurance in accord with the order of the universe. It is no accident that the writer of Judges in the OT said, “From heaven fought the stars, from their courses they fought against Sisera” (Judg 5:20). Any approach to life that demands conformity to nature recognizes this theme. The Roman Catholics historically have emphasized Natural Law—a built-in truth in the universe which is equally built into the nature of a man; and man simply destroys himself and loses any hope of fulfillment when he goes against Natural Law.

The decisive factor in the OT is that Tao, Way, Truth, Law are superseded by Person. God is a living God who created and sustains everything in His own universe according to His own need and will. His own need and will are absolute holiness reflected in righteousness and codified, finally, in the laws of man. It is the benevolence in His holiness which leads to His condescension in revealing His holy will.

It is easy to be repelled by certain expressions such as appear in the Ten Commandments, e.g. “I the Lord am a jealous God” (Exod 20:5). At first glance this seems small-minded in anyone who could be thought about as God almighty. But jealousy goes hand and hand with love, and need not be small-minded. One who really loves, for that very love’s sake simply cannot suffer the presence of anyone or anything that will harm or destroy or even so much as mar the beloved. This is the jealous concern for a child by a parent who keeps putting the best before him and who is constantly fearful of even the smallest thing that can undermine him. Even in Camelot, Arthur’s love for Guinevere was not great enough to exclude Lancelot, and so his wife, his family, his kingdom and the hope of humanity in that generation were destroyed. When God said, “You shall have no other gods before me” (“in my presence”—Exod 20:3), it was not because the almighty God was afraid of the competition. He feared what any perfect lover would fear, that anything less than God which could become a god would be a destroyer. The danger of false gods is finally a false life. When the “summum bonum,” the highest good, is not perfection then the lesser values become less than they should be.

Even in retributive justice, the Jews saw the healing of discipline. Sometimes an arm has to be broken to be reset. Sometimes an athlete has to unlearn to learn correctly. Only thus is he set free. How many times must humanity go through the fires of judgment before there is found freedom in the righteousness of God?

Basically, and in summary, OT Biblical thought is completely dominated by its theocentric norm. It rests on the fact that God is absolute holiness in essence, a fact established by special revelation. The demands on man for his righteous living, therefore, are never relativistic. The demands are absolute. One may count on God’s being fair in His dealings, but the frightful thing is that He must be, by His nature, absolutely fair. Since He is the Center of all reality and existence, then everything in His universe is related to Him in these same absolute demands. The conclusion of the matter is, as Paul underscores in Romans, “None is righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10). In the presence of God, “who can stand”? The answer is perfectly plain: no one! There are no rewards for obedience, no claims for recognition, and finally, no excuses, because unholiness cannot exist in the presence of holiness. Absolute cleanliness has no spots.

The Roman Catholics have found some relief in the idea of “original righteousness” (Justitia originalis). According to this view, God graciously imparted to man a perfect rectitude in his original condition before the Fall. This was supposed to have included freedom from concupiscence, bodily immortality, and impassibility. Also, happiness seems to have been a guarantee. It is difficult to see on what authority this position rests. But even if it be true, it is irrelevant and incomplete, irrelevant because men no longer live before the Fall, and incomplete because one of the greatest problems in righteousness, as will appear upon examining the NT, is the problem of positive righteousness. For a man to be free from overt sin is one problem. For him to fulfill the demands of love is a much greater problem.

As one follows the efforts of the ancient Israelites to live up to the demands of absolute righteousness, one is struck with the hopelessness, not only of their attainments, but of the direction of their efforts. Immediately after the Ten Commandments (Exod 20), there is a section known as the Little Book of the Covenant (Exod 21:1-23:19). This is a first effort to tr. the Decalogue into rules and regulations. Some of it seems of extremely minor importance, and some of it is simply quaint. The same efforts are reflected in the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Much of what is recorded there no longer speaks to man’s condition. It is culturally restricted and almost wholly of contemporary importance. The whole Jewish effort of obedience degenerated into what became true legalism under the Pharisees. No single group was ever excoriated as the Pharisees were by Jesus. They were the experts in the law—people who spent full time on righteousness, and yet Jesus insisted that the righteousness of His followers must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. Their demands on their fellowmen became as Paul recognized, “the yoke of bondage” (Gal 5:1 KJV). Something had gone dead wrong in their approach to righteousness.

