But "justice" and "righteousness" are not 100% equivocal in NT usage (post #94).
"Just" and "righteous" would be equivocal.
You applied your own interpretive spin.
Let's take the word δικαιοσύνη (dikaiosune), looking at a broad range of lexicons "justice" is given as a definition of the word:
G1343 - δικαιοσύνη dikaiosýnē, dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay; from ; equity (of character or act); specially (Christian) justification:—righteousness.
www.blueletterbible.org
Tools and resources you need to do a word study on the Greek word for righteousness: dikaiosunē
wednesdayintheword.com
There's a reason we use the word "justification" and also then speak of "imputed righteousness"; because it is equally as valid to speak of "imputed justice"; to speak of how one is made right or just, before God; or speaking more properly in the context of Reformation theology--how one is declared right or just before God. Justification is God declaring a person righteous/just because of the imputed or reckoned justice/righteousness of Jesus; that I am not the one who has righteousness or justice of my own by which I am righteous and just before God--but Jesus is. And as an act of pure grace, appropriated to me through faith, God reckons--imputes--Christ's justice and righteousness to me.
To be righteous is to be just; to have righteousness is to have justice, to do righteousness is to do justice; and these are all synonymous with being right, to do what is right--that which is good and right. And biblically speaking, it is specifically in the context of God's revealed Law: God declares through the Law what is good and right--what is just or righteous; and thus the moral imperative is to do that which is good and right (just or righteous). God declares murder to be wrong, "Do not murder"; therefore the right thing to do is to not murder; if I murder I transgress the Divine Law that says "Do not murder".
There is this righteousness or justice; that is to be in a state of "rightness" before God which exists solely through the merciful declaration that I am forgiven and fully pardoned, and that I have imputed to me the justice of Christ by which I am just before God as a pure act of mercy. But there is also that justice, that righteousness, which I am commanded to exhibit to my neighbor, to exhibit here in the world toward others, in my community, in my family, to all God's creatures, to the whole of creation itself. And that is righteousness Coram Mundus, righteousness before the world, also called righteousness Coram Hominibus, righteousness before human beings.
The whole of justice toward others is wrapped up in this: That I am to act justly, rightly, in regard to and toward others. That I am called, as the Prophet Micah says, to
do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.
It is a just act that I feed the hungry, to deprive my neighbor of food is unjust. And it is never a hyper-individualistic personal justice; because I am not a moral island and the Bible doesn't pretend that people are moral islands--we have moral obligations by the simple fact that we exist in communities, in societies--that we exist as neighbors in neighborhoods: in families, friend-groups, villages, towns, cities, and states. I exist in relation with all other people with whom I share the earth, from the miniscule to the majuscule; from those with whom I share the same house, the same village, the same rivers, the same wells, the same trees, the same mountains all the way to the same planet. I exist within a complex interconnected web of humanity--and I have an obligation, from God, to be a good neighbor.
Social justice is a moral obligation that rests upon the individual Christian AND the whole Christian Church in her total catholic capacity as the worldwide community of disciples of Jesus; to exist in relation to the rest of the world bearing the commandments of God. And that means I cannot say that feeding the hungry is someone else's responsibility and wash my hands of it, neither can I say that it is only the responsibility of individuals and not the responsibility of communities at large--it is both. If I see a hungry man, I am to give him bread; and I am to also support social conditions which enable the hungry to have bread. It's not either-or; it's both-and. That is Divine Justice, as revealed in Scripture. And to which I am called to exhibit. Not because I will attain justice before God through my works; but because if I claim that I am a disciple of Jesus then that means exhibiting my faith through my works. There is no scenario where I can claim I am a Christian and then live lawlessly and in unrepentant sin without remorse: And to deny my neighbor of material good when I have the opportunity to do so, is transgression of the Divine Law.
-CryptoLutheran
