What is righteousness?  And how does one become righteous?   Is it a desirable quality for salvation?

Can one be righteous without having faith and grace?

you really like attention

JJYOU:

you really like attention

Well - Yes and No. Is there a problem asking questions?

huxley:

What is righteousness? And how does one become righteous? Is it a desirable quality for salvation?

Can one be righteous without having faith and grace?

Righteousness means Virtue,Morality,Decency, Justice,Uprightness,Rectitude,Honesty. All these can be found in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

May kelly:


Righteousness means Virtue,Morality,Decency, Justice,Uprightness,Rectitude,Honesty. All these can be found in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a very excellent and deep question that unwraps so many layers of stuff. First there is the whole issue of Right. What is a right? People always claim to be exercising their rights. Human rights, women's rights, civil rights etc etc. But Right implies Intent. For example if I prepare a dinner with the Intent that my guest, a certain Mr. Huxley, should come and eat it, then it would be right if Huxley did come and eat the dinner intended for him. If however I turn my back for a second and the dog leaps onto the table and scoffs Huxley's dinner in one gulp then that dog has violated Huxley's Rightful dinner. A right is what is in accord with An Intent.

If shoes are designed to be worn on the feet then it is RIGHT that they be worn on the feet. But there is no Right without an intent, no right without, ultimately, a designer. If there is no Designer or at least intent in the world order then there are no rights. If the world came about randomly then no one anywhere has the Right to Complain about rights being violated. Who gave them the right in the first place? The Right to Education? Who dash you!? The Right to Vote? Again, says who?

Rights are supported by Authority and Authority, as the name suggests, implies an Author.

If however the World has a Designer, An Author, then his/her/it's Intent for the functioning of his creation becomes what is Right and appeals to it can be considered Authoritative.

Therefore Righteousness implies that there is a way the world is supposed to work and that people are Supposed to be and those who acted the way they are supposed to are Righteous. The way we are supposed to be is determined by the Author of our lives.

Like I've said elsewhere, there is an appropriation to each and every live and to live in accord with it is to be Righteous.

Righteousness is submission to the laws of God or obedience to the will of God. One can become righteous by seeking the will of God, recognise the will of God and live in total obediience to the will of God. There can be no salvation without righteousness, that is without obedience to the laws of God. It is impossible to be righteous without deep faith or conviction in the omnipotence of God. It is this unshakeable conviction that opens the spirit for the reception of the power of God. No man can be righteous without recieving the purifying power of God. The first step is therefore to intuitively seek for God and his will.

Righteousnes is the nature of God that is imparted to a man's Spirit at the new birth giving him the ability to stand before God without the feeling of guilt, inferiority or condemmnation and also gives him the ability to produce righteousness (live right).
Righteousness is not right-living; rather, it produces right-living. It produces the rightness of God in a man.
It makes hima master over sin, over the World and over Satan.
Is is not earned. It is a free gift of God to those who believe.

donnie:

Righteousnes is the nature of God that is imparted to a man's Spirit at the new birth giving him the ability to stand before God without the feeling of guilt, inferiority or condemmnation and also gives him the ability to produce righteousness (live right).
Righteousness is not right-living; rather, it produces right-living. It produces the rightness of God in a man.
It makes hima master over sin, over the World and over Satan.
Is is not earned. It is a free gift of God to those who believe.

The only thing I disagree with here is that I believe Righteousness has been established from the dawn of time. It is not imparted only at the time of new birth. Awareness of it is awakened in the New Birth but the individual is still left with the choice to follow the promptings of Righteousness or follow or to choose otherwise.

I also agree with you because everything that's in line with God's plans and purpose for mankind is righteousness. However, a man is not only awakened to rightousness at the new birth; it actually becomes a vital living reality in his/her life.
He is able to make war and live victoriously and in prosperity through righteousness.

There is no such thing as universal righteousness.

It's yet another relative perception.

@bastage
Thank you jo after all said and done it is relative and depends on what the individual believes in.
If you are a muslim you would see nothing wrong with the way women are treated.
After all the analysis it is relative to the plane upon which it is judged.
Being right has a lot to do with intent, it is being correct, or being certain.

Chrisbenogor:

@bastage
Thank you jo after all said and done it is relative and depends on what the individual believes in.
If you are a muslim you would see nothing wrong with the way women are treated.
After all the analysis it is relative to the plane upon which it is judged.
Being right has a lot to do with intent, it is being correct, or being certain.

Bastage:

There is no such thing as universal righteousness.

It's yet another relative perception.

There is no such thing as universal righteousness, yet there is an appropriation for each individual so each individual has his own righteousness that has been set by his creator from the beginning of time. What is Right for me is not right for you, necessarily.

