Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

RIGHTEOUSNESS

English treatments often separate Heb. ṣdq and Gk. dikaioún into “justification” and “righteousness,” reflecting historical differences over whether the sense was “declare (a person) righteous,” as in a law court, or actually “make righteous,” implying moral transformation. In a basic sense, the terms imply “relation to a norm” or “covenant” or “power” or “order.”

There is a certain general parallelism of development between ṣdq and dikaioún language. Legal uses develop for both (Ps. 9:4[MT 5]; Isa. 5:7), a sense of “proper order, proper comportment” (ṣeḏeq-ṣĕḏēqâ and mišpāṭ, “righteousness and justice”; doing the “right” thing); and hence an ethical sense (Ps. 15). The NT inherits the forensic, law-court aspects and the moral connotations (cf. the plural of ṣĕḏāqâ for the “triumphs [of Yahweh],” e.g., Judg. 5:11; cf. also 1 Sam. 12:7; Mic. 6:5, “saving acts”; Ps. 103:6, “vindication”). Paul emphasizes such saving righteousness/justification in Rom. 3:21-26.

But whose righteousness is involved, God’s or Israel’s, and how do they relate? Some scholars attempt to arrange the evidence in terms of ṣdq as an activity of God and as human activity or behavior. A “two-way relationship” between God and Israel (as in the covenant) may be the starting point, preexilic in terms of national righteousness (Jer. 31:28, cf. 30; 22:3) but after the Exile more concerned with righteousness of the devout individual before God (Ezek. 18:2, 5-9, 25-29). The covenant relationship especially assumed the king was responsible for maintaining righteousness in Israel (Ps. 72:1-7). God’s ṣĕḏāqâ as saving action is projected into the future (Isa. 62:1; 63:1).

While there is considerable emphasis on righteousness as involving certain traits of pious behavior, the forensic and salvific aspects in what God does or will do continue, especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Qumran community’s radical, apocalyptic outlook stressed election, sin, grace, and God’s righteousness as saving activity as well as judgment. The priestly Teacher of Righteousness at Qumran taught righteousness (CD 6:10-11; 1QpHab 8:1-3) in terms of a rigorist understanding of the Law, but was hardly a parallel to Jesus of Nazareth.

Though doubtless aware of this rich background in the Hebrew Scriptures, Jesus did not often use righteousness/justification terminology. Likely he did see his mission as directed to “sinners,” not the pious “righteous” in terms of his day (Mark 2:17 par.), and saw himself and John the Baptist as messengers who “justified” God’s wisdom (Luke 7:35 = Matt. 11:19). In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, it is the latter who goes home vindicated or accounted righteous (Luke 18:14). Luke 10:29; 16:15 suggest a Jesus who was hard on those seeking self-justification.

The Matthean development of the Jesus tradition in a Jewish-Christian world exhibits a particular interest in righteousness. Matt. 5:6; 6:33 suggest God’s righteousness as a gift eschatologically, like the kingdom. Matt. 5:10, 20; 6:1 call for righteous living; 3:15; 21:32 may reflect a view of salvation history incorporating both divine gift and human response.

Among the considerable uses of terms from dikaioún in Acts, the most significant is Paul’s sermon (Acts 13:39) about “everyone who believes” being “set free” from all those sins “from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.” Paul himself did not speak of being justified “from sins” but liberated from sin (Rom. 6:18).

It is in Paul that righteousness/justification comes into greatest prominence in the NT. Several factors in the pre-Pauline period help explain the prominence of this OT theme in Paul’s mature thought and that of other early Christian writers, including use of the OT phrase “the righteous one” (cf. Isa. 53; Wis. 2:12-20) to describe Jesus (e.g., Matt. 27:19; Luke 23:47; Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14; 1 Pet. 3:18; 1 John 2:1). The phrase “the righteousness of God” has been claimed as a technical term, possibly going back to Deut. 33:21 and developing in apocalyptic literature, including Qumran (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; cf. Rom. 1:17; 3:21, 22, 25, 26; 10:3; Phil. 3:9; Matt. 6:33; Jas. 1:20; 2 Pet. 1:1).

Paul’s contribution was to bring together his entire gospel message under “righteousness/justification” to a degree accomplished with no other metaphor of salvation. His call and conversion are often given a key place, but coming to distinguish fully “righteousness from the law” and “righteousness through faith in Christ” (Phil. 3:9; Rom. 9:30-31; 10:5-11) represents a longer process of reflection, shaped by Jewish-Christian formulations about Jesus’ death and by Scripture.

The justice (dikaiosýnē) of God which can reveal wrath (Rom. 3:5; 1:18ff.) and the salvific righteousness of God (3:21-26) both come into play, the latter through the death of Christ and his being raised by God. To be united with this Christ by hearing and believing this message (Rom. 10:10-17) and by conversion-baptism (6:4-7) carries with it the imperative to present the whole self henceforth as “weapons” in the war against sin and unrighteousness (6:13-14). Paul developed righteousness/justification out of the apocalyptical and missionary situation, especially so as to include Gentiles by faith along with Jews by faith, as the heart of his overall vision of God’s plan (Rom. 3:28-30; 4:11-12, 23-24; 10:5-13). Paul’s understanding of God’s kind of righteousness now available in Christ removes all boasting and illusions of self-achievement, for it rests upon God (1 Cor. 1:29-31) and justifies God in calling the Gentiles (Rom. 9:23-26; 15:8a, 9-12) and for the hopes Paul holds for Israel (Rom. 11:11-12, 25-32; 15:8).

Paul’s experience and presentation of righteousness/justification, as participation in Christ’s righteousness and the benefits of justification (Rom. 5:1-5; 8:3-4, 10-11; 12:3-8) in the overlap of the old and new ages, inevitably changed as time went on without the end coming, as the Church grew more Greco-Roman and OT/Jewish roots were obscured. In Eph. 2:4-10 Paul’s emphasis on grace and faith continues, but the verb is not “be justified” but “be saved”; the forensic, judgment note is muted, and the absence of future eschatology opens the way to new ethical application (4:24; 5:9; cf. Titus 3:3-7).

James not only uses the phrase “righteousness of God” (Jas. 1:20) but in 2:14-26 stresses justification, not involving an impotent, merely intellectual “faith” but faith and one’s life and deeds.

In the Johannine literature the Gospel of John speaks of righteousness in connection with Jesus’ vindication, in a forensic setting (John 16:8, 10; cf. 5:30; 7:24). 1 John 2:1 presents Jesus as the Righteous One, a sacrifice for sins. From the life arising out of this follows the ethical admonition to “do righteousness” (1 John 2:29; 3:7, 10).

See Justification.

Bibliography. D. A. Carson, ed., Right with God: Justification in the Bible and the World (Grand Rapids, 1992); J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, 1998); B. Przybylski, Righteousness in Matthew and His World of Thought. SNTSMS 41 (Cambridge, 1980); J. Reumann, Righteousness in the New Testament (Philadelphia, 1982); H. H. Schmid, “Creation, Righteousness, and Salvation,” in Creation in the Old Testament, ed. B. W. Anderson. IRT 6 (Philadelphia, 1984), 102-17; M. A. Seifrid, Justification by Faith. NovTSup 68 (Leiden, 1992); J. A. Ziesler, The Meaning of Righteousness in Paul. SNTSMS 20 (Cambridge, 1972).

John Reumann

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

RIGHTEOUSNESS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)