B. As related to the covenant. It is clear from what has been said that righteousness has to do with the fulfillment of the demands of relationships, whether with men or with God. It is also clear that men fail in these relationships. This being so, what approach does OT religion have in the face of the absolute demands and man’s insufficient responses? The burden of the OT message, and this fits exactly into the NT development, is that righteousness must be considered in ways other than absolute obedience. Though man’s righteousness fails, God’s endures. This is the meaning of mercy, steadfast love, or the “grace” of the Christian message. In spite of man’s failures, the righteous God is as Isaiah described Him, “a righteous God and a Savior” (Isa 45:21). God intervenes on behalf of His own to save them from the disintegrating effects of sin, forgiving their sin and justifying them before Himself and before all the world. The connection of all this with the NT message is quite obvious: “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). The movement of the Scriptures is all the way from the revelation of a God who stands for the right, through the OT where He battles for the right, to the climactic revelation of a God who receives in Himself the heaviest shocks of the battle against evil. Christus Victor (Aulén’s great title for a book) means that God Himself entered into the lists until the victory was won. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19). The NT problem for Paul in the crucial vv. in Romans (Rom 3:25, 26), is how God may be “just and the justifier.” One must recognize that this process already begins by way of OT covenants.

The OT may well be looked upon as a series of fresh starts. A righteous God does not give up on His wayward people. There was a covenant with Adam having to do with absolute obedience. The turning point is reached with Abraham where in Genesis 12:1-3, there begins a series of covenants by the God and Father of the faithful. God drew near also to Isaac, and He set up agreements with a man called Jacob, whom normally one would not have thought of as even the object of God’s concern. Yet Jacob became Israel, the father of the Jewish nation, prince of God. Under Moses, God came with the law; He came to David; and gloriously He spoke to Judaism, and through Judaism to the world, in the great prophets of the 8th cent. and following.

Grace is rightly defined as the “unmerited favor of God.” There would be no OT story apart from the initiative of God’s unmerited favor. Even after Adam’s first sin, God came seeking when Adam was hiding. This is the plot of the Scriptures. The “Hound of Heaven” never leaves off His pursuit; “in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb 1:2).

What is clearly evident is that in spite of what must be said about God’s absolute holiness and righteousness, both in essence and in His inability even to look upon sin or to touch the untouchable, the OT is already insisting that the righteousness of God, however pure, moves constantly in love toward sinful man. Cf. the NT development: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin.” God’s righteousness in the OT is His own fulfillment of the demands of a relationship which, if one may speak as men, He Himself simply cannot drop. Out of this idea there is evident throughout the whole of the OT that which appears in God as a responsibility because of a relationship, may also become the mark of man’s righteousness. Man’s sin may despoil his relationship to God, but he may also sin in his irresponsibility toward other relationships. If one could read this background, he would understand that for the Jew, God’s righteousness is not so much a matter of purity, although this is never minimized, as it is His refusal ever to let go of His responsibility. “O Love that wilt not let me go.” Man also is to practice the same kind of righteousness.

Each man is set within a multitude of relationships: king with people, judge with complainant, priests with worshipers, common man with family, tribesman with community, community with resident alien and poor, and all with God. Righteousness is the fulfillment of the specific demands of the specific relationships. An excellent illustration of all this appears in the life of David, a “man after God’s own heart,” who was “righteous” because he refused to slay Saul, with whom he stood in a covenant relation (1 Sam 24:17; 26:23) and he condemned those who murdered Ish-bo-sheth (2 Sam 4:11). After the downfall of Saul’s house, Mephibosheth had no right to expect kindness from King David (19:28). The demands of righteousness change with the relationship.

As in Jewish lit., the “Wise Man” was the one who could best see life from God’s viewpoint (cf. Spinoza: sub specie aeternitatis), so the righteous man was the one who best understood and preserved God’s relationships. The Book of Job is usually considered as wisdom lit. It is also, if one may use the term, “righteous” lit. In defending himself, Job defended the OT view of the righteous man in his relationships with his God.

I was eyes to the blind,
and feet to the lame.
I was a father to the poor...

I broke the fangs of the unrighteous
(Job 29:15-17).
If I have rejected the cause of my
manservant or my maidservant....

If I have withheld anything that the poor
desired,
or have caused the eyes of the widow to
fail,
or have eaten my morsel alone...

if I have seen anyone perish for lack of
clothing,
or a poor man without covering...

if I have raised my hand against the fatherless,...

For I was in terror of calamity from God,
and I could not have faced his majesty
(Job 31:13-23).

