…and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment.
Summary: Who is God holding for the day of judgment? It is an important question that deserves some consideration.
Who are the unrighteous?
Peter is just getting warmed up with his rant about “false teachers” (2 Peter 2:1). So far, it has been an interesting study. What more could he possibly have in store for us?
In 2 Peter 2:7a — “A Righteous Man,” we looked at the definition of righteousness and concluded that there were two types. The righteousness of Abraham was based on his relationship with God. The righteousness of the Jews from the time of Moses was based on obedience to the law. With the arrival of Jesus, we returned to the earlier definition of righteousness, only this time with a twist.
The “twist” is that Jesus is the righteous one. It is through his righteousness that we are saved. Our righteousness does not depend on the law. Instead, it depends on our relationship with God’s Son, Jesus Christ (Romans 10:4).
So if Jesus is the model of righteousness for the Christian, what does unrighteousness look like?
In the interest of staying within three minutes (after all, this is ThreeMinuteBible.com, and believe it or not, we do try and keep it to three minutes! 🙂 ) let us cut to the chase. Jesus sums up righteousness this way:
“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)
These verses sum up “all the Law and the Prophets” and they also summarize Jesus’ life. He loved his Father with all his heart, soul, and mind. He also loved us, his “neighbors” to the extent that he willingly sacrificed his life to redeem us from the lake of fire.
If that is the summation of Jesus’ life, it must also be a summation of his righteousness. So what then would be the opposite? What is “unrighteousness?”
The righteousness equation involves three people: God, others, and self. Righteousness is putting God above all else and others on the same plane as ourselves.
Jesus did this perfectly. God the Father is always foremost in his mind. He lives to fulfill the Father’s will.
Unrighteousness, then, is putting something other than God first in one’s life. It seems unlikely that a person would be able to “love [their] neighbor as [their self]” without putting God first. That means that unrighteousness is putting self above everything else.
Another variation that comes to mind:
In these versions, a person puts God above everything else (others), but “self” still is above all. Of course there is the secular version as well:
Interestingly, even if someone is perfectly moral in all of their choices and actions, in relationship to God they are still unrighteous if they do not acknowledge God.
So how does all of this relate to us as Christians? The Old Testament righteousness is based on the Mosaic Laws:
The New Testament is defined by putting Jesus (a.k.a. God) first:
Christians who put Jesus first are always willing to submit to Jesus. The authority Jesus left us with is the Bible and his Spirit. Because the Spirit is experienced at a personal level, the Bible tells us to “test” the spirits against the Word when someone claims to be speaking for the Spirit (1 John 4:1). This is what brings Christians into the unity that Christ desires (John 17:23).
So who are the unrighteous?
The unrighteous are people who do not submit to Jesus, God’s Son, and they do not acknowledge the Bible as God’s Word. They might say that they do, but if their actions tell a different story then there is a problem (James 2:14, 2:26).
Application: Do a self-check. Is Jesus first in your life? Where does “self” come in?
Food for Thought: What type of righteousness do people gravitate towards, and how do Christians deal with this tendency in themselves?
I think unbelievers gravitate to secular unrighteousness or moral unrighteousness. They either have no reason to live for anything other than self, or they see that it is good to live for others too, but still don’t understand why because they have no God.
And believers gravitate towards moral unrighteousness and OT righteousness, and sometimes yes, self righteousness.
It isn’t natural to live by righteousness or NT righteousness.
We slip into moral unrighteousness, because it’s putting everything on equal ground, I’m not being selfish if I’m of equal importance, right? But when we do that without really putting God as a priority (others and self over God) or even just putting God as equal with everything (others and self and God). That’s dangerous, bringing God off the top.
We gravitate towards OT righteousness because following God’s commands is important, right? But legalism becomes more important than love or caring for someone’s needs. In part, we follow legalism because we struggle with grace, we struggle with righteousness by faith so we try to help Jesus along.
We gravitate towards self righteousness when similarly to OT we struggle with grace, but instead of using God’s laws, we make our own. Our law is most important and we follow strict rules to honor God and everyone who doesn’t honor God right (or my way) is less than. We’ll help them occasionally, but they just don’t live up to me.
I think we try to fix our moral unrighteousness with OT or self righteousness, because we try to earn it the right way.
The version of righteousness that believers live by I think is mostly determined by our understanding of ‘by faith’. As scripture also states, those who are forgiven much, love much and those forgiven little, love little. If our forgiveness isn’t by faith, is it really forgiveness? If it’s not by grace (or at least our understanding of it) I don’t think we’ll live by NT righteousness. If we don’t understand the grace of our forgiveness we won’t truly forgive others either.
I’ve been a part of a lot of interesting exercises over the years. Two being these: writing your sins down on a paper and burning it as a symbol of Christ taking the punishment, or sitting it down and literally putting it on a symbolic cross and walking away. Those were some people’s ideas of making our forgiveness tangible. Our sins are gone, we turned around and walked away from them, sins burned and our souls rescued, and hopefully a prompting to live by true righteousness.
A,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! You have obviously wrestled with this concept before. The symbolic exercises you mention are very helpful for communicating the concepts. In practice, it is still a daily challenge, isn’t it? 🙂
Somethings are harder to forget or walk away from when the scars of sin remain as visual reminder.