However, Chrisbenogor this righteousness is not accidental. A muslim is what he is due to the accidents of his birth and his environment that have shaped his perceptions. These are all circumstancial influences. Righteousness is there deep at the very core of a human being where it has been placed by God and it is what it is regardless of his life history or circumstance. What I'm talking about is not circumstancial but rather integral to his very being.

@pastor
How body?
Sorry but I do not subscribe to the school of thought that it is integral in us. If that were true it would have enormous impact on man as a whole today but let's not derail now.
What is right or wrong to us is learned, it is not an instinct, what is right or wrong has to be judged with certain standards.
Let me throw light into what I said. You see these standards are formed based on either a belief which is beyond doubt for that person or a perfect knowledge.
Let's take the first case which is a belief beyond doubt for the person or a group of people, if a person acts within the tenets of this belief with a good intention he has done nothing wrong, but if he does with a bad intention then he has done something wrong.
Then there is what is a perfect knowledge, this is the only sole standard with which all beliefs can be judged if they are right or wrong. In the former case for instance, you cannot judge another person based on your own beliefs, but you can judge with perfect knowled ge.
Judging saudi arabia with america's constituion would violate this important law.
Will throw more light later.
Enjoy.

Chrisbenogor:

@pastor
How body?
Sorry but I do not subscribe to the school of thought that it is integral in us. If that were true it would have enormous impact on man as a whole today but let's not derail now.
What is right or wrong to us is learned, it is not an instinct, what is right or wrong has to be judged with certain standards.
Let me throw light into what I said. You see these standards are formed based on either a belief which is beyond doubt for that person or a perfect knowledge.
Let's take the first case which is a belief beyond doubt for the person or a group of people, if a person acts within the tenets of this belief with a good intention he has done nothing wrong, but if he does with a bad intention then he has done something wrong.
Then there is what is a perfect knowledge, this is the only sole standard with which all beliefs can be judged if they are right or wrong. In the former case for instance, you cannot judge another person based on your own beliefs, but you can judge with perfect knowled ge.
Judging saudi arabia with america's constituion would violate this important law.
Will throw more light later.
Enjoy.

So I beg sir, is what you wrote above merely right according to your personal belief, or have you grace us with some of the Perfect Knowledge.

@pastor
Learning fast eh? here is a little test if you can find scenarios where I am wrong then it cannot be a perfect knowledge, but watch it, might be very tricky.

@Pastor AIO
i do not agree with u that righteousness is an intergral part of every man because since the fall of Adam in the garden, every man born into this world comes with the same fallen nature. . . that nature of sin. It is natural for him to sin.
It is this nature that is supplanted with the new nature at the new birth. Then he is a new creation. With a new life from God.
This new life or nature does not exist side by side with the old nature as some think; it replaces the old nature.
It becomes unnatural for him to do evil and natural for him to do right. This is the nature of righteousness.
The bible shows by the prophet Ezekiel what this new birth is about as he speaks prophetically concerning our day in Ez 36:26
'A new heart will i give you and a new spirit will i put within you: and i will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and i will give you an heart of flesh'. This is the new birth, the old nature is gone, and the new nature has come HALLELUJAH.

@donnie
Is what you are saying a belief, or a perfect knowledge, can I apply this to people of all nations?

Ez 36:27-'And i will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements, and do them'. This is the Holy spirit which we recieve within us after we are saved. When that annointing comes, we no longer struggle to live that life of righteousness which we have recieved for his spirit within us causes us to walk in his ways, Halleluyah!
That's why Philipians 2:13 says it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Ez 36:28-30 goes on to show us the kind of prosperity that follows such a Spirit-led life. He says, 'I will call for the corn and multiply it and lay no famine upon you. . .' Glory to God!
So my dear, this life isnt in everyman. No wonder Jesus said, 'ye must be born again'. This is not a change of ways or the refurbishment of a mans character but a completely new birth. The unregenerated man abides in death. When he recieves Jesus, he passes from death to life.

Ok I understand it is your belief, beliefs are only beliefs my dear, hold on to yours, but it is not a universal standard.

Ok I understand it is your belief, beliefs are only beliefs my dear, hold on to yours, but it is not a universal standard.

Chrisbenogor:

@pastor
Learning fast eh? here is a little test if you can find scenarios where I am wrong then it cannot be a perfect knowledge, but watch it, might be very tricky.

Sir, this is not something that I'm looking to learn, but rather something I'd learnt a while back and then soon unlearned when I realised it was baseless. There is no need to find any actual scenarios, commonsense will suffice to tell me you are wrong.

What you have is a paradox. You are saying that all value systems are relative. However this includes your evaluation of value systems. Therefore it is a self referential statement. Your statement that all values are relative is itself relative so can not be an absolute truth.

