Climbing a hillside 10) B4 Righteousness - two sides

Righteousness is a very big God word, occurring so often through Scripture, because it is a key way of describing who God is and how he acts.  The word can be understood in two ways. 

First, it's about doing right and living right in God's way.  About ethics and behaviour. Living justly according to God's will.  We notice in the Christmas story that because Joseph was a righteous man and did not want to expose Mary to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly (Matt 1:19).  Joseph wanted to do the right thing.  Righteous living seeks to follow the 10 commandments and when Jesus radicalizes these so that anger in the heart is akin to murder and lust as much to be condemned as adultery (Matt 5) we realize that right living in God's way sets a very high bar indeed.  We know from past experience that we can never keep good behaviour up for long.  We are biased towards selfishness and away from God. We can never get over that high bar.  We long to do better but always mess up.  Consistent right living is technically impossible.  What human has ever done this?  Ah....the second aspect.

Second, righteousness is a gift - the gift of a right relationship with God because of what Jesus has done. Jesus came the righteous for the unrighteous.  You may have a favourite verse;

For Christ died for our sins, once for all, a righteous man on behalf of unrighteous sinners in order to lead us to God (1 Pet 3:18) 

God made him sin who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21).

I once repeated this last verse when I was preaching and a student bounded up to me afterwards, eyes flashing.  He came right up to my face.  'That cannot be right', he said. ' That's wrong. That thing about God made Jesus sin'.  And I had to say it is so wrong and yet this is what Jesus does on the cross to win the liberation he gives us at Easter, to be people who know God's forgiveness, love and promise of eternal life.

Living rightly, justly only becomes possible in the gift of righteousness through Jesus Christ. He promises us his help and the Holy Spirit and that makes all the difference.