Or again, “Let the Almighty answer me” (Job 31:35). The Book of Proverbs also reflects the righteous man in his communal relationships (Prov. 10:7; 11:10; 12:10; 14:34; 16:8; 21:26; 23:24; 29:7; 31:9; etc.).

In the wider contexts, what is demanded of the private citizen is the requirement of king and judge. In western law, the emphasis is on forensic justice in which there is an impartial decision for the two parties based on some legal standard. For the judge in Israel, righteousness is more the fulfillment of the demands of the community for balance and harmony. The judge wishes to restore the righteousness of the community, and in some cases may therefore give one of the parties not his due, but his overdue. Righteous judgments are protective and restoring. This helps to give an understanding of the outcries of the prophets, esp. in behalf of the disinherited and the downtrodden. An illustration in the 20th cent. would be the “righteousness” of the “Headstart” program in which the disinherited are given schooling according to their need, not according to their “right.” The principle of “separate but equal” in this approach to righteousness cannot restore equality until something has been done about centuries of inequality.

One of the most interesting creations of the OT economy is the Sabbatical year, coupled with the Year of Jubilee. The Sabbatical year may be interpreted as a means of conservation for the land similar to the modern ideas of rotation of crops. Nevertheless, as the land lay fallow during the Sabbatical year, the poor had certain rights on the land. The Year of Jubilee, however, was more to the point. After seven Sabbaticals, for a total of fortynine years, the fiftieth year was then declared a Year of Jubilee, in which all lands returned to their original family holdings, and everyone had a fresh start. One could hear it argued vociferously in 20th-cent. America that this is unjust, unfair, and that people and their descendants ought to “get what’s coming to them.” According to OT concepts of justice, “what’s coming to them” is a fresh opportunity, in spite of the mistakes, bad investments, and poor judgment of their parents in the use of the family inheritance. Even those sold into slavery for indebtedness were set free. No family (and this is the communal emphasis again) can be totally and finally disinherited. That this system did not work very well in ancient Israel is an illustration of man’s selfishness and covetousness, but that the prophets cried constantly for restoration of the inheritance is plainly illustrative of what was considered righteousness in OT law. The social sensitivity of the OT prophets (esp. Amos and Isaiah) is as plain as any emphasis on personal salvation in relation to God’s holy demands. How far this idea of righteousness can be removed from what is generally thought of as being “religious” is illustrated by the unhappy story of Judah and Tamar, where the whole concept of righteousness is plainly related to the use and misuse of proper family relationships (Gen 38).

What is true of the judge is true also of the king. It was his responsibility to establish a kingdom of righteousness, and the emphasis is not on forensic righteousness but on communal cohesion and stability. Psalm 72 is a picture of peace and prosperity established by a king who judges righteously. The appeal of Jeremiah (cf. Jer 22:3, 15) is that Jehoiakim is king for justice and righteousness. Significantly, prophetic passages concerning the Messiah speak of a kingdom in which there shall be righteousness and peace, and where the king shall establish the kingdom against all enemies. (Cf. Isa 9:7; 11:3; 16:5; 32:1-8; Jer 23:5, 6; 33:14-16.)

What is true of citizens, judges, and kings, reflects what must be true of the righteousness of God. The covenant relationship is prior to law. Much is made by Paul in the NT of the fact that the faith of Abraham preceded the law of Moses. Abraham was chosen of God, not because of his righteousness—surely he was a sinner like any other man—but because God chose to establish a people through him by which He could bring His saving power to bear upon all men. Abraham “believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen 15:6). By the same token, Habakkuk established the commanding principle of Pauline and Reformation theology with his dictum, “the righteous shall live by his faith” (Hab 2:4). Thus the righteous God, with no one to deal with except sinners, draws near with His covenant promises, initiates the process by which men may be brought into a saving relationship, sustains men in this relationship by His power and not theirs, and forgives and restores those who by faith accept these promises and return in repentance when they have broken the covenant. As Emil Brunner says, “The hero of the Old Testament is God.” It is not what men are, but what they may become as God holds them and as they respond, which makes the covenant possible. It is not a question of man’s attainments nor of man’s perfections, it is a question of a saving relationship provided for by a merciful, infinitely patient God.

What began with Abraham in Mesopotamia was established again in Egypt, and the psalmists never tired of telling what God did “with a mighty hand,” with a people lost in helplessness and even ignorant of their own religious inheritance. “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:4-6). Notice God’s initiatory act, even against all men’s expectancies; and notice, too, the future reference, not to what they are but to what they are to become.