Now I am comfortable with Paradox. I think that there are many ontologically valid situations that are paradoxical, however paradox cannot occur in the physical plane. I presume that you are a materialist, ie you don't believe in the spiritual or metaphysical world, in which case there can be no room for paradox in you thinking. There is either LIGHT or there is DARKNESS, but you can't have your cake and eat it all at the same time. Unless you are a greedy pig.

donnie:

@Pastor AIO
i do not agree with u that righteousness is an intergral part of every man because since the fall of Adam in the garden, every man born into this world comes with the same fallen nature. . . that nature of sin. It is natural for him to sin.
It is this nature that is supplanted with the new nature at the new birth. Then he is a new creation. With a new life from God.
This new life or nature does not exist side by side with the old nature as some think; it replaces the old nature.
It becomes unnatural for him to do evil and natural for him to do right. This is the nature of righteousness.
The bible shows by the prophet Ezekiel what this new birth is about as he speaks prophetically concerning our day in Ez 36:26
'A new heart will i give you and a new spirit will i put within you: and i will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and i will give you an heart of flesh'. This is the new birth, the old nature is gone, and the new nature has come HALLELUJAH.

donnie:


Ez 36:27-'And i will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements, and do them'. This is the Holy spirit which we recieve within us after we are saved. When that annointing comes, we no longer struggle to live that life of righteousness which we have recieved for his spirit within us causes us to walk in his ways, Halleluyah!
That's why Philipians 2:13 says it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Ez 36:28-30 goes on to show us the kind of prosperity that follows such a Spirit-led life. He says, 'I will call for the corn and multiply it and lay no famine upon you. . .' Glory to God!
So my dear, this life isnt in everyman. No wonder Jesus said, 'ye must be born again'. This is not a change of ways or the refurbishment of a mans character but a completely new birth. The unregenerated man abides in death. When he recieves Jesus, he passes from death to life.

So Sir, can I presume that since you've had this new birth and this new nature which has supplanted the old, that you no longer sin. Or feel temptation to follow your old nature as it doesn't exist anymore in you.

What you are saying implies one of two things. 1) You haven't committed a single sin, or had the inclination to sin since the day your stony heart was replaced.

2)Or . . . If you have sinned then you haven't been born again and your christianity is a farce.

Which is it?

Maybe you did not fully understand my oga, let me illustrate with a story I told a friend some days back.
Let us assume there is a village called A, now this village is a vast expanse of land and there is a law in the village that says the earth is flat anyone who says otherwise is a heretic. There is another village lets call it B that lived on slopy plane and they decided the earth was slopy . Note that the both villages determined this from the wealth of knowledge present to them. So if someone in the village comes out and says the earth is spherical and the person is ajudged to be a heretic would we say he has not been judged righteously. The correct answer is going to be yes he was judged righteously but according to the limited knowledge of the villages, if he was judged in the both villages though they would come up with two different verdicts although both will condemn him to being a heretic.
So the problem here is that, if you judge village A with village B's beliefs you will most definitely convict all of them. This is because beliefs are limiting, is there really any proof that the earth is not slopy? Or that the earth is not flat?
Now I will introduce a third village P, this village has astronauts and are a lot more technologically advanced. They go to outer space and have a picture of the spherical earth. Notice that even though this last village has the correct answer as to the shape of the earth, it is still relative to their own standards, but can this sole standard be used to judge if villages A and B are wrong, I think it can because like it or not the earth is spherical, black or white, the earth is spherical, muslim or christian, the earth is spherical.
Villages A and B can said to have beliefs, even P does, but that of P is a perfect knowledge and thus is the only standard appropriate to judge both villages.
Again I say to you come up with scenarios where I am wrong, and where the atheist, the christians, the muslims, all agree with you. Its that simple.

Chrisbenogor:

Maybe you did not fully understand my oga, let me illustrate with a story I told a friend some days back.
Let us assume there is a village called A, now this village is a vast expanse of land and there is a law in the village that says the earth is flat anyone who says otherwise is a heretic. There is another village lets call it B that lived on slopy plane and they decided the earth was slopy . Note that the both villages determined this from the wealth of knowledge present to them. So if someone in the village comes out and says the earth is spherical and the person is ajudged to be a heretic would we say he has not been judged righteously. The correct answer is going to be yes he was judged righteously but according to the limited knowledge of the villages, if he was judged in the both villages though they would come up with two different verdicts although both will condemn him to being a heretic.
So the problem here is that, if you judge village A with village B's beliefs you will most definitely convict all of them. This is because beliefs are limiting, is there really any proof that the earth is not slopy? Or that the earth is not flat?
Now I will introduce a third village P, this village has astronauts and are a lot more technologically advanced. They go to outer space and have a picture of the spherical earth. Notice that even though this last village has the correct answer as to the shape of the earth, it is still relative to their own standards, but can this sole standard be used to judge if villages A and B are wrong, I think it can because like it or not the earth is spherical, black or white, the earth is spherical, muslim or christian, the earth is spherical.
Villages A and B can said to have beliefs, even P does, but that of P is a perfect knowledge and thus is the only standard appropriate to judge both villages.
Again I say to you come up with scenarios where I am wrong, and where the atheist, the christians, the muslims, all agree with you. Its that simple.

