What Does it Mean to Be Righteous?

Righteousness is defined by the dictionary as, “behavior that is morally justifiable or right.” The Bible’s standard for human righteousness is God’s own perfection in every attribute, every attitude, every behavior, and every word. 

Sometimes in our zeal to be pleasing to God, we can get a warped idea of righteousness. Sometimes we look at other believers and we measure ourselves against each other, and because we are human we tend to judge or measure their righteousness, or what we consider their lack of righteousness, against ourselves and tell ourselves that we are doing better than we actually are.

This is exactly what Jesus told us in Luke 18 about the Pharisee and tax collector.

Luke 18:10-14 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week,; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

As we can see from this illustration that Jesus gives us, we don’t measure ourselves against each other. Just because I’m doing better than someone else I know does not mean that I am more righteous. The Pharisee checked every box and was the most religious person in the room, but all that he was doing, as good and as religious as it was. It wasn’t enough to justify him before the true measure of righteousness, God.

It gets worse, if doing good wasn’t enough to be righteous before God we have another problem because we find this from Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 5:48 “You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” 

This comes on the heels of Jesus showing them the true meaning of the Law, that it wasn’t just outward conformity, but obedience to the law is both outward obedience and inward obedience. So the question is, have you been perfect lately? I sure haven’t! So what do we do with this? It’s obvious from just a few passages that my good deeds don’t make me righteous, yet I’m told that I must be as perfect as God? This is an Impossible standard! 

This is exactly right, not a single human being ever lived up to the standard of the Law. 613 laws in the Old Testament and only 1 person ever kept them perfectly, Jesus. He summed up the entire law into two commandments, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. (Matt. 22:37-40)

While this seems more realistic than trying to keep up with 613 laws, if we are honest with ourselves we have to admit that even these two commandments are impossible to keep perfectly. Have you actually loved God with ALL of your heart? ALL of your soul? ALL of your mind? A safe bet to say not perfectly. 

The truth is that when we try to do these things on our own and by our own efforts we can never be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. As much as we try, we don’t love God with ALL our heart, soul, and strength, we don’t love our neighbors as ourselves. There is something in the way that prevents us from doing that, it’s called sin.

We are all sinful by nature, this means that sin affects every aspect of our lives, it defiles everything about us. So no matter how “good” we think we are, or how good we try to be, we will never meet God’s standard of perfection.

The standard is Jesus. He alone lived the perfect sinless life. He is the only person who is able to stand before God and be accepted because of his own righteousness. But this is good news for us! Because that is why Jesus came! Jesus didn’t just come to die for our sins, he also came to live in perfect righteousness! 

Not to get too theological but this is what is referred to as Christ’s active obedience and passive obedience. Jesus active obedience is His perfect obedience to the law and Jesus' passive obedience is His paying the penalty for our failure to obey God’s law. 

Why is this important? Because God’s laws just like any law have both demands and penalties. For example, U.S. law demands that I don’t murder people or break the speed limit, and if I do, the law demands a penalty based on the severity of each offense.

God’s law is the same, it makes demands of me, and if I fail to meet those demands, which we all do every single day, it then prescribes a penalty for my offense, which is death. (Romans 6:23)

This is why Christ’s active and passive obedience is necessary! He both fulfills the demands AND pays its penalty! He perfectly obeyed His Father’s law, something Adam failed to do, and he took the penalty prescribed by God’s law for our disobedience.

If he had not done both, we would have no hope. 

This is why Paul can write in Romans 3:21-24,

“But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

And this in Ephesians 2:8-9 “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift, not from works, so that no one can boast. 

Romans 5:8-9 “But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. How much more then, since we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath.”

What we are talking about is not earned Righteousness, our righteousness is not our own, achieved through good works, but it is imputed or credited righteousness. Christ’s righteousness is accredited to us just as our sin is accredited to him. On the cross, Jesus exchanged our sin for His perfect righteousness so that we can one day stand before God and He will not see our sin, but the righteousness of Jesus!

Romans 5:19 For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

2nd Corinthians 5:21 “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

There is no amount of good works that will make us right with God, Christianity is not an effort-based religion. Does this mean we don’t have to live according to God’s word? Absolutely not! It means that those things aren’t the root of my salvation, they are the fruit.

The gospel is simple, 

Romans 10:9-12 “If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who calls on him will not be put to shame, since there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, because the same Lord of all richly blesses all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Titus 3:4-7 “But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, he saved us - not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy - through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior so that, having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal life.”

Ephesians 1:13 “In him also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”