4D Theology #4 - "What Does My Righteousness Have to do With Shalom?"

Why do you think Yeshua spoke about "doing" righteousness? Why did the prophet Amos talk about righteousness rolling down like "an ever-flowing stream"? Why would Paul tell a young pastor, a beneficiary of Christ's righteousness, to "pursue righteousness," and that the Scriptures are "profitable for...training in righteousness"?

     Maybe it's time that we mature beyond our one and two-dimensional views of righteousness—the ones that bend us towards self-righteousness, and examine the relationship between righteousness and shalom. This episode will be a great beginning on that wonderful journey.

Transcript

When I was 15, I stood in front of 6,100 screaming teenagers in the Milwaukee Auditorium for the final performance of what was dubbed as “The Milwaukee Sentinel Battle of the Bands.” Twenty lesser-known bands from around the state had ended up in this final performance. I was part of a group known as “The Shags,” a four-piece rock and roll band playing mostly covers like the majority of garage bands of that era. I was a sophomore in high school at the time. Before I graduated from high school, my group would open for some rather well-known groups of my day, The Association, The Grass Roots, and a horn-band called, Chase. When I entered college and became part of a folk-rock group, we opened for B.J. Thomas of “Raidrops Keep Falling on My Head” fame. Music was the internet in those days, creating a sort of fabric within the youth culture. And I was pretty woven into it.

It was in the world of music where I first heard the word, “righteous.” It was part of the name of two young performers, who although they weren’t related, took the stage name of “The Righteous Brothers,” which seemed to fit because they were poster-children for the all-American image of what was upright. I was 15 when they released, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” which shot them into musical stardom. I didn’t hear the word, “righteous” again for about five years, and then it would have little to do with music. But, my second encounter with “righteous” would turn out to be the single most significant moment of my life.

Hi, I’m still Fran Sciacca, and this is still the Road to Shalom, a little-known podcast exploring what’s wrong with the world, and the small but significant role we’ve been entrusted, to fix it. Welcome back, or welcome in, whichever is the case.

We’re in our forth installment of something I’ve been calling, for lack of a better descriptor, “Four Dimensional Theology.” My attempt to break us out of our cultural captivity as a faith community where we’re stuck seeing and thinking spiritually in only two dimensions. One is personal and only deals with matters that concern me. The second is parochial, or put another way, the dimension that contains things that have to do with us, the faith community. But, for three episodes I’ve been laboring to push the boundaries out beyond these two dimensions, to make room for what I’ve called the “flip-side” of our theology. Suggesting that our gaze as believers has to include two additional dimensions: those OUTSIDE the faith community, and God Himself. That gives us our four dimensions: personal, parochial on one side, and global, and missional on the flip-side. In short, I’m lobbying for a sort of modern Reformation in our theology that is more consistent with the One Story of the One God, but also one that benefits me, that benefits us, that benefits others, and even in truth, benefits God. Tall order. But, I believe if God had a restaurant, it’d be on the menu.

We’re going to look at a word that’s in the “Theological Hall of Fame,” and has been for a long time. At least 3,000 years. But, unfortunately for most modern believers, it only goes back about 500 years, which may be responsible for our militant insistence on a two-dimensional limitation of the word. That word is, “righteousness.” Righteousness. It’s a Mount Everest sort of word for all who hold to any expression of the Judeo-Christian tradition. And it should be. The English word shows up nearly 300 times in our Bible, and twice as many times in the Old Testament as the New Testament. Make no mistake, a word that shows up across the biblical narrative from Genesis to Revelation is an important word. And, that makes it even more important that we have a really full understanding of not only where it shows up, but what it means, and beyond that, what it implies…for us living twenty centuries after it was last mentioned by the apostle John.

As we leave the harbor on this journey, let me remind us of something I’ve said or intimated a bunch of times over the past three years. Our Bible is an ancient book written by Jews living and thinking within the circumference of a Hebrew worldview. Luke is the only Gentile contributor to the 1,189 chapters of our Bible, and even he was greatly influenced by his friend and traveling companion, the Apostle Paul. And even Paul lived and died as a loyal Jew. This is abundantly clear in his defense before King Agrippa and the Roman procurator Festus near the end of the book of Acts. Listen carefully for the self-portrait Paul paints in the midst of his defense:

“My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee. And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day.” (Acts 26:4–7 ESV)

Paul was never converted from being a Jew to a Christian the way we tend to think of it. I say all this because we’re going to need to sort of change our mental clothing for this journey. We’re going to need to take off our modern, Western, Enlightenment garments, and put on, as best we can, an ancient Near Eastern way of thinking. In particular, a Hebrew worldview. And, all the while, we’ll need to remind ourselves that at best, we’re only going see a portion of the richness of this word, “righteousness” because we’re modern, and most likely we’re all Gentiles. Ready? Okay, here we go.

