Righteousness: Volume 3: New Testament

By Jeffrey J. Niehaus

The third volume of this three-volume work exegetes and comments on every occurrence of the Greek terms for righteousness, righteous, righteously, and righteous judgment in the New Testament. It begins with a general discussion of the righteous word group in the New Testament and concludes with a discussion of the righteousness of God and the righteousness of faith. The same proposal that was explored in Volumes 1 and 2, that righteousness means conformity to God's Being and doing, is now explored in the NT. Whatever flavor or nuance righteousness terminology may have in different NT contexts, study shows that the underlying sense of righteousness as conformity to God's Being and doing, both for God and for people, has the explanatory power required to commend the definition. Such a result has further implications for justification studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Dec 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666798234

Jeffrey J. Niehaus

Jeffrey Jay Niehaus is a poet and Senior Professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He has written a number of scholarly works, including God at Sinai, Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology, a three-volume Biblical Theology, and a monograph, When Did Eve Sin? Niehaus received his PhD in English literature from Harvard University in 1976 and is the author of Preludes: An Autobiography in Verse, Sonnets Subtropical and Existential, Sea Grapes and Sea Oats, and God the Poet: Exploring the Origin and Nature of Poetry.

Book preview

Righteousness

Volume 3: New Testament

Jeffrey J. Niehaus

Righteousness

Volume 3: New Testament

Copyright © 2023 Jeffrey J. Niehaus. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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199

W.

8

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3

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paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-3803-2

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-9822-7

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-9823-4

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Niehaus, Jeffrey Jay [author].

Title: Righteousness : volume 3: New Testament / by Jeffrey J. Niehaus.

Description: Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications,

2023

| Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers:

isbn 978-1-6667-3803-2 (

paperback

) | isbn 978-1-6667-9822-7 (

hardcover

) | isbn 978-1-6667-9823-4 (

ebook

)

Subjects: LCSH: God—Righteousness. | Righteousness—Biblical teaching. | Bible.—New Testament—Criticism, interpretation, etc. | Justice—Biblical teaching. | Justification (Christian theology)—Biblical teaching.

Classification:

bs2397 n54 2023 (

paperback

) | bs2397 (

ebook

)

version number 12/06/23

Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked (NKJV) are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Prolegomena to Volume III

Chapter 1: Δικαιοσύνη in the Gospels and Acts

Chapter 2: Δικαιοσύνη in the Epistles I

Chapter 3: Δικαιοσύνη in the Epistles II

Chapter 4: Δικαιοσύνη in Hebrews to Revelation

Chapter 5: Δίκαιος, Δικαίως, Δικαίωμα in the Gospels and Acts

Chapter 6: Δίκαιος, Δικαίως, Δικαίωμα in the Epistles and Revelation

Afterword III: The Righteousness of God and The Righteousness of Faith

Bibliography

Ἰησοῦς Χριστός δίκαιος

Acknowledgements

As this three-volume project draws to a close, I would like to acknowledge again those whose contributions and prayers have supported me in the work. Those include Robert McFadden, the head Librarian at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, who has searched and found books whenever I have emailed him with a request—a practice that began during the pandemic and has continued up to the time of submission of the manuscript to the publisher. He has been as helpful as any research assistant could have been. I would like to acknowledge also the help of my friend, Jonelle Weier, who prepared the Scripture Indexes for all three volumes. I would also like to express thanks for the prayers of members of my online study groups—groups which began just before the pandemic and which have come to include believers in Bulgaria, Greece and Peru and, closer to home, in Texas, Florida, Georgia and Massachusetts, some of them in formal ministry, some not, but all of them blessed with the righteousness that renders a person’s prayer powerful and effective. Above all I express my thanks to Jesus Christ the Righteous, that life-giving Spirit without whom no good work can be. Whatever merit these volumes may have is owing to him.

Abbreviations

AB Anchor Bible

BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament

BGD Bauer, et al. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1979.

BDAG Bauer, et al. A Greek- English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.

BT Biblical Theology

GP God the Poet

ICC International Critical Commentary

IVP InterVarsity Press

JBL Journal of Biblical Literature

JETS Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society

LSJ Liddell, Henry George, et al. Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996.

NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament

NA Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland, 27th ed.

