Where’s the Target?
Now flee youthful lusts, and pursue after righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart. 2 Timothy 2:22 NASB
Righteousness – How can you pursue something if you don’t know where it is? That’s pretty much the situation in spiritual discipline today. We want to follow Paul’s exhortation. We want to pursue righteousness. But when we look for the goal, we have no idea where it is, so we just keep kicking the ball down the road.
What in the world did Paul mean by the term dikaiosyne? Did he mean, “Love people and do good”? That’s just vague enough so it loses any real meaning. That view turns out to be a product of the culture, and I am quite sure Paul was not advocating a cultural ethics. So maybe Paul meant, “Love Jesus and do what He did.” Same problem. First, there is no “Jesus.” “Jesus” is an invention of the Church. He is the universal Christ, a non-human since he has no ethnicity. Paul would not recognize him. But he would recognize Yeshua, the Torah-observant Jewish Messiah who came to establish the Kingdom of YHVH on earth. That Kingdom has a definition of righteousness, one that Paul himself embraced. The prophets tell us that when the Kingdom is finally established, righteousness will pour forth from Zion, but instead of using the word dikaiosyne, they used the word torah. Righteousness is Torah, God’s instructions for human life on this planet.
Don’t think for a moment that Christian theologians don’t recognize this connection. Quell couldn’t make it clearer:
The Concept of Law in the OT. This concept influenced all social relationships so strongly that it affected theological reflection on the fellowship between God and man. Law is the basis of the OTview of God, and the religious use of legal concepts helps in turn to ethicize the law. Many terms are used to express the relations between God and man, and the conduct governed by these relations. 1. The richness of the Hebrew usage is well expressed by the díkē group, especially dikaiosýnē and díkaios. (For the relevant Hebrew terms, the statistical distribution, and the equivalents,[1]
There is absolutely no doubt that righteousness is Torah. “All law comes from God, and hence God’s authority extends to all Israel’s historical relationships. God’s law is an order of life that cannot be changed or challenged. It is righteous because he is righteous.” [2]
Did you catch that? Here is a German Christian theologian writing in the most definitive Greek lexicon of the Christian world telling us that righteousness is Torah. That should make you ask the most obvious question, “If this is true, why does Christianity claim that Torah is no longer relevant?” Why does the Church teach that achieving righteousness “is impossible” (Quell in the same lexicon entry) and for Paul is “legalistic Judaism”? Is that what Moses said? Torah is impossible to keep? How did dikaiosyne suddenly become something so alien? Pursue righteousness? How? How can I pursue something that is impossible and legalistic? Paul must have been delusional when he suggested this. Wasn’t he writing Christian theology? Didn’t he know that keeping Torah doesn’t matter anymore?
Apparently he didn’t.
Topical Index: righteousness, dikaiosyne, Torah, 2 Timothy 2:22
[1] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (168). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
[2] Ibid.
So explain Paul’s statement that we are the righteousness of Christ.
What verse are you speaking of?
There is a term, “righteousness by faith” that I see largely untaught and unused by Christianity. It refers to the fact that the only way the law of righteousness is going to be written in our hearts (which is where the bottom of belief resides) is if it gets done TO US.
Faith is where I BELIEVE. Believe is where I trust in Someone other than me. Instead of trying to manufacture goodness; to reproduce the law in myself, I TRUST that it will get done THROUGH me, which is to say, the origin of righteousness in my life is originating somewhere else (is that a Hebrew statement?). This is total nonsense to a human in the flesh. That, sadly, from what I have seen in so many Christians I know, appears to be nonsense to them, too. It either gets turned into striving and legalism in their heads, at which point they either ‘give up’, or keep trying and make themselves sick (me!), or it gets mysticized (is that a word? should be!) into some vague thought that Jesus will ‘do it for us’, or ‘it will get done after I die’ or ‘in my sleep’, or just not thought about at all because the thought cannot even seem to form well in the mind of the flesh!
What is that action of faith, then, where I TRUST that the law will get done by my God in me? When I set out to find that action, guess what I found? I discovered that it came in the form of a deal, a TRADE, no less! I was surprised! James Russell Lowell writes a poem that says “In the devil’s booth all goods are sold: each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold”. I had the golden ball, the good stuff, but in a dark hour at midnight, I went to the crossroads and cut a deal with my tormentor. I traded my gold for his dross: my standing with love for a lie. Each time I sinned, I went back to that crossroads and listened again to the snake. How do I get my power back? The good news of the cross is that all trades have been proclaimed reversible. This is the gospel, the good news. But my mistake was thinking that I had to deal with the devil at all. That is witchcraft, dealing with the devil, which makes all sin witchcraft, if you think about it. I should not have parley vou’ed with him in the first place. I can never do something about evil in my flesh. That is where I stepped into sin. Legalism, in my experience, is where I CONTINUE to try to deal directly with sin, therefore making legalism, or righteousness in the flesh, a form of witchcraft, too. Shocker! No wonder I was getting creamed!