In the mind of ethnic Jews in the Bible, life was understood relationally. Even their identity as Jews was a relational reality. They were who they were because of who they knew, and who they knew was the result of what the One they knew had done. In a very real sense, Yahweh never “chose” the Jews the way most folks think of it. It wasn’t like He looked at all the people groups on earth and decided for the Jews instead of the Syrians, for example. Yahweh created the Jews. He took one idol-worshipping Mesopotamian named Abram and pretty much said, “Abram, I’ve got a great idea that I call a ‘Jew.’ I’d like to make you one. And through you, I’d like to bless the nations…all of them. Are you in?” Abram responded yes, and as the story goes, “it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” The Jews of the Bible existed because the One God had a purpose for them. You and I are the modern beneficiaries of Abram’s submission to the purposes of Yahweh. In fact, Paul tells us that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.” (Galatians 3:28–29 ESV) 

So, for Jews in the ancient world, their relationship with one another was inseparable from their shared relationship with Yahweh, the One God. This also meant that life was lived and understood in behavioral categories. How one lived mattered. Not only because it was an honor/shame culture, but because it showcased their invisible relationship with the One God. Those whose lives reflected the heart and purposes of Yahweh are called “the righteous” in the Bible. They are an actual group. In fact, that phrase, “the righteous” appear 140 times in our Old Testament, and nearly half of those are in the Books of Psalms and Proverbs. Two books that deal with one’s relationship with God on one hand, and their relationships with people on the other. The other major behavioral group in the Old Testament, “the wicked,” shows up nearly 240 times, and like “the righteous,” the majority of those are in the Psalms and Proverbs. But, and this shouldn’t surprise us, “the wicked” show up twice as many times as “the righteous” in the prophets, the books where Yahweh is taking His people to task for losing the plot.

In short, “righteous” and “wicked” are behavioral groups in the Bible. And which one you were in was evidenced by how you lived. That’s what’s behind verses like, “The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.” (Proverbs 10:11 NIV). Even the clearest of prophecies about the coming Messiah were wrapped in this behavioral language: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.” (Jeremiah 23:5 ESV). Did you hear that? Justice and righteousness are things that have to be executed? They weren’t conditions that someone achieved. In the mind of the ancient Jew, “righteousness” was always in motion, and it was always related to the purposes of God. Why is understanding this so important for us living today? Well, I think if we don’t understand this word, “righteousness” in light of its Jewish origins, the way Paul would have understood it, we’ll never understand what’s on the flip-side. I’d go so far as to say if we get the frontside wrong, we’ll reject the flip-side as a threat when it’s presented to us. 

Okay, back to Paul. He’s responsible for two-thirds of the times “righteousness” shows up in our New Testament. It’s a big, big word for him, making appearances in all but 4 of his 13 letters; 32 times in Romans alone. It’s also clear in Paul’s writings that he has the typical Jewish understanding of “righteousness” as a behavioral thing. Listen to a couple of his thoughts from Romans, his longest treatise on “righteousness”:

“For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.” (Romans 2:13 NIV). That phrase, “declared righteous” is how the NIV translates the Greek word, dikaioō. The ESV translates it, “justified.” In fact, our English words, “justifiy,” and “justification” are all part of this same word family that deals with either being “righteous” or being “declared righteous” by God. I know this might have been a little technical for some of you, but hang on, I think you’ll appreciate where this is heading.

According to Paul, our greatest problem is that we’re “unrighteous” before God. Our lives are defined by a failure to do what is right. A failure to be seen as “righteous,” because of a failure to behave righteously. To do righteousness. Like Jesus himself put it, “be careful not to do your acts of righteousness to be seen by others…” (Matthew 6:1-2). This is at the heart of Jesus’ main problem with the religious leaders of his day. They believed they were “righteous” because of their behavior. And, they reached this conclusion by comparing themselves to other people, rather than comparing themselves to God Himself. Jesus attacked this attitude with holy vengeance. Catch this:

“He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other…” (Luke 18:9-13, ESV). 

Beloved, this is what I would call one-dimensional righteousness. You probably know it as self-righteousness. Jesus says that self-righteousness is also self-deception because the one who justifies himself to himself, it turns out, is unjustified by God. His self-righteousness turns out to be unrighteousness. That’s a scary thought. One that smug believers should marinate on a bit.

