Righteous Like God

Righteousness is not a term we use often. The idea has gone out of vogue. We don’t really think of God as being righteous, and we really don’t like the idea that we should be righteous. It conjures up images of hot, stuffy churches with uncomfortable pews and long, boring sermons, of stiff, scratchy colors and clothes we can’t play in. What is righteousness really?

Deuteronomy 6:24-25 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

So the Lord commanded us to observe all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always and for our survival, as it is today. It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the Lord our God, just as He commanded us.

Righteousness is basically a right standing before God, a clean slate, perfect record. In the Old Testament, a person had to perfectly keep all the laws of God in order to be considered righteous. It was often contrasted with wickedness, especially in Psalms and Proverbs (the righteous vs. the wicked). The word itself literally means lawful, just, upright, correct, justified, etc. It carries tones of legal innocence and lack of guilt.

God is righteous because He is perfect and He perfectly keeps His own laws. He set the standard. It is almost redundant to call Him righteous because He embodies or defines righteousness. Some people claim to be perfect, to keep God’s laws perfectly and to have no fault, but any who say that lie.

Romans 3:10 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;”

We are all born sinful. No one is perfect, without fault or sinless. Only Christ was the perfect human. Because we begin sinful, there is no possible way we could become pure or perfect. It would be like trying to wash dirty clothes in a mud puddle. It is not possible. We cannot do it on our own.

So how are we to be righteous if it is impossible?

Romans 1:17 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”

Philippians 1:11 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

In order for us to be righteous, we need to have Christ’s righteousness. There is no way for us to be righteous ourselves. It is only through faith in Christ that we can be righteous, by taking on His righteousness. Like sanctification, this is two-fold. We are declared righteous when we give our lives to Christ. We are made right with God through the sacrifice of His Son on our behalf so that God sees the righteousness of His Son when He looks at us. But we also grow in righteousness by submitting ourselves to Him and allowing Him to make us like Him. We have righteous standing with God at salvation, but we can also grow in righteousness by becoming more like Him. Yet, none of this happens except through Christ, through submission to His will and work in our lives.

Are you righteous before God? Have you gained the righteousness of His Son by submitting your life to Him? Are you growing in righteousness daily through walking with Him?