The Righteousness of God
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
“Righteousness,” like
“salvation,” is one of those complicated words in our Bible. It could mean
something along the lines of “right conduct,” as when Jesus says in the Sermon
on the Mount, “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:20). Of
course, even in that context, the word could mean something like “right
standing,” a position with respect to a certain measure, like the Torah. Paul
often will talk about this sort of righteousness in Romans. For still another
meaning, we could understand it as “justice,” as when Paul writes, “But if our
unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say?
That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us?” (Rom 3:5). Although these
different meanings overlap each other, in significant ways, we see how they
also stretch in various directions depending on the context.
One thing that is clear,
however, is that “righteousness” is a rather lofty thing. It is reserved only
for the highest and the best. Those whose lives are marked by right actions are
the ones said to be righteous. Those who have not flaw with respect to the law
are the righteous ones. Those who enact fairness in their dealings with people,
regardless of the characteristics of the people, are righteous. People can do
these things some of the time, modeling righteous behavior, but such behavior
has to be the standard quality before a person can be considered righteous.
Righteousness is a special thing, a distinction of someone exalted above the
rest.
This is why I find it so
remarkable that Paul writes, “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 Cor 5:21). Paul
does not talk here about our own righteousness, that status which God has
conferred upon us in Jesus Christ, but rather he declares that we become the
righteousness of God. As if
righteousness was not lofty enough, we get to be the righteousness of the one
whose very being defines what righteousness is. Not to put too fine a point on
it, but this means in a certain sense that whenever somebody talks about the
righteousness of God—“God showed his righteousness today”—that person is means
those whom God has redeemed in Christ Jesus. We are the expression, the
definition, of God’s righteousness!
This is a sacred status
which we carry, and we ought to take it seriously. God has conferred this upon
us in an act of self-sacrifice, putting his reputation on the line to be
identified with us. This is the point which Paul is trying to drive home as he
narrates again Christ’s ministry of reconciliation, a ministry which happens
through Christ and which he passed on to us. As Paul says, we are ambassadors
for Christ, the ones who carry his message—his work of reconciliation, his
righteousness—into the world. The question we need to ask ourselves is, Are we
being the living embodiment of God’s righteousness as he intended us to be? -TL