There’s also lots of examples in the Gospels of what I would call two-dimensional righteousness, which at the end of the day, is just a bunch of one-dimensional righteous people hanging out together. A sort of tribal righteousness. Jesus put this perversion of God’s righteousness on his hit list too:

“And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus’ response to them is a citation from the prophet Hosea. Jesus says,  “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy [Gk eleos - mercy, kindness, compassion], and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous [dikaias], but sinners.” (Matthew 9:10–11,13 ESV)  

Beloved, we mustn’t assume that Yeshua came to call “sinners” so he could declare them righteous, so they could eventually become self-righteous like the ones He said He didn’t come to save. He came to “call sinners” not just to himself, but also into something else. We’ll get to that.

In summary beloved, God has a standard for righteous behavior, and we just don’t meet it. Never can. Never will. It’s what sinners can’t do, even the good ones. We can’t be righteous enough, even if we can do righteousness a little.

But, God has fixed that. “But now the righteousness [dikaiosunē] of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness [dikaiosunē] of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are declared righteous” [dikaioō] by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” (Romans 3:21-24). 

In another place, Paul gets more personal about his own encounter, as loyal Jew, with this “righteousness” that comes from God: “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—” (Philippians 3:8–9 ESV). 

This isn’t new to most of you. I realize that. But, we’re not at the other shore yet, so hang on. The beauty of the gospel is that the guilt we incur for what we’ve done wrong, is transferred from us, to Jesus. And the perfect behavior that we haven’t done, but Jesus has, is credited from Him, to us. We are declared righteous by God on Christ’s behalf. But don’t forget that righteousness is a behavioral category, not a moral one. It has to do with a life lived, not sins avoided. Why’s that important? Well, and I need for you to slow down your listening function here. That means that in a very real sense, half of the redemption God offers to us has to do with works. Not “works of the Law.” Not Jewish regulations, but good behavior. Perfect behavior, in fact. In a very real sense, you are declared by God to have lived a life of perfection when it comes to your behavior. Let me say that again, righteousness is a behavioral category, and you are declared righteous. Every merciful, compassionate, selfless, just, loving, kind, and good thing Jesus ever did, you are declared to have done. In Christ, you are righteous because you have lived righteously. Do you get this?

That means that there is a very personal dimension to “righteousness,” for you. And, it also means that there is a very parochial dimension of “righteousness” to all of us who now find ourselves on the receiving end of this scandalous transaction. You, me, and all of the people of God have lived a perfect life in the eyes of God, as a gift from him to us through the righteous life of Jesus, and the righteousness he did. We get hints of this parochial aspect in Old Testament phrases like the closing verses of Psalm 1

“Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” (Psalm 1:5–6 ESV). There’s our two categories again, “the wicked” and “the righteous.” But did you catch that phrase, “the congregation of the righteous”? How amazing is that? You and I, if we are standing beneath the shadow of the complete work of Yeshua the Messiah, are part of the “congregation of the righteous.”

This is the front side of “righteousness,” and it’s vital that you see it as a behavioral achievement. There truly is no additional good that you can do to be righteous before God. There is nothing you’ve left undone, in Christ. But…this is two-dimensional righteousness. And, “righteousness” that stays two-dimensional will eventually become “self-righteousness” [Luke 18] or “tribe-righteousness,” [Matt 9] or both. These counterfeit forms of righteousness are offensive to God. They are the opposite of why He declared us righteous in the first place. So, what was God’s end-game in all this? Well, I have a few thoughts on that, and they are gonna take us into the other two dimensions of our word, “righteousness.” So, what do you think is on the flip-side of righteousness? Are you ready for this? I mean, really ready?  [pause]

The flip-side of “righteousness” is “works.” I know, I know, most of you have been taught that “works” is the enemy of grace and faith. You’ve probably even heard phrases like “works-righteousness” spoken of in hushed or contemptible ways. Well, I get that…I thought that way too. Until I looked at the larger narrative of the Bible, you know, God’s “plan for the fullness of time…” that narrative. And what I discovered made so much sense, and relieved a ton of theological tension, and did both without sacrificing my commitment to biblical orthodoxy. Are you intrigued? I hope so. Let’s keep moving…

If I did a decent job explaining that the correct way to think of “righteousness” as an achievement, and “the righteous” as a people group—at least the way the writers of our Bible understood it—then you now think of all that in within the circumference of  behavior. Good behavior. Godly behavior. The kind of behavior that God Himself would likely do, if for some reason He ever decided to take on a human body. Using all that to stand on, let me suggest a slightly different way to view some familiar passages. The first is from Paul’s pen in a letter to the church at Corinth. He said, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV). The first part of that verse I’m guessing we all agree on. It’s what the really smart guys who write the really thick books call, “substitutionary atonement.” God put the sin and guilt of humanity of Jesus, the one human who had never sinned.