Israel could suffer the wrath of God, but they could not fall out of His hands. As H. H. Farmer once put it, “We may sin ourselves into the wrath of God, but we cannot sin ourselves out of the love of God” (cf. Ps 89:28-37, esp. vv. 32, 33).

What, then, is the function of the law in a covenant relationship of grace? It is to set the norm, establish the right, speak a word of judgment on anything less than the best, and lead one to the almighty God who can enable one increasingly to fulfill the requirements of holiness. The law has no power in itself to make a good life. It establishes what the good life ought to be and may be by the power of God.

One further truth: the law (which Paul calls “the schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ” Gal 3:24 KJV) is the guide for those within the covenant. Only inside the covenant does one really care what response he shall make to the God who has called him to be His child. Much time in this generation is wasted in telling people how they ought to act—“Why don’t you act like a Christian?”—when there is no reason why a non-Christian should have any interest in acting like one. The American representative in the United Nations illustrated how foolish this can be when he urged that the Arabs and Jews could settle their differences if they would only “act like Christians.” This may be a true statement, but on the face of it, it seems highly irrelevant to an Arab and to a Jew.

To the OT Jew, then, the law is a part of the whole gift of grace. Hear the psalmist sing: “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul...the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes...the ordinances of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb” (Ps 19:7-10). Apparently, for the Jew, although the law was binding, it was far from oppressive. On the contrary, how happy he was that his God had made plain to him how to live a life of stability and satisfaction.

One other help in the understanding of this whole covenant relationship is to see how God acted in behalf of His people against their enemies. From the vantage point of the Christian era it is hard to discern the viewpoint of the chosen people as against “the other nations,” the Gentiles. It looks narrow and provincial now, but from the OT viewpoint it makes good sense. How else could God who has entered into His covenant act expect to protect His own from “the others”? This would be expected of the father of a family, of a king, and surely of a man’s God. Perhaps the Jew missed some points which one can see now from a perspective which the Jew did not have. For one thing, he was chosen of God, not because he was something special, but in order that he might become the channel of something special. God said to Abaham, “I will bless you...so that you will be a blessing” (Gen 12:2). The Jew lost his way when he thought the blessing ended with him. There was not one iota of selfishness in one’s being chosen of God. The NT concept of “election” has in it the same danger unless it is seen that one is “elected” as an agent of God toward others. For another thing, the channel of blessing was to be universal, not narrow. Perhaps God’s great protection of the Jew, which seems to be narrow and provincial, is offensive because of the fact that men do not understand the problem and so they make the same mistake that the Jew made, i.e. they consider election an end in itself. God had to start somewhere, He had to choose someone; He had at all costs to protect His investment in His plan of salvation. That only a remnant remained as a channel for His blessing is indicative of the high cost of this whole process, even in the OT. The Gentiles had to be left out at the outset, but most of the Jews had to be left out, too, before some of them were fit channels for a salvation which was to come to all men. The servant of God in the covenant eventually had to become the suffering servant, and yet, in the whole process, the absolutely holy God, for love’s sake, was working out a way by which men would become “heirs of God.” What is difficult to see in the OT is not necessarily easier to see in the NT. Israel, the suffering servant, is replaced by the Suffering Servant, who in perfect obedience “fulfilled all righteousness.” It is the burden of Paul’s approach to Christianity to reveal how this was done.

III. Righteousness in the NT.

A. The idea in the gospels. It is an assumption of all NT studies that the epistles of Paul chronologically preceded the records of the four gospels. As the canon of the NT appears in men’s hands, however, the gospels precede the other writings, and this of course makes its own good sense, because the life and teachings of Christ preceded the explanations and commentaries of the epistles in the treatment of righteousness. There is, however, a certain awkwardness because the understanding of righteousness in the NT actually comes out of the writings of Paul rather than from the gospels. As Dr. R. W. Dale so nicely put it, “Christ did not come to preach the gospel; He came that there might be a gospel to preach.” It is true that “In him was all righteousness,” but what He had to say on the subject specifically does not begin to touch the full explication which appears in the epistles. He was not a theology, He was a Person. The theology followed the exhibition of righteousness in His person. With this in mind, therefore, the expectancy regarding righteousness in the gospels, at least insofar as Jesus taught on the subject, is not great.

