“For the Lord is righteous, he loves justice…”

Interesting how times change.  Consider in just a few short decades how the names of pop music groups have changed.  Think of going from the Righteous Brothers to Megadeth, Sex Pistols and Slayer.  How’s that for the Second Law of Thermodynamics (everything runs downhill) at work?

I can remember as a young boy singing the Brothers’ famous hit, You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.  According to Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), Lovin’ Feelin’ is the most played song ever on American radio.  And that was in the prime of the “British invasion” of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.  An AOL poll concluded that Lovin’ Feelin’ was the best love song of all time.  Not bad for a couple of guys who wanted to sing well enough to do shows in Las Vegas!

The reason I cite the “Brothers” is because of their name: righteous.  After singing in a local bar in Orange County one night, a black Marine shouted, “That was righteous, brothers!”  I remember when “righteous” was “in,” i.e., popular.  It didn’t stay “in” for long.  But even back then in the emerging pop culture, “righteous,” as the Marine used it, meant, “sung the way it was supposed to be sung; sweet, great, etc.”  That’s not too far from what righteous means in Scripture.

We know that God declares himself to be righteous many times and many places in the Bible.  One is, “For the Lord is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face” (Psalm 11:7), clearly implying that wicked men won’t (vs. 5-6).  So not only is he righteous, he acts righteously.  His behavior and actions are consistent with his character. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, “Righteous is as righteous does.”  Righteousness used to be known as “rightwiseness,” last used in Webster’s 1913 dictionary.

Of the Old Testament writers, Isaiah spoke most frequently about righteousness, both God’s and man’s.  In the New it was Paul’s book or Romans, where he used multiple forms of the Greek word 51 times in that one book.  In all his other epistles he used them less than half of that.  Righteousness in all its applications — in standing before God, in life practice on earth, in quality of character, in making choices, etc. — can be found throughout his letter, making it an excellent study for sanctification.  So what does righteous mean?  “That which conforms fully to God’s perfect character and revealed will.”  This is a summary definition of surveying a great many verses, which we will do now.

Earth history is pockmarked with unrighteousness.  Isaiah tells us, “…all of our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (64:6).  He speaks of menstrual rags, not the subject of fine art.  The Jews should have reminded themselves of this before “they sought to establish their own [righteousness]” (Romans 10:3), stinking up the place even more.  As a teacher and zealot, Paul finally figured out that he should not have “a righteousness of [his] own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith” (Phil. 3:9).  But it took a blinding vision before he got it.  With such pride and self-centeredness, it’s no wonder Paul never got over God’s mercy and sovereignty in his life!  It’s also no wonder God used him to pen so much Scripture.  He was a walking, living, breathing example of righteousness at work, as we all should be, although possibly a little less dramatically.

It was through Paul that we find the clearest explanation of the righteous God passing his righteousness on to us.  “God made [Christ] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).  Consider the “bargain” God got: the perfect God takes the imperfections of people and puts them on his perfect Son who takes their penalty as if it were his own.  In place of the imperfections he credits his perfection to those same imperfect people.  And this before they did anything for it!  Indeed, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3). In other words, faith, the only requirement, activates the exchange. Not work, not money, not anything except our admission that our “filthy rags” righteousness needs to be replaced with his fine, clean white linen, the heavenly symbol of his righteousness, and our faith in him to do so.

All that’s left to ask is this: Is God seeing the righteousness he paid for showing up in your life?