Mr. T,
What you say is true. As I understand it, our past sins are in two parts: one part is the event itself, the other is the guilt. Through Christ, the guilt is removed. The event itself is a reminder of our need for Jesus. It helps shape who we become.
I found it fascinating how you used equations to define the different views of righteousness. I have never seen that. Very effective. You must be one of those analytical engineering nerds 😉.
I think we can all tend toward self righteousness because we are prideful and want to have innate value and be self glorified. Repentance is needed to see our need for Jesus and His righteousness all of the time.
Rich,
Yes, I confess to being a bit of a nerd. 🙂 I thought it interesting that the format here at TMB forced me to condense my thoughts as much as possible. If it hadn’t been for the three minute limit I probably would have gone a different direction.
Living in a state of repentance is a wonderful goal! Thank you!
Wow! What a lesson today; I printed it out to keep.
What type of righteousness do people gravitate towards?
I think people, and Christians, tend to gravitate towards self-righteousness. Its hard not to put yourself on top. It is also easy to put God on top of others and use Him as a “scale” to judge others, while at the same time not recognizing that these same basic sins are present in your life. I did a little research and found these 11 characteristics of a self-righteous person which I found a bit humbling: (https://christianitymatters.com/2017/01/11/11-characteristics-of-the-self-righteous/)
11 Characteristics of The Self-Righteous
1. They do not see their walk with God as a community project.
2. They do not work well with others.
3. They consistently believe they are right and know best.
4. They are resistant to change.
5. They do not respond well when reminded they need to change.
6. They do not desire others exhortation or admonition, even getting angry at times.
7. They are not patient with those who mess up, struggle with sin or have lost their way.
8. They do not deal well with opposition or accusations.
9. They will consistently wonder why God has singled them out for difficulty.
10. They do not see a need to admit or confess their sin.
11. They consistently point out the sin of others with an air of superiority.
Some of those I can see in my life (past and present). I am happy to see some of them that were very prevalent in my life, are not so much now. Others I can see God still has His “sorry for the mess, we are making improvements in this area” sign up.
How do Christians deal with this tendency in themselves? I think definitely with prayer, and then mindful action. If you recognize it in your life and you desire not to put yourself first, then asking God to guide you is an important first step.
Matthew 7:8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Chris,
I am delighted that you found my post worth saving! Thank you!
I also appreciate the notes on the self-righteous. I agree, the list is a bit humbling! 🙂
I also appreciate your conclusion: Asking God for help. Well said!
Great lead in and graphics young man!
11-04-2021, 2 Peter 2:9b, What type of righteousness do people gravitate towards and how do Christians deal with this tendency in themselves?
In my world I see people gravitate toward every type of righteousness illustrated, except true righteousness in Jesus Christ which they run from.
None meet Gods standard in Matthew 22:37-40. Only Christ in each believer can be our righteousness as we die to self and live for Christ to be our strength, our life. Look to Paul, a faithful giant who knew he fell short, as all believers must fully understand.
,
1. Our weakness is built into God’s plan. “He chose to make us this way.”
God chose the foolish to shame the wise, the weak to shame the strong, the low and despised, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being can boast in the presence of God. He is the source of our life in Christ Jesus, who God made our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, Let him who boasts,
boast in the Lord. I Corinthians1:27–32
2. Our human body is weak.
The body is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
1 Corinthians 15:43
3. Christ made Himself weak. He went from full deity to humble human, died, but was resurrected in power. He is crucified in weakness but lives by the power of God. II Corinthians 13:4
4. Christ’s power is great in human beings. He is not weak in dealing with you, but is powerful in you. II Corinthians 13:3
5. Paul was outwardly weak so God in Him could be the power dealing with the Corinthians. I was with in you in weakness, and in much fear and trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. I Corinthians 2:3 6. The strength of the Corinthians was worldly. I Corinthians 4:10
7. The treasure in vessels of clay is our visual image of paradoxical weakness and power. For it is the God who said “Let light shine out of darkness.” God who has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Christ. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. II Corinthians 4:6–7.
Here’s the secret: Know we become more aware of God’s grace as we increasingly make ourselves weak, die to self. The more aware we become of God’s grace in our lives, the more humble, prayerful, thankful, patient, gracious, content and joyful we will become.
God will use the gifts he has given us as He used Paul’s gifts. We must thank God for and serve Him in our weaknesses, because it is God’s strength clearly being displayed.
Ron,
Thank you! I appreciate the emphasis on human weakness. Especially the idea that this is all part of God’s plan. As has been mentioned by Chris, it keeps us humble.
What about if you love God above all, but then you don’t love yourself that much and put others over yourself? I was told something , how can you love your neighbor as yourself when you don’t love yourself.
Mr. T,
The word “love” in Matthew 22:39 is taken from the Greek, agapé. As I understand it, we are to care for ourselves as God cares for us. The more we love God, the more we see ourselves as God sees us. We are children who stumble and fall, but we are loved all the same.
As we grow in faith, we grow in our capacity to love both ourselves and others. God’s power to heal flows to all of us who believe, all of the time.