Righteousness

Most arguments about righteousness are arguments about which half of one word to keep. The New Testament uses dikaiosynē ninety-two times, and the King James renders it "righteousness" nearly every time. In some places it plainly means a standing God gives to a man who has not earned it. In others it plainly means a life a man lives. The Reformers built on the first set of texts; Rome and the East built on the second; and each side has spent five centuries explaining the other side's verses away. This letter lays out both sets, in full, and then asks the only question that matters: did Paul and John think they were two things?

The righteousness that is given

Start where Paul starts, with Abraham. "Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness" (Romans 4:3). Then the sentence that no amount of reading softens: "But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness" (Romans 4:5). The word is logizomai, to reckon, to put to someone's account; Paul uses it eleven times in that one chapter. The ungodly man is counted righteous. Not made good first and then counted; counted, while ungodly, because he believed.

Paul says where that righteousness comes from and whose it is. "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested... Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe" (Romans 3:21-22). "And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith" (Philippians 3:9). And the exchange itself: "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" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The prophets had already said it. Jeremiah names the coming king: "this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS" (Jeremiah 23:6). Isaiah describes it as clothing put on from outside: "he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness" (Isaiah 61:10). A robe is not grown. It is given, and worn.

That is the first set, and it is not a Protestant invention. Augustine read 2 Corinthians 5:21 and wrote:

The righteousness that is worked in

Now the second set, and it uses the same word. John, writing to people who had been told that what you believed mattered and how you lived did not: "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous" (1 John 3:7). Jesus, on the mountain: "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). Paul, in the same letter as Abraham's reckoning, two chapters on: "even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness" (Romans 6:19), and "now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life" (Romans 6:22). And the purpose of the Spirit's coming: "That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:4). Fulfilled in us. Not only credited to us.

The word for the life side is hagiasmos, holiness or sanctification, and the New Testament uses it only ten times, which makes each one weigh. "For this is the will of God, even your sanctification" (1 Thessalonians 4:3). "Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). Peter reaches back to Sinai for it: "But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:15-16), quoting the Lord's own word to Israel, "Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy" (Leviticus 19:2). And Paul, in the very paragraph that says salvation is not of works, says what it is for: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10).

Chrysostom preached a whole homily on the Hebrews verse, and opened it by setting holiness beside the thing Christ said would mark His disciples:

And of Paul's "this is the will of God, even your sanctification," Chrysostom said: "observe how he nowhere so vehemently glances at any other thing, as at this." The Pulpit Commentary puts John's verse in one line: "Let no one ever seduce you into the belief that character and practice can be separated."

Why they were never two things

Put the two sets side by side and the temptation is to pick. Scripture does not. In one verse Paul names both, from one source, as one gift: "But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30). Christ is made to us righteousness and sanctification. Not righteousness from Christ and sanctification from ourselves. Titus says the same in order: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost... That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs" (Titus 3:5-7). Mercy, washing, renewing, justified, heirs. One sentence, and the renewing is inside it, not after it.

The commentators on both sides of the Reformation line, when they are reading a verse rather than fighting a war, say so. Wesley, on "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him":

First imputed, then implanted. Gill, the Baptist, on John's "he that doeth righteousness is righteous," is as plain as Luther that no one is made righteous before God by his doing: "men are only made righteous by the righteousness of Christ." And Augustine, on the holiness without which no man shall see the Lord:

Faith which worketh by love. That is Galatians 5:6, and it is the hinge. The faith that receives the robe is the same faith that goes on to work, and the working is the proof that the robe was received, not the price of it. The man who has the first righteousness and shows none of the second has, by John's test, deceived himself. The man who tries to produce the second without having received the first is the Pharisee of Luke 18, whose prayer was accurate and condemned.

The old dispute, and the honest range

The dispute is real and this site does not pretend it away; the letter on Justification tells it fairly. In one sentence: the Reformers taught that the righteousness by which God accepts a sinner is Christ's, counted to him, and that the life which follows is the fruit; Rome and the East taught that God's grace really makes the person righteous and that acceptance and renewal are one movement. Each side has the texts it leans on, and they are the two sets above.

Within Protestantism the question of how far the second righteousness can go in this life divided again. Wesley taught that a believer may be brought, by grace, to a perfect love of God and neighbour, which he called Christian perfection and was careful to say was not freedom from mistake or infirmity. The Reformed held that sin remains in the believer until death and that the struggle of Romans 7 is the Christian's own. Both sides agreed on what matters here: that the righteousness God gives is meant to produce a holy life, that the Spirit is the one who produces it, and that a professed faith which produces none is not the faith of Abraham.

This site holds what both can own. The standing is given, whole, to the ungodly who believes, and it is never earned. The life is worked in, by God, over a lifetime, and it is never optional. The first is the root and the second is the fruit, and a root that bears no fruit is a dead root, which is what James meant and what Paul, in Romans 6, meant too.

Where this lands

Jeremiah gave the whole thing in a name: the LORD our righteousness. Not the Lord the source of our righteousness, as if it were then ours to keep up. The Lord is our righteousness, the one we are counted in and the one we are being made like. The robe is His, and the hands that wash the feet are His, and the holiness without which no one sees Him is not a bar He set at the door but the family likeness He is working into everyone He has brought inside. "He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous." The last three words are the point. It ends in Him.

Related: Justification, Sanctification, Faith Is a Verb, Grace, Servants and Chosen, and The Security of Salvation. Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub; the Father's word is marked in gold, the Son's in purple. Commentators quoted from the public-domain editions held in the site's library.