No sir, I understand you very well. You are saying that what is right or wrong is relative to the knowledge that people have. There are a couple of things that you should be aware of about my position though. This evaluation of right or wrong is made from a position of absolute knowledge. God knows everything so it is not a human epistemology that is in effect here. This is exactly the point that I've tried to raise in numerous threads on this forum. Human knowledge is limited to perspective yet divine knowledge is not.

You know what happens when people go into the issue of God, is it a perfect knowledge or a belief that God exists?

The knowledge is not of the existence or nonexistence of God. It is already given that God exists and the issue is whether God's knowledge is relative or absolute.

However, if you are not comfortable with the existence of God then look at it this way. Imagine knowing your situation from every perspective possible, including all contrary perspectives. In other words a totally panoramic viewpoint of a situation. Would the evaluation of such a situation be relative or absolute?

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe; for there is no difference. -Romans 3: 21-22

Hence, Righteousness is relationship with God. this can only happen through total faith and dependence upon Christ

Cayon:


Hence, Righteousness is relationship with God. this can only happen through total faith and dependence upon Christ

Amen!

@Pastor,
Well, like i said when a man is brn again, it is his Spirit that is recreated. He dosnt loose his mind. He may still have his old thoughts, and emotions but the task now is for him to subject these to the Word. The word is the instrument for bringing every thought into subjection to this new life which you have recieved.
Romans 12:1-2 tells us not to be conformrd to this world but to be transformed by the RENEWING OF OUR MINDS.
So whereas he has a new Spirit, he needs to subject his mind to a renewal process through God's Word. This is a continuous process and the result is a perfect man in Christ Jesus.
Just as it isnt natural for a man to walk on all fours like other animals, he may do so during infancy but later grow out of it. Even when he is grown up, he may sometimes trip and fall, but since it isnt natural for him to remain down, he gets up, dusts himself and continues his walk. This is d way it is with the righteousness man; he may fall 7 times, but he will surely get up n continue in faith

donnie:

@Pastor,
Well, like i said when a man is brn again, it is his Spirit that is recreated. He dosnt loose his mind. He may still have his old thoughts, and emotions but the task now is for him to subject these to the Word. The word is the instrument for bringing every thought into subjection to this new life which you have recieved.
Romans 12:1-2 tells us not to be conformrd to this world but to be transformed by the RENEWING OF OUR MINDS.
So whereas he has a new Spirit, he needs to subject his mind to a renewal process through God's Word. This is a continuous process and the result is a perfect man in Christ Jesus.
Just as it isnt natural for a man to walk on all fours like other animals, he may do so during infancy but later grow out of it. Even when he is grown up, he may sometimes trip and fall, but since it isnt natural for him to remain down, he gets up, dusts himself and continues his walk. This is d way it is with the righteousness man; he may fall 7 times, but he will surely get up n continue in faith

Well this is quite an interesting interpretation of scripture. I shall peruse it a bit more. Are you aware though that it's quite a different position from this:

@Pastor AIO
i do not agree with u that righteousness is an intergral part of every man because since the fall of Adam in the garden, every man born into this world comes with the same fallen nature. . . that nature of sin. It is natural for him to sin.
It is this nature that is supplanted with the new nature at the new birth. Then he is a new creation. With a new life from God.
This new life or nature does not exist side by side with the old nature as some think; it replaces the old nature.
It becomes unnatural for him to do evil and natural for him to do right. This is the nature of righteousness.
The bible shows by the prophet Ezekiel what this new birth is about as he speaks prophetically concerning our day in Ez 36:26
'A new heart will i give you and a new spirit will i put within you: and i will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and i will give you an heart of flesh'. This is the new birth, the old nature is gone, and the new nature has come HALLELUJAH.

The two either co exist in a man or they do not coexist. pick one.

The truth is, the righteous man naturally desires to please God. He dosnt want to do evil. Yes he may make mistakes or even sin wilfully sometimes but there is this feeeling of guilt and regret that always follows. If u find that u hv this innate desire to do evil, chances are that u are not saved and u need to be born again.
The secret to living above sin for the righteous man is to walk in the Spirit. The bible says: 'walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh, for the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.'
So you are either a sinner or a saint (no middle ground). For thr sinner, he cannot produce righteousness bc it is not in him to do so. For the saint, he that is born of God does not sin. However, if('if' and not 'when' bc it isnt natural to do so) any man sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus the righteous. His blood cleanses us from all unrighteousness so we can stand blameless b4 him halleluyah.