RG Righteousness of God

TNTC Tyndale New Testament Commentaries

TZ Theologische Zeitschrift (Universität Basel)

WBC Word Biblical Commentary

WUNT Wissenschaftliche Unterschungen zum Neuen Testament

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

Prolegomena to Volume III

The Righteous Word Group in the New Testament

This volume is devoted to the terms righteousness (δικαιοσύνη), righteous (δίκαιος), righteously (δικαίως) and righteous judgment (δικαίωμα) in the NT. The following members of the δίκαιος word group are not considered: justification (δικαίωσις) and justify/make righteous/be righteous (δικαιόω).¹ Although δικαίωσις and δικαιόω are rooted in the idea of righteousness a fresh exploration of them would require a separate book and lies outside the bounds of the present study.²

The goal of this work has been to understand righteousness along with its correlates in divine and human behavior, i.e., possessing righteousness, being righteous, behaving righteously and exercising righteous judgment.

In that regard the field of Volume II was limited to the Hebrew noun, righteousness, in its masculine and feminine forms (צדק and צדקה), with consideration of the adjective, righteous (צדיק), and the verb, to be righteous (צדק), as they occurred in semantic domain studies (Vol. II, Ch. 1). Because the NT is a smaller corpus there is room for a broader study of the Greek righteous word group in Volume III.

I. Righteousness or Justice

In the NT, righteousness (δικαιοσύνη) is sometimes translated justice, and righteous (δίκαιος) is sometimes translated just. The same translation values hold for both words in LXX and in pagan literature (cf. Vol. I, Ch. 1, and Appendix). In the OT, however, there is another word for justice that appears in both Hebrew (משפט) and Greek (κρίσις), and some accounting of that needs to be given.

The Prolegomena to Volume I proposed that righteousness (צדק in the OT; δικαιοσύνη in the LXX and NT) is the quality itself or the standard whose foundation is God’s Being, which is supremely righteous: as has been said, God is always true to himself. Concomitantly, righteous action (צדקה in the OT; δικαιοσύνη in the LXX and NT) is action consistent with, or in conformity to, that quality or standard of righteousness. In other words righteous action is doing that conforms to God’s Being or nature. God, as has been seen, is the supreme example of this righteousness (צדקה/δικαιοσύνη) whenever he does anything, including his ongoing work of aseity.

On the other hand justice (משפט) is what is needed to restore things to a condition of righteousness. The word justice in the Bible first occurs in the word pair, righteousness and justice at Gen 18:19 (cf. Vol. II, Ch. 9) where the Septuagint uses the term, κρίσις, to translate Hebrew משפט in this important OT word pair: MT ומשפט צדקה; LXX δικαιοσύνη καὶ κρίσις.

The English word, crisis, comes from this Greek word. It implies that a crisis in a person’s life or in human affairs comes from God and is meant to get our attention. It may even be seen as an act of divine justice or judgment (κρίσις) intended as a wake up call: God wants us to mend our ways, to make right or adjust those ways and make them conform to what is right, to restore them to a righteous condition. Indeed even our word, adjust—coming from the Latin ad (to, towards) + justus (right, correct)—means the same thing: to bring something to a just or right condition. Everyday examples are not hard to find: (1) when a chiropractor makes an adjustment, he or she is moving the vertebrae and restoring them to their right or standard configuration; (2) when we right justify the typing on a page, we make the words of the text conform to a uniform standard so the margin on the right side of the page remains the same all the way down the page.

It is no exaggeration to say that, in a fallen world where things routinely get out of order and need correction, the idea of performing adjustments to make things as they should be is a relevant notion. That can be so in many areas of life. However, although there are many times in the Bible when God calls on people to be more righteous and do justice, the fact is and always has been that God himself is the supreme Adjuster. He alone can make things right.

II. Jesus and Making Things Right

The goal of our redemption is righteousness—righteous being and doing. How can that be? Righteousness is conformity to God’s Being and doing and we are told that "our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself (Phil 3:20–21, emphasis added), and again: Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2, emphasis added). Whom shall we be like? We shall be like Jesus Christ the Righteous" (1 John 2:1). We shall be conformed to the righteous One. We shall join the spirits of the righteous made perfect (Heb 12:23).

