Romans 3:21-31
An aside: …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (v. 23). I currently use this verse citation as a password for one of my computer apps. The application requires passwords to contain an upper-case letter, a lower-case letter, a number and a special character. Using Bible verses supports these requirements well!!
Righteousness. If you were to ask me, off the top of my head, I would have a hard time defining “righteousness”, as to exactly what it means to be “righteous”. Frankly, the closest that I can come to understanding righteousness is not by definition, but by contrast. I can best understand what it means to be righteous by contrast with what it means to be “self-righteous”. Unfortunately, I know all too well what self-righteousness is, in that I see it all too often in myself. I see my self-righteousness in one sense as my deserving of honor for who I am or what I have done. I also see it in another sense as my being blameless – as in “It wasn’t my fault!” or “I am correct, not the other person.”
While we see self-righteousness in ourselves as a major fault, in fact those two concepts that I laid out – deserving of honor and blameless – truly do apply to God. “Deserving of honor” is not hard to understand – God is to be honored, above all else in our lives. Blameless, however, needs more context. Truly, God is blameless. We cannot blame Him for anything, especially in the sense that blame carries a negative connotation and God is all goodness, completely lacking evil. But blameless applied to God also suggests His holiness, again a complete lack of evil within His character – infinitely holy!
So, righteousness defined: deserving of honor, blameless. Done.
Slava Bohu!
Great summary definition, Fred!