Now I am wiser. When I get tempted, I know to run to my Father and tell Him that I am being picked on, and run behind Him. That frees Him to listen and act for me. When I see sin in my life, or, more often, see a curse activated, or just feel stuck (which is to say, all expedient choices are not available), which most likely means there is sin, I know not to go back to the crossroads to cut another deal. I now know that the action of faith, for me, is REPENTANCE. to reverse directions, to back out of deals done with powerful tormentors, to leap over the cliff, to take it back; the sheer luxury of admitting that I was WRONG, is the true perogative, the true right, of all believers. It is the ACT of that belief. In fact, I do not even think someone can call themselves a believer if they do not realize that what they are signing up for is an entire lifetime of REPENTANCE! Repentance, not striving to ‘be good’, is where I back out of my hole. Repentance IS the act of faith. It is going back to trade in goods that were not really love, for goods that are, but it is to the cross, not the crossroads, where I must go to get my gold back. My Saviour has promised to lay all defective goods returned to His department on that scapegoat. Repentance is where I lay all those bad goods (sin) on Him. Halleluah! What do I get in return? The Right Way. But I have to turn in my Wrong Way, first! Think repentance does not take faith and trust? It is the ultimate act of such for us flesh folks, because I know the thing I fear most is my own mistakes. Faith is where I face my fear. Righteousness is where I let my Saviour BE, just be, instead of putting myself there. I didn’t give up, though (take THAT, legalism!). I gave in. Halleluah!
I wanted to comment on the words posted that “righteousness is Torah and all law comes from God”, since this phrase was obviously taken from the German theologian Gerhard Kittel, who was the biggest Christian anti-Semite hiding behind German church walls and who has supported Hitler on all levels. How can he be credible? Obviously he has never understood his own writing? I liked what Skip said, but how does that support him when using a voice of a confused Christian. Reading the other comments, however, I was extremely blessed by Laurita Hayes little essay about her understanding of our righteousness in Christ. I guess I take her explanation as an answer. Thanks Laurita.
The citation was NOT written by Kittel. He is one of the editors of the TDNT. The author of the article on dike is Quell. Look at page 168 of the abridged TDNT for the full reference.
Perfection Personified
~ For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven ~ (Matthew 5.20)
Perfection? Not a problem. Starting with the one who stares back at you in the mirror, how many perfect people do you know? I’ve known a few who come close (self not included!) but..- no cigar.
The ONLY perfect person ever to have lived is.. (not me!) Not me by a longshot or landslide! Not my father, nor my mother, not my brother- nor my sister! Not my daughter- not my son- as much as I love them all! Nope.
No pastor, nor any Christian man or woman I have ever known or even heard of! Not Mother Theresa, nor the pope! Not Adam, not Eve, not Abraham, not Sarah.. – you know.. all I have to do is list the 5-7 billion (or so) people on this planet and none (no, not one!) qualifies for perfection.
The is only One exception to the rule. He is Jesus Christ “THE” Righteous.
~ My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the (only) Righteous (One). ~ 1 John 2.1
I would love for “Anyman” (know this guy well) to ask this question: ~ Which of you convinces me of sin? ~ (John 8.46)
I would also ask those of you who do know me.. Please.. I won’t “tell on you” if “you don’t tell on me!! Who’s got the dirt on me? (please allow this sinner to remain anonymous!). No..- perfection, sinlessness and Me are miles apart.
Oh, but I do know a Man. I do know Someone who qualifies! I know one Man who CAN say “which of you convinces me of sin!”
Isn’t it a wonder, that in all of human history.. from Adam until the second Adam- “All” have sinned?” (with, of course,the exception of One exceptional one! The sinless-spotless-saving Lamb of God.
Crucify Him! – Why? What evil has He done? – I’ll answer that question for you sir! NONE!. One Man (and only One man -ever) lived a perfectly Torah-obedient life! In word, in deed, in thought, in action.. “perfection personified”- What a Savior! Sirs, I (too) find no fault in Him!
2 Corinthians 5:21 – For he hath made him [to be] sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
http://biblehub.com/interlinear/2_corinthians/5-21.htm
Hi Peter, sorry for the delayed reply. I attempted to respond yesterday, but was interrupted.
Anyhoo…. I thought this might have been the section of scripture that you were referring to, but I wasn’t quite sure, hence the question.
It would seem that the verse speaks of displaying God’s righteousness to the world we live in. (ambassadors) It’s not that we are the “righteousness” of Christ in and of ourselves, but rather that we are now displaying God’s righteousness as we “walk” through life “in Him”, because we were reconciled to God through Him.
John 17:21-23
That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me
YHWH bless you and keep you………………