This is not to say that the term “righteous” is not used in general in the gospels; it is used to mean a “pious” person, or a “religious” person, or one regarding whom, in a popular sense, it might be said that he lived a “good” life. Joseph was called a “righteous” man, and this was the reason why he would not turn Mary over to the authorities when she was found to be pregnant. Strict construction of Jewish law would have demanded that Mary be stoned to death, but Joseph, being “righteous,” planned to put her away out of sight. He was evading the demands of the law and refused to make out of his betrothed a public spectacle. As a just man, he would be, in the terminology of our day, a kind or soft-hearted man (Matt 1:19). So too, Pilate and his wife judged Jesus to be a “righteous” man (Matt 27:19-24). Even in their short acquaintance they had recognized a certain greatness about Him which made them uneasy about any part Pilate might play in His crucifixion.

In a stricter sense the Pharisees made an appearance of “righteousness” (Matt 23:28), and surely in such passages the idea is that of formal righteousness in keeping the meticulous requirements of the Jewish law. Abel was called righteous (23:35); the heroes of the past were righteous (23:29); and the promise of the Messianic kingdom was that the “righteous” would in due time enter it (13:43-49; 25:37-46). Popular usage makes it impossible to draw out any sharp distinction or definition. The situation is akin to Jesus’ strange answer to the rich young ruler (Luke 18:19): “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” This was not Jesus’ denial of His own goodness, but a concern that the rich young ruler should use the term “seriously” rather than in a popular sense. The whole burden of their exchange had to do with real goodness, and Jesus was insisting that the word “good” applied to God alone and that He and the young ruler, if they were to talk about “goodness” at all, should talk about it in the absolute sense. Thus the gospels reflect the popular use of the word “righteous” even though in careful conversation one could insist that only God is “righteous.”

Much the same sort of popular usage is reflected in the other gospels. Neither Mark nor Luke records any new statement of Christ containing the term “righteousness.” Mark’s use of the term (Mark 2:17) is parallel to Matthew’s usage (Matt 9:13) and adds nothing to one’s understanding of it. Luke puts into the mouth of Christ the adjective “righteous,” but adds nothing to Matthew’s usage (Luke 5:32; Matt 9:13). The “resurrection of the righteous,” the description of Christ by the centurion as “a righteous man” (Luke 23:47 KJV), and the statement that Joseph of Arimathea was “a good and righteous man” (Luke 23:50) add nothing to the clarification of this term for these are all popular usages.

Such data as appear in the teachings of Jesus occur seven times in the first gospel, twice in the fourth gospel, and no more (Matt 3:15; 5:6, 10, 20; 6:1 [piety], 33; 21:32; John 16:8, 10). The passages in Matthew give some variety to the interpretations of righteousness, although those in the Sermon on the Mount show a basic similarity. The two references to John the Baptist (Matt 3:15; 21:32) raise the general question of the practice of righteousness under the impetus of Levitical law. In the first instance occurs the rather puzzling answer of Jesus when John the Baptist hesitated to baptize Him. John recognized in every way his inferiority to Jesus; he never went beyond the bounds of the forerunner. He saw the difference between his baptism and that of the Lord, and indeed, part of his message was the infinite distance which separated him and his ministry from that of Christ. He said to Jesus, “I need to be baptized by you,” thinking surely of baptism as a sign of repentance. John needed the baptism of repentance as all men do, and the difference was that Jesus did not. In answer to John’s demurrer Jesus answered, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness” (3:15). Assuming then that Jesus did not need the baptism of repentance, the question before all commentators, therefore, is what righteousness, or what kind of righteousness, was to be fulfilled in this act? It is well to remember, as Paul expressed it, that Jesus was “born of a woman, born under the law.” He was circumcised the eighth day; an offering was made for Him in the Temple according to Jewish custom; and at the age of twelve, on His trip to Jerusalem, he became “a son of the law.” He grew up in a normal Jewish home, obedient to His parents. According to Levit ical customs, any man going into the service of God was subjected to baptismal rites. It seems the best interpretation, therefore, that righteousness refers simply to a continuance of Jesus’ obedience to the laws of His people, both civil and canonical. The meaning generally given is that John’s baptism of Jesus was “to fulfill every righteous ordinance.”