He alone can do the work needed to make us right. Only the righteous One (Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14) can make us righteous. That follows because he is the perfect embodiment of righteousness. He is righteous in his Being (צדק/δικαιοσύνη) and in his doing (צדקה/δικαιοσύνη). Moreover because he knows himself perfectly he knows righteousness perfectly. Because he knows us perfectly he knows what must be done to make us righteous. Because he is omnipotent he can do what must be done. Because he is love he will do it. By contrast, with our imperfect knowledge of God (and hence our imperfect knowledge of righteousness), we are in no position or condition to make ourselves righteous.

III. The Words

This volume surveys the terms righteousness (δικαιοσύνη), righteous (δίκαιος), righteously (δικαίως) and righteous judgment (δικαίωμα) in the NT. The terms may be understood as follows:

1.Righteousness means "conformity to God’s Being and doing."

2.Righteous means "conformed to God’s Being and doing."

3.Righteously means "in a manner conformed to God’s Being and doing."

4.Righteous judgment means "judgment conformed to God’s Being and doing."

IV. The Method

I had a student who heard the definition of righteousness proposed in this work and thought it was too clean. The reaction is understandable. One can produce an idea that has an attractive simplicity and impose it artificially on a chosen term wherever it appears in the Bible, thereby forcing an interpretation that is possible but not really demonstrable. That is what Diestel called a dogmatic approach.

The approach taken in this work is not dogmatic but experimental. Nonetheless another objection may be raised against it: the approach may be experimental but it is also subjective at many points. The one thing that undermines such an objection is the explanatory power of the proposed understanding. If the proposal does a good job of explaining the sense (or the underlying sense) of the terms wherever they appear, the likelihood is considerable that the approach presents objective and agreeable conclusions and is not merely subjective.

It remains true that a context in which a word is used can nuance the sense of the word. This could easily lead to the notion that the meaning of the word is grounded in the context, and not in any higher idea. Two general types of case can illustrate this issue:

1.As semantic domain studies have shown—and as the older German theologians (e.g., Diestel, Ritschl, and Cremer) thought—the contiguous occurrence of righteousness and God’s saving action, especially in the Psalms and Isaiah, could easily lead to the idea that God’s righteousness is virtually synonymous with his saving action. The way our proposed understanding unpacks this data set is as follows: God acts to save and that is an expression of his righteousness because God is a Savior. When God saves he is being righteous, or true to himself. Put another way, God’s action as a Savior is an example of God’s conformity—or faithfulness—to his own Being and doing.

2.The righteousness of God’s people is often mentioned in the context of their obedience (or lack of obedience) to the Mosaic covenant or the Law. The contiguous occurrence of righteousness and covenant obedience could easily lead to the idea that Israel’s righteousness is virtually synonymous with their covenant obedience. The way the proposed understanding unpacks this data set is as follows: when Israel obeys the covenant or Law, that is an expression of their righteousness because the covenant is an expression of God nature, and so when they obey the Law they are being true to a divine standard. In other words, Israel’s covenant obedience is an example of Israel’s conformity—or faithfulness—to God’s Being and doing, as (partially) expressed in the Mosaic covenant.

By the method employed in the OT, and now to be employed in the NT, each occurrence of a term in question is considered in its context, to see if the proposed understanding has sufficient explanatory power to be satisfactory as a core or underlying definition. It is understood, and even expected, that the ground idea or Grundbegriff will play out with different nuances in different contexts; at the same time that nuancing does not cause the term to depart from its rootage in the ground idea.

V. So What?

Like all created things the present work must have an end. The end may be stated as a question and an answer:

Q. If God is the ‘standard’ or ‘norm’ of ‘righteousness,’ what then?

A. The answer for us rests palpably in the Son, Jesus Christ the Righteous.

The end, then, in the sense of telos, is in fact the beginning and the quality of eternal life. One who believes in Jesus Christ—who amens him—thereby also amens God’s Being and doing. Thus, as has been said, the act of faith itself is a righteous act. That is God’s declared thought regarding Abram: And he [Abram] believed [האמן] the Lord, and he counted it [ויחשבה] to him as righteousness [צדקה] (Gen 15:6). God credited Abram’s act of faith as righteous action (צדקה), and so it was.