Now hang on, this next thought is gonna sorta hit you sideways. The Greek in this last phrase is important. Paul uses a little word that we translate simply as “so that” but it carries an enormous punch, pointing to a specific and intentional purpose. “For the express purpose that…” might be a good way to say it. For what purpose did God lay our sin on Jesus? According to Paul, it wasn’t so we could have our best life now. Paul says that Yahweh did what he did to Jesus so that those of us who’ve tasted the front side of righteousness might…and I’m going to be a bit literal here with the Greek…”we might become God’s righteousness, in Jesus.” What the heck does that mean? Well, let me jump over to a couple of things Jesus said. When he got attacked by the Jewish leaders for healing on a sabbath, we read this: “But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working.’” (John 5:17 ESV). When it comes to healing a man who’d been paralyzed for 38 years, Jesus said, you never take a sabbath from mercy. You never take a sabbath from compassion. You never take a sabbath from restoring shalom. This is what was behind Jesus’ blistering statement to them earlier, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’” 

Jesus said something profound to his first disciples around the time of his last Passover with them. He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12 ESV). [Greek: “greater,” megas - word family means great in number, size, or significance]. Jesus isn’t limited to space and time any more like he was on earth. When he was in Jerusalem, he couldn’t be in Nazareth. You get the picture. But now, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, he can be anywhere his people are. God’s righteousness now knows no boundaries, and has fewer limitations.

Beloved, one of the reasons God drew you to Himself, cleansed you from your guilt, and declared that you had lived a perfect life of selflessness, is so that you could become His righteousness. You could become His mercy. You could become His compassion. You could weep with those who weep. You could be the tangible expression of El Roi - “the God who sees.”

We are “declared righteous” so that we can be acceptable to God ( that’s personal) and find our identity in the community of faith (that’s parochial), but also so that we can DO righteousness with total freedom, maybe even a little bit of abandon, because we don’t have to keep track. Suddenly, DOING righteousness becomes a lot like telling the truth. If you always tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said. If you are given over to doing righteousness, you never have to keep track of what you did. God takes care of that. This is the third dimension of righteousness. The global dimension. What about the fourth dimension, the missional part? The part that has to do with God?

Jesus made that clear in one brief statement in his Sermon on the Mount. He said, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16 ESV). 

The apostle Paul connected the behavior of God’s people with the visible expression of God’s righteousness too:

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” (Philippians 1:9–11 ESV). 

But perhaps James the brother of Jesus said it best, combining what this episode is about with what this podcast is about, when he said:“And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace [shalom] by those who make peace [shalom].” (James 3:18 ESV). Shalom makers are needed for righteousness to flourish. And this isn’t some new twist on the word “righteousness” or the purposes of God. In perhaps the clearest Old Testament prophecy for the ministry of Yeshua and its generational outcome, a portrait of the sowing of shalom and the reaping of righteousness are painted with vivid color; Listen to Yeshua’s inaugural sermon, taken from the pages of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’S favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they [the broken-hearted, the captives, the poor] may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified. They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.” (Isaiah 61:1–4 ESV). God’s plan to unite all things in heaven and earth in Christ, to restore shalom, to give his image-bearers a foretaste of the New Jerusalem, is accomplished through us, the ones whose guilt is gone and whose works are complete in Christ. God produces a harvest of righteousness—of mercy, justice, wellness, and flourishing—through us. Through us, beloved. In this life! And it happens as we worship Him properly, as Paul says by “presenting our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, which is your acceptable worship,” And what happens when we yield ourselves to God? Listen again to Paul: “Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.” (Romans 6:13 ESV). 

Beloved, we have been declared righteous so that we could become God’s righteousness in the world. Everything we’ve looked at in this episode is totally consistent with orthodox theology. Nothing’s changed regarding the complete work of Jesus on our behalf. But, what I pray has changed is that you have a better understanding of what true “righteousness” is, why it’s been credited to you, and what you’re supposed to be doing with your life because of it. 

To look back over the past five years and see how much we’ve missed the mark in terms of the work God had prepared for us to do; how we’ve exchanged our birthright as sons and daughters of God, and coworkers in His vineyard, for the paltry counterfeits of power and control, is…well, it’s a shame, to be honest.

So, let me speak truth to power and suggest that you and I begin today, or begin anew today, to see ourselves as the physical means of the invisible God, for “justice to roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24, ESV). Let’s make it our shared passion to stand on that day before the God who sees, and make the good confession: “I have glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” 

Otherwise, “righteousness” will remain our private and parochial treasure, and we will, over time, become like the Pharisee at the beginning of this podcast whose heart was over-flowing with gratitude…gratitude that he wasn’t like other people. Beloved, self-righteousness is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

Shalom