This interpretation is supported by the other reference to John the Baptist in Matthew (21:32), where Jesus was engaged in conflict with His enemies, and as He sometimes did, He was forcing His opponents to consider their reaction to Him in terms of their reaction to John, “For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the harlots believed him....” He is here concluding the thrust of His parable of the two sons, the better of whom said he would not do the will of his father, but nevertheless did it. For the purposes of interpretation one need not dwell on the parable, but what does “the way of righteousness” here mean?

Again it is to be interpreted as a continuity from OT law and custom. John was, in some sense, the last of the OT prophets, and his “way of righteousness” concluding the OT dispensation was at the threshold of the new righteousness, which was to come in Christ in the new dispensation.

Turn to the passages in the Sermon on the Mount. Three of these may be construed as having to do with the righteousness of God, absolute, essential righteousness, ideal and perfect righteousness (Matt 5:6, 10; 6:33). There are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (5:6) and are persecuted for their righteousness (5:10) but who are, nevertheless, to continue to seek the Father’s kingdom and His righteousness (6:33).

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (5:6). This beatitude parallels another: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” In this Kierkegaard’s insight is helpful when he suggests that to be “pure in heart” is to will one thing—namely the will of God. A man’s eye is to be “single” and not “evil.” Jesus described His own “meat and drink” as doing the will of His Father. When, therefore, He said that there is satisfaction for those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” He was not speaking of attainment or victory, but of the set of the life. The satisfaction comes in the constant vision and in the direction in which a man is moving. The whole inclination of a man’s life is described as a hunger and a thirst; and yet, strangely, this very constancy of hunger and thirst is its own satisfaction. Literature is replete with illustrations of some variation of the search for the Holy Grail. Apparently there is no greater description of a worthy and satisfying venture than that of a continuing searching-and-finding. How interesting it is that the Promised Land for the Israelites was set before them as a land “flowing with milk and honey.” Honey by itself cloys and satiates. Milk clears the taste. A promised land is one in which the endless delights are constantly opened up again to greater delights. The hungering and the thirsting continues even while one is being filled. “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”

As is truly the case, the seekers after righteousness are the objects of persecution in every generation. Consequently, Jesus’ word is pertinent: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake” (5:10). Indeed, “your reward is great in heaven, for men so persecuted the prophets who were before you” (5:12). Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness may be persecuted for this strange difference in their lives; yet they find themselves in the great company of those who constantly held out for a better day—“the prophets who were before you.”

In the great passages on anxiety (Matt 6:25-34), Jesus draws the line between those who are anxious about many things (“what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear?”) and those who accept the necessity of such things, but are concerned for greater things than these common needs. “Seek first,” He says, “his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well” (6:33). Jesus is not denying the things, nor the necessity of the things. What He knows is that unless the foundations are established in righteousness, the “things” also will disappear. All materialistic societies fall away to the dust heaps of history when they play fast and loose with the foundations of righteousness. In this verse (6:33) righteousness means the will of God brought to bear on the affairs of life. This was the ideal of the OT theocracy which never quite matured. Jesus again was speaking of the righteousness of God. Throughout these three passages, therefore (5:6; 5:10; 6:33), the absolute righteousness of God, with which the OT begins, is confirmed.

In the other two passages in Matthew the old question of formal righteousness is again raised. Significantly, Jesus not only speaks of this righteousness but illustrates it; and in His illustration He makes out of the whole subject of righteousness an “open-ended” possibility. “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:20). As is well known, the scribes, and esp. the Pharisees, were experts in religious disciplines. The Pharisees had arisen as a class after the return of the Jews from exile. By that time in their history the Jews had nothing to recommend them except their religion. They had no political power, no military might, no economic significance. Caught in the midst of tremendous world powers, and existing only as a remnant, their contribution to history was to be a religion through which salvation would come to all men. But this religion had to be hedged about and the Pharisees arose as a class to protect in the strictest possible ways the differentia of their faith. At this stage they were a necessary disciplinary force, but by the time of Jesus their concern for the minutia of Judaism had almost made a mockery out of their religion. Judaism had become a religion of rules and regulations. What Paul (who himself was a Pharisee) called “the burden of the law” could not possibly be borne by the ordinary man in his daily walk. These experts, therefore, not only satisfied what they considered to be all the demands of the law, but by such exercises they satisfied themselves and finally took cold hard pride in their attainments.