If I put my faith in, or amen, Jesus Christ the Righteous, then two other questions are outstanding. The first is, What do I be? The answer is, It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master (Matt 10:25). The second is: What do I do? The answer is implied in a colloquial form of the question: What would Jesus do? The answer Jesus gives is: 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). So we are called to conform to God’s Being and doing—that is, we conform to Jesus Christ the Righteous.

1

. Justification (δικαίωσις) occurs in Rom

4

:

25

;

5

:

18

. Justify/make righteous/be righteous (δικαιόω) occurs in Matt

11

:

19

;

12

:

37

; Luke

7

:

29

,

35

;

10

:

29

;

16

:

15

;

18

:

14

; Acts

13

:

39

(

2

x); Rom

2

:

13

;

3

:

4

,

20

,

24

,

26

,

28

,

30

;

4

:

2

,

5

;

5

:

1

,

9

;

6

:

7

;

8

:

30

,

33

;

1

Cor

4

:

4

;

6

:

11

; Gal

2

:

16

(

3

x),

17

;

3

:

8

,

11

,

24

;

5

:

4

;

1

Tim

3

:

16

; Titus

3

:

7

; Jas

2

:

21

,

24

,

25

; Rev

22

:

11.

2

. The bibliography for this volume includes a number of the more notable works that have addressed justification, etc.

chapter 1

Δικαιοσύνη in the Gospels and Acts

The term righteousness (δικαιοσύνη) occurs ten times in the Gospels and four times in the book of Acts.³ The term, righteous (δίκαιος) occurs thirty-three times in the Gospels and six times in the book of Acts.⁴ Although our focus in chapters 1–4 is on righteousness and not on associated words (righteous, righteously, righteous judgment), we explore some of the occurrences of righteous (δίκαιος) in this chapter, just as we have noted occurrences of the Hebrew term (צדיק) in our semantic domain study, and elsewhere, whenever notice and study of it could help illustrate some of the issues under discussion.⁵ Chapters 5 and 6 are devoted to the terms righteous, righteously and righteous judgment in the NT.

I. Δικαιοσύνη in the Gospels

There are seven occurrences of righteousness in Matthew. They are reviewed seriatim. Additional commentary on righteous in Matt 25:41–46 is provided because of a significant Platonic analogy. Five of the seven instances of righteousness in Matthew (and five of the ten instances in the Gospels) appear in the Sermon on the Mount. That suggests the idea was important to Jesus’ core teaching. Because he was the paradigm of righteousness, humanly speaking, and because his mission was to make it possible for others to be righteous as he was righteous, such a finding makes perfect sense.

A. Δικαιοσυνη In Matthew

1. To Fulfill All Righteousness: Matt 3:15

Matthew gives an account of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist. In a sense that was the beginning of Jesus’ ministry—or rather, his anointing for the ministry—just as the Holy Spirit anointing of the church at Pentecost was the beginning of—or anointing for—their future ministry:

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me? But Jesus answered him, Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness [δικαιοσύνη]. Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. (Matt

3

:

13

–

17

)

There is a great spiritual truth embodied in this event: one cannot do the work of the kingdom without the Spirit of the King. Jesus comes to John, then, both to receive the symbolic cleansing from sin (the baptism that John has to give) and to receive the anointing of the Spirit. The former symbolizes Jesus’ identification with and solidarity with humanity (cf. Heb 2:17: Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people). The latter constitutes the anointing he will need in order to accomplish the work his Father gives him. That pattern of divine behavior—the Father causes the Spirit to work through the Son—was operative at the creation and analogously through the patriarchs and prophets and some kings in the OT, and finally through Jesus and the church in the NT.⁶

These facts make clear what it would mean for Jesus to fulfill all righteousness. Because it was God’s will to make him like his brothers in every respect, Jesus conformed to his Father’s will and became like his sinful brothers and underwent John’s baptism for repentance although he was without sin. The culmination of that work would come when God by his crucifixion made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21). Jesus conformed to his Father’s will in this as well (cf. Matt 26:42: My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done). Jesus, then, fulfilled all righteousness in both cases, and would always do so because he was in perfect conformity to his Father’s Being (I and the Father are one, John 10:30) and in perfect conformity to his Father’s doing (The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise, John 5:19, and again, Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me, John 14:25). Because of that conformity to his Father’s Being and doing, he would be called Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1).⁷

2. Hungering and Thirsting after Righteousness: Matt 5:6

This is the first of five cases of righteousness in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus opens the Sermon with encouraging words known as the Beatitudes (after the Latin beatus,blessed) because each verse of the sequence (vv. 3–11) begins with the word, blessed (Gk. μακάριος). Jesus’ words may resonate with every believer:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [δικαιοσύνη], for they shall be satisfied.

