… because “the righteous will live by faith.”
Summary: Today, Paul presents us with a kind of “chicken and egg” conundrum. Are the righteous righteous because they are righteous, or are they righteous because they have faith?
Amos sat on the park bench, watching a small gray bird pick at the ground. Next to him sat his grandmother, knitting.
“Granma,” Amos looked up, “what does ‘righteous’ mean?”
Amos’s grandmother looked down at the small boy sitting next to her. She smiled. Since Amos started going to Sunday school, he had been coming up with all kinds of questions.
“It depends,” Grandmother replied. “What kind of righteousness are you talking about?”
Amos scrunched up his face and stared at his grandmother through his thick, dark-rimmed glasses. Sometimes, his grandmother could make simple things sound complicated. He wondered if this was one of those times.
“How many kinds are there?” he asked.
“Well,” said grandmother, “I can think of three kinds.”
“THREE!?” Amos’s eyes opened wide. He turned his attention back to the bird pecking at the ground and slumped back against the bench. This was one of those complicated answers.
“Now its not so bad as that,” said Grandma. “One kind is the kind a person makes up for themselves.”
Amos sat up again.
“What?” he exclaimed. He looked interested again. “We get to make up our own rules?”
“No, we don’t,” said Grandma. Her knitting needles stopped moving, and she looked up and smiled. “It is just that some people think they do. They forget that God is really in charge.”
“Oh,” said Amos. He relaxed into the bench again. “I suppose the second one has to do with following God’s rules …”
“Yes,” said Grandma. “Do you know what those rules are?”
“Teacher says that God wants us to love him and love our neighbor as ourselves, or something like that.”
Grandma smiled.
“So what’s the third kind?” asked Amos.
“The third kind is the kind God gives us,” said Grandmother.
“God gives us righteousness?” Amos glanced sideways at his grandmother. He didn’t want her to see the expression of “crazy woman” on his face. “Why would God do that?”
“Because he loves you,” Grandma smiled back at him. (She saw the look on his face.) “Just like I love you.”
Amos leaned up against his grandmother’s side and thought about that. She was knitting again, and her knitting needles made a soft clicking sound that reminded him of a big clock. After what felt like a long time, he sat up again.
“Granma …”
“Yes?” She smiled again and continued her knitting.
“Does God give righteousness to everyone?”
“Everyone who asks,” she replied, “and who lives by faith.”
Application: Trust in Jesus.
Food for Thought: Which comes first, righteousness or faith? Why?
For me, your question requires a bit of logical delineation. I think to be called righteous one must fit into one of five “categories:”
They started out righteous of their own accord.
They started out righteous of their own accord, became unrighteous of their own accord, then became righteous again of their own accord.
They started out unrighteous of their own accord, then became righteous of their own accord.
They started out righteous of their own accord, became unrighteous of their own accord, then became righteous again through the accord of someone else.
They started out unrighteous of their own accord, then became righteous through the accord of someone else.
Accord meaning “agreement” or “treaty.”
We are not righteous of own own accord. The evidence of this is unmistakably present in our lives. Before we ever even learned to understand the concept of God and sin, we understood authority and disobedience.
How can the unrighteous become righteous? A bucket of water with even one drop of oil is not pure. The only hope for the unrighteous is to be counted as righteous. That requires a judge. That requires a judge’s decision on condition.
No matter how much pure water you pour in, the contamination of the one drop of oil will always be present. How then can it be counted as pure? The judge will have to consider the impurity reconciled. Accounted for but not included. The impurity is reconciled by another pure source.
So we started out in unrighteousness, no amount of “righteousness” we try to add will make us pure, and we need a judge to reconcile the impurity in our lives.
Who will be the judge? Surely not any person I know. The unrighteous cannot bring righteousness. It must be God then, the Creator. A God of perfect Will. who better to judge unrighteousness, than the One who is righteous?
God’s Word is this: He will count our unrighteousness as redeemed through the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus, who is Himself righteous. Jesus is righteous, not only because He is born of God, but because He was born a man and lived a sinless life. His blood is given in exchange for ours. Only through our faith in Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection is our life counted as pure. His purity is counted as ours. Jesus will say to the Father “Do not count this contamination, as I have pure water that will account for it.” He is worthy to say this. His water is pure. He is righteous. The only one born a man to be able to look into the face of God and say without impunity, I give my righteousness to the one who believes in Me and confesses me as Lord.
We have no righteousness, there is no first or last. Only through faith can the righteousness of Christ come into our lives.
I believe Paul said it better:
Romans 3:21-26 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Okay, Chris.
I haven’t handed out a gold star in a long time, but you earned these:
⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Well done! 🙂
Wow.
Thanks CH.
Paul also said it in Romans 1: 16 – 17: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
Righteousness comes by faith in Christ and then we live by that faith throughout our lives.
Well said, Rich!
They kind of go hand-in-hand, don’t they?
Which comes first, righteousness or faith? Why?
Those whom God makes obedient, He first makes righteous, and righteousness comes by faith alone. Galatians 2:16
For the gospel reveals the righteousness of God that comes by faith from start to finish, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith. Romans 1:17
Righteousness comes from faith. Our faith is demonstrated as fact, when we receive, believe the conviction of the Holy Spirit and comes into our hearts as we receive Jesus Christ who becomes our righteousness.
Thank you, Ron.
All three answers today point us to the object of faith; Jesus Christ.
Jesus is both the object of our faith and the source of it. In a similar way he is both righteousness itself and at the same time, our righteousness.
God is pretty amazing! 🙂