Jesus’ contribution at this point on the subject of righteousness was to move man’s thinking from the form of the law to its spiritual content. The question now became not so much a matter of action as of motive, the one great commandment being to love God and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Only thus could the righteousness of Jesus’ followers exceed “that of the scribes and Pharisees.” In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus illustrated how this should be so. It is not a question of murder so much as a question of anger in the heart. It is not so much adultery as the eye of lust. The framework of the law must abide insofar as it is God’s law, but one is not “righteous” in Jesus’ way of thinking unless his motives rest in love.

A turn on this same approach is illustrated in the next ch. of Matthew. “Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them” (Matt 6:1). Jesus accepted the so-called “exercises” of a man’s religion—almsgiving, prayer, fasting. He assumed that a religious man will engage in such practices. But T. S. Elliott says it well in Murder in the Cathedral when he wrote “a Pharisee is a man who does the right thing for the wrong reason.” Again it is a question of motive, and Jesus criticized harshly those who perform their religious exercises to be seen of men.

When the move is made to John’s gospel the theological climate changes. Matthew’s gospel was aimed at the Jew with all the background assumptions of centuries of Judaism. The “most theological of the gospels,” namely John’s, includes only two vv.—actually only one record—of Jesus speaking of righteousness. In His farewell discourses Jesus was speaking of the deepest things of the Christian faith, and in the sixteenth ch. there is a very different and a very involved discussion of the Person and the action of the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to treat the subject of the Holy Spirit with any completeness at all in this context, so it must be limited to straight-forward statements without support or commentary. From the best available evidence, therefore, one may conclude that when Jesus says He (i.e. the Holy Spirit) “will convince the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment...of righteousness because I go to the Father...” (John 16:8, 9), He is looking forward from this quiet meeting to what surely must appear later in the instructive writings of the apostles as they are recorded in the remainder of the NT. It is surely evident that what Jesus was and what He did, and what is yet to transpire because of the living Christ were nothing but questions and doubts to the disciples on the eve of the crucifixion. The function of the Holy Spirit was to inspire truthfully what the apostles must say regarding the fact and the meaning of Christ. Righteousness, therefore, in these two vv. (John 16:8, 10) is the complete righteousness of God, completely portrayed in the life and teachings of Jesus which the apostles came to understand and which they shared with mankind.

The word “righteous” is used elsewhere in John’s gospel three times but not as Jesus’ own teaching: as a description of Christ’s righteous judgment (5:30), as a description of human judgment (7:24), and as a description of God the Father (17:25). These usages do not concern the argument at this point because in one form or another they have already come under discussion. The next crucial question, in regard to the whole subject of righteousness is what the apostles, esp. Paul, would do with the absolute righteousness of God, the portrayal of that righteousness in Christ, the failure of the righteousness of men, and the whole question of how unrighteous men may stand in the presence of the righteous God.

B. The crucial treatment in Paul. The key to Paul’s view of righteousness, as it is basic to an understanding of the whole Gospel of Christ, is found in his major treatise, the letter to the Romans. There is no question but that Paul studied closely the structure and content of this masterpiece. It is here, if anywhere, that we have his “theology,” and with the possible exception of Ephesians, it is the finest creation of this first mind of the 1st cent.

The theme of Romans is “Righteousness.” After his usual formal introduction, and in Romans this is well structured and quite extensive, he announces his thesis: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘He who through faith is righteous shall live’” (Rom 1:16, 17; cf. Hab. 2:4). The fundamental problem in this thesis is what Paul called “the righteousness of God” (δικαιοσύνη θεοῦ). The question of interpretation is concerned with the genitive theou. The form allows three possible interpretations.

First, it may be taken as a simple possessive, and this is the most common use of the genitive. In this usage it would refer to an attribute of God’s own character. This reverts to the beginning of this discussion which concerned the very essence of God. The righteousness of God is a part of Him, an essential of His nature. There is no question that the Gr. form used allows for this interpretation, and whatever other interpretation one brings to bear on it, this view can never be eliminated. The whole discussion of righteousness in the OT and in the gospels has either emphasized or assumed this as the ground of any understanding of the word.