Anyone who comes to Christ after a life without him, and who experiences the conviction of the Holy Spirit, knows this hunger and thirst. It is a longing for what one has not had or been able to realize in one’s own life up to that point.⁸ Now, Jesus tells us, that hunger and thirst will be satisfied. The satisfaction comes by the same Spirit who filled the righteous Jesus. Therefore the proposed understanding of righteousness as conformity to God’s Being and doing fits Jesus’ saying very well. It is right for us to hunger and thirst after righteousness—after conformity to God—because as beings made in God’s image and likeness we were made for that very thing.

3. Persecuted for Righteousness’ Sake: Matt 5:10

Jesus’ next statement regarding righteousness associates it with the kingdom of heaven:

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ [δικαιοσύνη] sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus reassures those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, which is the same as being persecuted for his sake (cf. v. 11).⁹ Assuming the proposed understanding of righteousness as conformity to God’s Being and doing (or one could say, conformity to Christ) we pause to consider some other NT statements about the kingdom of heaven that may illustrate or clearly agree with that understanding.

It is a given that the kingdom of heaven, created by God and inhabited by God, should be perfectly compatible with and consistent with God’s Being and doing. That is, the kingdom of heaven should be righteous. It should follow that only the righteous could dwell there (and so Matt 5:10). Some examples:

a. Matt 5:18–19

For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Since God’s commands are expressions of his Being and doing, and are therefore righteous, it would follow that whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven (v. 19) and will also be righteous."

b. Matt 7:21

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Since God’s will is an expression of his Being and doing—and is thus a righteous will—it follows that only the one who does the will of [Jesus’] Father . . . in heaven—that is, only the righteous—will enter the kingdom of heaven.

c. Matt 18:2–4; cf. 19:14

He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Becoming like little children means having the simple and ready trust—effectively faith—of a child who (for example) places implicit faith in the love and provision of his earthly parents. That sort of faith vis-à-vis God is credited as righteousness by God. It is only by such righteous faith—faith that amens God’s Being and doing—that one can enter the kingdom of heaven.

d. Rom 14:16–17

Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness [δικαιοσύνη], peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Our small roster of the kingdom of heaven illustrations now concludes with Paul’s equivalent phrase, the kingdom of God. Paul talks about faith and the relation of faith to someone’s choice of food (cf. Rom 14:1–2).¹⁰ The proposed understanding of righteousness makes good sense in this passage. Paul says one’s choice to eat one thing or another (for example) corresponds to the level of one’s faith—one’s God-given ability to amen God’s Being and doing. Consequently eating, drinking and everything else in one’s life has become a matter of amening God and living out that amening in one’s own being and doing. The resultant life is one of righteousness—conformity to God’s Being and doing—and will ipso facto be a life of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.¹¹ These matters are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 7.

4. A Surpassing Righteousness: Matt 5:20

The next occurrence of righteousness is the third of five in the Sermon on the Mount. It occurs early in the Sermon and follows two cases that (one could say) were more encouraging illustrations of righteousness (Matt 5:6, 10) than the one Jesus presents now, because Jesus now offers a standard of righteousness that his audience would probably find overwhelming. He explains:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness [δικαιοσύνη] exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt

5

:

17

–

20

)

Jesus abolished [καταργέω] (Eph 2:15) and obliterated [ἐξαλείφω] the law that stood against us (Col 2:14), and Paul affirms that we are not under law but under grace (Rom 6:14). How then can Jesus say, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished (v. 18)?

