|
 From
"God's Strategy in Human History" by Roger Forster and
Paul Marston (Tyndale Publ., Wheaton, 111.) we quote portions of
their study in the word "righteousness." (p. 150-f.)
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The
material is drawn from that very worthwhile study book by Dr.
Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross ...Morris
writes: "The righteous are those acquitted at the bar of
God's justice, and righteousness is the standing of those so
acquitted" (p. 260) ...Basically the righteous man is the
one who is accepted before God, the one who conforms to His
way" (p. 269)....
We
may understand the book of Job much better if we grasp the
Hebrew meaning of righteous. If (it) were taken in our western
sense we should be surprised at the Bible calling any mere man
righteous, for the only ethically perfect one was Christ
himself. If the word meant "ethically irreproachable"
then men like Noah and Lot were manifestly not righteous (Gen.
7:1; 2 Pet. 2:8; compare Gen. 9:21; 19:30-38). Since, however,
the word implies mainly that a man is in a right standing before
God, we may see why the word is applied to them. The same is
also true of Job. The Lord himself declared Job to be blameless
and upright. This did not mean that Job had no faults, but that
he was in a fundamentally right standing before God. (See Job
1:8; 2:3; rft)
To
our western minds, the word righteous not only implies
ethical perfection; it tends also to have a connotation of
self-righteous. These two associations of ideas might easily
have led us to condemn Job for continually
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protesting his innocence
and righteousness. When we see what his claim really was — to
be in a fundamentally right standing with God — we may
understand why God condoned what he said ...The Bible does not
necessarily condemn the claim of a man to be righteous. What is
wrong is a claim to be able to make oneself righteous, to earn God's
acquittal.
We
must not suppose that gentile converts (to whom Paul compares
Jews, Rom. 9:30-32) had no interest at all in being right with
God.... Paul indicates that the gentile interest was small in
comparison to the Jews who were obsessed with it. Nevertheless
the gentile converts achieved a right standing before God
because they sought it through faith and not through works
...Morris comments: ... The Jews who were very anxious to
establish themselves as righteous before God failed to do so
because they came by the way of law works instead of by that of
faith, which is the way God has appointed. It is quite clear
that righteousness is being used to denote a standing, a status,
a verdict of acquittal, and not an ethical quality" (p.
275). In summary, therefore, several subjects dealt with in this
book become clearer once we understand what the Hebrews meant by
a righteous man. His primary meaning was not a man who lived up
to a perfect standard but one who had been acquitted in God's
judgment.
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CHRIST
AND THE CROSS IS THE PROCURING MEANS, FORGIVENESS IS THE
OPERATION, AND OBEDIENT FAITH IS THE CONDITION!!
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