Second, the “righteousness of God” may carry the secondary meaning which was expounded as a typical Jewish use of the term. It is that righteousness of God which shows itself in His relationships to His covenant people, in which righteousness is self-imparting rather than distributive. By this is meant throughout the discussion that whereas righteousness might require some bill of rights and wrongs in judgment, some expression of lex talionis (the law of retaliation) or even some display of the wrath of God in punishment, the enthusiasm of the Jew for the righteousness of God rested in the covenant relationship which God had initiated. In this they thought of His righteousness as supporting His own people. This is what a king would be expected to do. In the OT, generally, it is understood that when a king judged, he did so to preserve and enhance the life of the whole community, and thereby make possible a better life for the individual. He is conceived of as helping people to their rights. His righteousness was an overflow rather than a balance, just as one would expect to do something extra for a man with a broken leg on a safari. In the Psalms and Isaiah, the people of God are vindicated by God, who shows His righteousness by delivering them from their enemies. Inside the community of Israel the righteousness of God is on the side of the poor rather than the rich, the weak rather than the strong. His righteousness is thus manifested not only to His own people but to the nations, and one of the great appeals of the prophets was that God’s glory is known to the nations because in righteousness He established His own people (Ps 35:24, 28; 51:14; 71:2ff., 24; Isa 51:5; 54:17; 56:1).

It is quite evident that this kind of righteousness is communal rather than individual. The OT, while insisting that the “people of God” are supported by God’s righteousness, also makes very clear that individuals within the community may very well experience a sense of sin and the threat of the righteous judgment of God. An interesting example of this combination of national righteousness and individual sin appears in Psalm 143:1, 2. It is evident in this communal use of the idea of righteousness that God’s nation can be justified, but if the sinful individual who cannot face God’s judgment is to be justified, the process must be different. National and individual sins and successes seem to be sorted out in the OT.

Third, Paul’s use of “righteousness” is crucial. Paul’s preaching of the Gospel in the context of the primitive Church cannot possibly be a message to a national group such as that seen in the nation of Israel. God is not rescuing His oppressed people in any communal sense; He is preaching to individual sinners, Jews and Gentiles alike, whose only community is their common need of salvation. His message, therefore, must make clear that the altogether righteous God, who cannot act against His own nature, must somehow remain righteous while at the same time accepting the unrighteous. As Paul classically expresses it, “it [the Gospel] was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies [declares to be righteous] him who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26).

The theme of Romans is the righteousness of God (1:17). After this theme was announced, Paul took great pains to show that no righteousness of man has worked nor will work. He illustrated this first from the pagan world where he allowed for “natural theology.” He put it this way: “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made” (1:20). The pagan world, therefore, is “without excuse,” because the natural world, the created world, is a revelation of the power and deity of God. Men everywhere, however, have stopped short with the created world and have worshiped the creation rather than the Creator, and this, in whatever form it takes, is idolatry. It follows, therefore, that men practicing idolatry, have in the worship of things constantly demeaned themselves by worshiping what is lower even than man. It is the sort of thing that can happen now when a man stops with the symbols of his faith—bread, wine, beauty, a holy place—and forgets the reality which is symbolized. An observer may stop with the technique of a painting, or even its beauty, whereas the height of his esthetic experience should be to have spirit meet spirit with the artist himself. The remainder of Paul’s declaration of pagan disintegration vividly portrays in the background of Rom. culture how idolatry eventually goes through perversion to decay.

Paul then took up the failure of the Jews who have had the gift of greater light. “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews are entrusted with the oracles of God” (Rom 3:1, 2; cf. 2:17ff.). The Jew’s highest claim has been a revelation of God, esp. through the Torah. Knowing the law, they have failed to keep the law. Paul quoted their own psalmists against them. “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one” (3:10ff.; cf. Ps 14:1, 2; 53:1, 2). Paul’s summation is clear enough; he is referring to both pagan and Jew (from the Jewish viewpoint: the “outsider” and the “insider”) and says that “no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law” (Rom 3:20). Or again, “there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:22, 23). And since he has already said in the announcement of his theme that “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men” (1:18), the human condition in the presence of a holy, righteous God is hopeless. It is only with this hopelessness established that Paul was ready to present the good news.

If one may assume then that whatever righteousness a man has is a gift of God, he is forced to face the question of how God’s righteousness becomes man’s righteousness, in addition to which he must portray how it is that such righteousness shows itself in the life of man, and perhaps also in his society. Paul, in writing of righteousness in Romans (1:17ff.; 3:20ff.), says first of all that a righteousness of God has been revealed through faith for faith; he then goes on to say that this righteousness of God is the righteousness of Christ, who has been set forth as a propitiation for man’s sin, and that the right attainment of the righteousness of Christ is dependent upon faith. What, therefore, actually transpires?

From God’s standpoint the simple, yet profound problem is how God may be “just and the justifier,” or in other words, how His holiness may be kept inviolate while He is engaged in accepting a man who is unholy. By the very essence of His n