The answer lies in the Law’s great promise: the mediator of the new covenant (cf. Deut 18:15). He will fulfill all that the Law requires. That fulfillment includes a total restoration of righteousness in God’s people. Once the restoration of God’s people is complete, heaven and earth will pass away and we will have a new heaven and earth (cf. Rom 8:18–25). Once the restorative work of that new covenant mediator has been completed—proleptically on the cross (cf. John 19:30) but conclusively at the end of the age (cf. Matt 5:18)—the returning Lord will have accomplished that new heavens and earth (Rev 21:1; cf. Isa 65:17; 66:22). So according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Pet 3:18). In the meantime God’s people do not live under the Law but under the grace of the new covenant.

Jesus canceled the Law so that it is no longer a functioning covenant under which God’s people live. But he did not cancel the Law’s promise of the Mediator, along with whatever consequences the fulfillment of that promise would bring. As for righteousness, Jesus assumes the true and deep meaning of the term: it is not Pharisaical obedience to legal minutiae, but conformity to God. Such righteousness far surpasses the righteousness . . . of the scribes and Pharisees.¹²

5. A Nuanced and Case-Specific Sense: Matt 6:1–4

There are many NT passages in which righteousness is used in a nuanced or domain-specific sense. Matt 6:1 is one such case. Jesus warns:

Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness [δικαιοσύνη] before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matt

6

:

1

–

4

)

Clearly righteousness (δικαιοσύνη) in this case equates to a righteous act/righteous acts (צדקות/צדקה) and in particular the act of almsgiving (vv. 2–4).¹³ The Mosaic Law required giving to the poor (e.g., Lev 25:35–37; Deut 15:7–11). Fulfilling that requirement was accordingly an act of covenant faithfulness for an Israelite.

More deeply understood, however, it was an act of faithfulness to the nature of God expressed in the covenant, as, for example, Lev 25:38 shows when it gives the warrant for helping the poor: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God" (emphasis added).¹⁴ As God, faithful to his gracious and redemptive nature, rescued his people when they were oppressed in Egypt and gave them a land, so God’s people should act graciously and redemptively toward the poor among them and give to them. God was righteous—true to his nature—in redeeming them out of an oppressed situation and giving them what they could not obtain on their own. Likewise, an Israelite should be righteous—true to God’s nature—in treating the less fortunate generously and giving redemptively to the poor what they could not obtain on their own. Our righteousness should parallel—be coordinate with—God’s own righteousness.

6. God’s Kingdom and Righteousness: Matt 6:33

The last mention of righteousness in the Sermon on the Mount comes by way of a wisdom instruction about concern for one’s daily, worldly provisions:

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness [δικαιοσύνη], and all these things will be added to you. (Matt

6

:

31

–

33

)

Jesus has already told us that God provides (under common grace) for the good and the bad, the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt 5:45).¹⁵ And he taught us to pray, Give us this day our daily bread (Matt 6:11 NKJV).¹⁶ It is right, then, to recognize God’s provision for all people, and it is right for God’s children (τέκνα θεοῦ, John 1:12) to pray for the provision they need each day.

The ones who pray, Give us this day our daily bread, begin that prayer: Our Father (Matt 6:9). The prayer and provision in view are prayer and provision specifically for believers. Given the term, Father, the ones in view are not only Jesus’ believing contemporary Israelites but also (since this prayer guidance was given for those to come) people who will be born again, born of the Spirit. They will be children of God, who has become their Father by an act of new creation (2 Cor 5:17), in a way that unbelievers are not.

God cares in many particular ways for his children. We are encouraged to ask him for provision, because the request confesses—agrees with God—that he knows what we need and he can provide it. So he says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness (v. 33a). If we seek . . . righteousness, we seek conformity to God’s Being and doing. And when we seek that, we find it. As Jesus says:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matt

7

:

7

–

11

)

Or, as Jesus taught on another occasion, If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13, NIV). Jesus says that God the Father gives good things/the Holy Spirit to his children who ask. His children are those who seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness. They seek the kingdom of God because they want the unalloyed rule of their King. They seek his righteousness because they love him and want to be like him. And the Holy Spirit is the one who accomplishes that likeness.¹⁷

7. The Way of Righteousness: Matt 21:32

The next time Jesus mentions righteousness in Matthew’s Gospel he is speaking of John the Baptist. He does so in a parable for that generation:

"What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I