How do you understand the word righteousness? What makes one righteous in the eyes of God? What does one have to do in their Christian walk to be called righteous?
RIGHTEOUSNESS
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Our nakedness becomes hidden in God's glory when we surrender our lives to Him. That for me is righteousness.
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Righteousness is a gift. It's the Lord Jesus. Christians are complete in Christ already. When we see this (if only....), it takes all the pressure off us. We have all that we could possibly need in Christ already. Spiritual growth is discovering, by revelation, what is already ours. God will give us nothing else. All we can do is seek to know what we have.
As we see what we have, we need to make a choice. Will we live in the light of what we now know? Or, will we live by thought, feeling, the opinions of others, what the world has to say or what some supposed scholar tries to impose on us?
To walk in righteousness means to walk in Christ. As we do this, we will be found to be walking in righteousness. We will do what Lord Jesus is doing and say what Lord Jesus is saying. We will make mistakes, misunderstand, fail and sin from time to time. But we will get up, go on, and receive the greatest accolade a man can hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant".
We are exhorted to put on Christ, to put on the robe of righteousness. Put off the old way of thinking, the "me" obsession and offer yourself to the Lord Jesus for His service. There is peace and joy that is out of this world for those who will leave everything to follow Christ.
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2 Cor 5:21 is one verse that speaks of the imputation of Christ righteousness to believers...
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
When our sins have been imputed to Christ and his righteousness imputed to us...we are seen as being righteous in the eyes of God.
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Righteousness and holiness are clearly related. But is there a difference in their scope or orientation?
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I disagree with you. What you just described is a works equals salvation mind set. If we were made righteous by our behavior than our righteousness would stand on what we have done not on what the Lord Jesus Christ has done for us. We are made righteous by the finished work on the cross and by nothing we have done. No man can boast in his own good works but all the glory belongs to God. Our righteousness can never be because of us, but instead Jesus righteousness has been given to us as a free gift. Paul understood this and that’s why he walked in revelation and power, because all glory belonged to God and he knew that. He within himself was nothing without God so God blessed His ministry for Paul gave glory to the one who deserved it, Jesus.
When men presume to have a hand in their own salvation/righteousness it is then nothing but pride and self righteousness which will cause the the Father to limit that one to a learning babe. This is not a bad thing though and I’m convinced all must walk this path. The law is good and holy but the knowledge of the law will cause one to be puffed up in their attempts to keep it along with limited victory over sin. Eventually the law will break a man and he will see that there is nothing he can do to keep Gods standard and at this point grace is where you will stand. This walk is the walk of a believer some are short and some are long. When one comes by revelation to understand this at that point it is Christ whom they look to to keep the law for them. Once your trust is completely in Him for your righteousness the power to overcome becomes a reality and therefore the believer is now walking in victory, this very understanding is what will cause sin to flee. The victory being this that the finished work on the cross is all God will accept and not anything of yourself. Righteousness is not behavior modification but a permanent standing of who Jesus is and Jesus alone. I am righteous because of Jesus, God was pleased with Him not me. He came to fulfill the law something I can never do. My trust is fully in Him and I have no trust in myself.
holiness means to be set apart and who sets us apart, Jesus and Jesus alone. My best attempts to behavior modify and set myself apart are as of dirty rags.
How would you explain this passage of scripture. Hebrews 5:11-14
Life is busy and time is precious so forgive me if I don’t respond to you in a timely manner.
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You've taken a comment completely out of context. You misunderstand me totally. If you read the original response, you would see that. To save you the trouble, let me explain again. Righteousness and holiness are gifts. They are the life of Christ that dwells in everyone who is born again. We do not work in order to be saved. We work because we are saved. No one is surprised when a bird flies. It's the nature of the bird. No one should be surprised or, more importantly, boast, when a Christian does something righteous. It's in the new nature that God gives us in Christ. Ignorance of this reality is what makes Christianity so ineffectual. Many Christians try to live up to the demands of God's holiness and righteousness out of their own, natural resources. This will fail. If we were able to force the natural self to live in a way that pleases God, we would not need Jesus. I need Lord Jesus like I need air to breathe.
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I did read through your comment earlier and for some reason just went on to your second comment in which I replied to. So I was not trying to push your buttons. I’m not seeing how to combine the two, comments that is. Righteousness has nothing to do with behavior modification unless you are saying that we are as Christ because we are in Christ so therefore our behavior will reflect that, ok sure the fruit of righteousness. One more thing I see in scripture is that God loves and encourages the “me” thinking when it is possessing what He has for us. God is good and all that Christ has accomplished is ours, the fullness of His righteousness has been given to us to enjoy, and to enjoy Him. I do not mean perverted selfishness here but I do mean we have an inheritance and our God is a good good Father. Once again as you stated I do believe I took your comment completely out of context thanks for the clarification.
Life is busy and time is precious so forgive me if I don’t respond to you in a timely manner.
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Thank you for your response. We are in agreement. The first comment was a response to the OP. The second was simply definitions of righteousness and holiness. They are the nature and character of God, imparted to us when we are born again. If we choose to live out of the new nature, we will be righteous and holy in experience.
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Soyeong
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Righteousness is a character trait of God that is straightforwardly expressed by doing what is righteous, and God's law is His instructions for how to express that character trait, not for how to earn it. For example, God's law reveals that it is righteous to help the poor, but no amount of helping to poor will ever cause someone to earn their righteousness because the one and only way that there has ever been to become righteous is by grace through faith. In Romans 3:21-22, the Law and the Prophets testify that the righteousness of God comes through faith in Christ for all who believe, so this has always been the one and only way to become righteous.
When we have a character trait, then we will express it through our actions, so when God declares us to be righteous by grace through faith He is also declaring us to be someone who expresses His righteousness through our actions in obedience to His instructions for how to do that found in His law. In other words, the reason why we have received the righteousness of God was not in order to hide it under a bushel, but in order to let it shine through our obedience in accordance with the example that Jesus set for us to follow of how he expressed the righteousness of God (Matthew 5:13-16).
In 1 John 3:10, those who do not practice righteousness in obedience to God's law are not children of God. Likewise, in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, everything spoken by God is profitable for teaching, correction, reproof, training in righteousness, and equipping us to do every good work, so practicing or training in righteousness in obedience to God's word is not about trying to become righteous, but about how we are to live because God has made us righteous. Doing what is righteous in obedience to God's law is not about trying to become something other than who we are, but about acting more in accordance with who God has made us to be.
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