Righteousness as Right Relationships

Ron Simkins – January 30, 2024 5 Comments

This is the beginning of a series on Relationships: Some Key Words in the Bible written by Ron Simkins. Watch for the next installment to be posted next month. –Melissa Logsdon

#1 RIGHTEOUSNESS—RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS

Righteousness is relating to others in a manner that allows the relationship to thrive and grow.

Recently, I have been both enlightened and challenged in reading what Old Testament scholars Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev and Professor John Goldingay have written about relationships. Goldingay reminds us that many of the key words in the Bible concerning relationships don’t really have an adequate one-word translation into English. Ward-Lev insists that the over-arching theme of the Hebrew Bible is relationships, both corporate/systemic and individual/personal. (I think the same is certainly true of the New Testament writings. N. T. Wright moves in that direction in his book on “The Justice of God.”)

I have been asked to write once a month for the next few pastoral letters; so, I would like to explore with you the blessings and challenges wrapped up in five key words in our Bibles concerning relationships. The most common English translations of these words are righteousness, justice, love, peace, and freedom. Today, a brief look at “righteousness/righteous.” Perhaps the word you like the least among these five words?

“Righteousness” is a common word in both the Hebrew Bible (various forms of tsadiqa) and the New Testament Greek translation of it (various forms of dikaioo and dikaiosune). Unfortunately, it is a word that has become associated with “self-righteousness” in the minds of many today—not surprisingly since many Christians have used it that way. Regrettably this causes us to miss the profound blessings and challenges that the biblical passages present concerning our relationship with God, our relationships with other humans systemically, and our relationships with other humans at the personal level. In order to avoid the “self-righteousness” nuance, and also to emphasize the fact that the word “righteousness” has a corporate meaning, several recent translations have begun to translate these words as “justice.” This is well-meaning, but takes away from the power of the common tandem phrase in the Old Testament—“righteousness and justice.”

Ward-Lev and Goldingay make it clear that “righteousness” is about “right relationships” at both the corporate/systemic level and the individual/personal level. Righteousness is relating to others in a manner that allows the relationship to thrive and grow. Here are a few biblical examples, out of many, that illustrate the importance of “righteousness” in our relationships.

Jesus told a parable that illustrated right and wrong relationships with God as well as with other humans at both the corporate and personal level.

Luke 18:9-13:  ⁹To some who were confident of their own righteousness (dikaioo–right relationship with God) and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: ¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹²I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ ¹³“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ ¹⁴“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified (dikaioo) in a “righteous” relationship) before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The Pharisee (a biblically literate church-goer who is probably in a pastoral and teaching role) thinks his relationship with God is “righteous” and that his low view of others is also “righteous.” The tax-gatherer knows that he hasn’t related to God as he should have and probably stands far away to avoid feeling judged by the self-righteous, but not righteous, Pharisee. Jesus says that the good church going man is in the wrong relationship with God, in the wrong relationship with the tax-gatherer whom he views as very sinful at the personal level and also socially/systemically/religiously far below himself, and is wrongly evaluating himself as well. On the other hand, the tax-gatherer who has done many “unrighteous” things both systemically and interpersonally, is moving in the right direction—toward God in humble honesty, confession, lament, and a readiness to do better.

The message of the Jewish prophets is filled with calls for “right relationships” at the systemic/corporate level. Here are two examples:

Isaiah 1:26-27:  I will restore your judges (shafat) as in days of old, your counselors as at the beginning.  Afterward you will be called the City of Righteousness (tsadiq), the Faithful City.”  Zion will be redeemed with justice (mishpat), her penitent ones with righteousness (tsadiqa). 

Amos 5:15 and 23-24: Hate evil, love good; maintain justice (mishpat) in the courts. Perhaps the LORD God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph….Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice (mishpat) roll on like a river, and righteousness (tsadiqa) like a never-failing stream!

One last example, a passage I think is often misunderstood. In Romans 3:21-27, Paul argues that what God was able to do for us through Jesus’ faithfulness was to make the relationship between us and God a “right relationship.” 

Romans 3:21-27: (This translation takes into account the scholars insisting that this and several other passages should be translated as emphasizing Jesus’ faith and faithfulness, not ours). This passage emphasizes how much God wants, and how much it costs God, as well as God’s Messiah Jesus, to open up a new possibility for God to be in the right relationship with us. And, at the same time, for us to be in the right relationship with God that we were created for.

²¹But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. ²²This righteousness (dikaiosune–right relationship) from God comes through the faith/faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah to all who have faith. There is no difference, ²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴and are freely put into a right relationship by his grace through the redemption that came by the Messiah Jesus. ²⁵God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement (covering)– through the faithfulness shown in his shedding his blood.  God did this to demonstrate his right relationship (dikaioo) with us, because in his forbearance God had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished– ²⁶God did it to demonstrate his right relationship (dikaiosune) with us at the present time, so as to be in a right relationship (dikaioo) with us and the one who puts us into a right relationship (dikaioo) with him through the faith/faithfulness of Jesus.   ²⁷Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith.

I hope this short look at the word “righteous/righteousness” as an invitation to grow in our right relationship with God and with other humans both at the corporate/systemic and the individual/personal level might serve to help redeem a precious concept – “righteousness” as “right relationships.”  Next time: Justice/Judgment.

–Ron Simkins