God's righteousness and ours (2)
To say that human righteousness is a mere shadow and a
severely limited version of God’s righteousness is one of those things
you have to say though you don’t have to say it. At the personal
character level we are sinful and our love of righteousness is fitful at
best but no one knows this better that God and he still calls
his elect to righteousness. He calls the nations to righteousness also
and in fact assures Nebuchadnezzar that he will bring him down if he
will not practice righteousness (see Daniel 4, especially 4:27). In the
Major Prophets we have many chapters that are addressed to the nations
around Israel and the psalmists frequently speak of God judging the
nations in light of their lack of righteousness. All that to say, while
God knows about human sinfulness he does not exempt us from pursuing
righteousness and behaving in a righteous manner. The non-elect
(pre-Christ or since Christ’s appearance) have some understanding of
what righteousness is and are able (by God’s grace) to live righteously
(not sinlessly!). This is clear from Romans 2:12-16, 1 Peter 2:12 where
pagans recognize goodness and uprightness and we see it in cases like
Cornelius in Acts 10.
God expects society to behave righteously and he grants wisdom and
power to governments and leaders that they might be stewards of the
creation goods he provides (Romans 13:1-5 would move that way and see
again Daniel 4:27 in light of 2:37-38). All this is true despite the
fact that God knows very well that human goodness and, more
particularly, human justice and righteousness cannot reflect his own
without serious distortion. We have neither his holiness, wisdom nor
power so when we make judgements we must confess that so many of them
are educated guesses. For example God has enabled us to see a deed but
we’re not equally able to say why the deed has been carried out. Motives
are beyond our reach even though we make decisions about them in light
of the evidence we have available to us. In our better moments we
confess that we’re unsure in many cases but equally, in light of some
things that appear to be very obvious, we insist on acting as though
we’re sure enough about the motive. You will construct your own
illustrations for such cases but they’re not hard to find. Still, it is a
complex matter and we aren’t always sure of our own motivations
(plural) so those who believe in God trust him to balance things out in a
final judgement that will right all wrongs.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.