Righteousness by Self-Effort is Good, Expected, and Attainable

Understanding what Self-Righteousness actually is will go a long way in understanding what Paul is getting at in Romans and help to dispel the myths of Original Sin and Imputed Righteousness, as they are commonly understood.

Self-righteousness has gotten a bad rap in modern theology. We’ve taken the name for an attitude problem and given it to something that is not only a good thing but something which is expected of all humans by God, which is being righteous by our own self efforts. It’s kind of like calling a law-abiding citizen a legalistic Pharisee or saying that teaching kids how to read is child abuse. Or even worse, saying that being one of the Seahawks 12’s is the same as being a 49ers fan.

Of course only an atheist would say that.

Jesus, Paul, and others in our Bibles took issue with self-righteousness. There’s no doubt about that. But instead of self-righteousness being only a smug or arrogant feeling of superiority toward others who just don’t measure up, or a deception where people think they measure up to God’s standards because of their religious practices while all the while failing to be even decent human beings, the term has come to be a pejorative for anyone who thinks he can without faith in Christ measure up to God’s holy standard.

At the risk of sounding like a Catholic apologist, I’m going to blame this one on my hero Martin Luther. He’s still one of my heroes for standing up to corrupt authority but I’ve come to disagree with his theology regarding salvation.

Martin Luther puts things rather emphatically:

The most damnable and pernicious heresy that has ever plagued the mind of man is the idea that somehow he could make himself good enough to deserve to live with an all-holy God.

This is so ingrained in Christian thinking that anyone who is not a believer in Jesus Christ who thinks he can generate within himself a righteousness that will be acceptable to God is considered to be “self-righteous.”

Recently I got to see Martin Luther’s Door in Wittenberg, the one where he posted his 95 Theses which marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, on the 500 year anniversary of him posting it. Well alright, technically it wasn’t the actual door since that door had been replaced a couple hundred years ago, but it was the same doorway, and I might have even stepped on the same cobblestones that Luther stepped on 500 years ago.

Unfortunately, because of the big event I couldn’t get closer than 200 feet to The Door. Hopefully when I die and go to heaven I’ll be able to get a lot closer to Luther himself and have a conversation about his theology and try to plague his mind with this damnable and pernicious heresy which is that God actually likes us humans and it’s really not that hard to be good enough to deserve to live with an all-holy God.

Recently I was accused of being self-righteous for thinking that before I was a Christian God considered me to be a righteous person who was acceptable in his sight. I can commiserate with my accuser because as a good Evangelical I was also told and believed that the only way to be considered righteous in God’s eyes is to have Jesus’ righteousness “imputed”, or transferred to me so that when God looks at me he doesn’t see my sin. The goal of this imputation is that when God looks upon a man he will only see Jesus, who was without sin, the only person to ever have lived who could say he was righteous based on his life. Only Christians who have faith in Christ for their salvation have his righteousness imputed to them, according to Evangelical theology. As an Evangelical, which I had been for most of my adult life, I could say that I’m righteous because I’m a Christian but I am being self-righteous for thinking I was righteous before I was a Christian. This is how they understand the book of Romans.

For many years I would have agreed that that’s what Paul meant in his condemnation of the self-righteous in places like Romans 3:10 where he writes, “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one.’” I no longer agree that’s what Paul was getting at. Rather, we are called to be self-righteous, in a good sort of way.

Martin Luther had it fundamentally wrong.

If you do a Google search for “who are the self-righteous” one of your top results might be this article from www.gotquestions.org which says:

Biblically speaking, self-righteousness, which is related to legalism, is the idea that we can somehow generate within ourselves a righteousness that will be acceptable to God (Romans 3:10). Although any serious Christian would recognize the error of this thought, because of our sin nature, it is a constant temptation to all of us to believe we are, or can be, righteous in and of ourselves. In the New Testament, Jesus and the apostle Paul came down particularly hard on those who attempted to live in self-righteousness.

Apparently the author is unaware that many serious Christians do in fact question this way of interpreting scriptures, and the author is being a self-righteous prick for suggesting those of us who think differently than him are not “serious Christians”.  Our sin natures aren’t to “blame” for thinking we are considered righteous solely because of how we live; the Bible is to blame because it actually leads us to a different conclusion about righteousness than what Got Questions tells us.

Paul and Jesus did come down hard on the self-righteous, that’s for sure, but to them the self-righteous were not good people without faith who thought of themselves as having attained righteousness. They were the unrighteous people of faith who thought they were righteous because they followed the uniquely Jewish laws of God such as circumcision, not eating unclean meats, Sabbath observance, and the like. Far from being righteous by any measure but their own, they were in fact wicked people who were either self-deceived into thinking they were good people or if they suspected they were wicked they thought they could get a pass on judgement for their wickedness because they were God’s chosen people who followed God’s Jewish laws.

To put it another way, they believed in Salvation by Being Jewish at the expense of the moral uprightness that would save them. They traded the actual, experiential righteousness of doing life the way people are supposed to do it for doing life the way people aren’t supposed to do it, thinking they could get away with it.

They just assumed that no matter what, God’s Elect were the apple of his eye and others just didn’t measure up, no matter how good the others were. “We are red hot, the rest are diddly squat,” to put it in modern terms, while God looked down from heaven and cringed at their behavior, their attitude, and their theology.

To interpret what Paul had to say about salvation apart from this context is to do him and the Christian faith a great disservice and promotes a version of the Gospel that is half-baked. Like a cake that is half-baked, you can get something of value out of it, but it won’t be the real deal. People will be and for centuries have been transformed into followers of Christ because of this half-baked Evangelical Gospel, but some will give up on moral uprightness as those who do jail ministry have witnessed, figuring they are “covered by the blood of the Lamb” and exempt from being judged for the wicked behavior that keeps landing them in jail and will land them in eternal Hell unless they change their ways.

Revelations From Jail

My friends who labor in jail ministry tell me about some repeat offenders who consider themselves to be Christians. They believe their conduct doesn’t matter because they are born again, know God, and experience his love on a regular basis. They believe because of their faith in Christ God sees them as righteous souls yet they lack enough experiential righteousness to keep themselves out of jail. They are very much like the self-righteous Pharisees of old who have the same problem. They are both self-righteous for thinking they are considered righteous by God without actually having a righteousness that is acceptable to God.

In the case of the so-called Christian jail-birds who always find their way back to jail, and I’m not talking about the ones incarcerated for smoking pot, I’m talking about the ones who do violence or harm to others, those jail-birds believe all the right things from an Evangelical perspective, except for one thing. They believe they could never be good enough for God apart from the faith they have in Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection to save their souls. The only thing they lack to fall in line 100% with Evangelical thinking is the good works that are supposed to follow a genuine conversion to Christ. In their minds they have all that’s needed, which is faith in Christ. They take the Protestant doctrine of Sola Fide (Faith Only) to the extreme.

If you try to get them to stop doing what keeps getting them in jail by saying they aren’t truly born-again Christians or not genuinely saved and will end up in eternal Hell when they die and then get them to pray the Sinner’s Prayer – again – they might go along with it hoping this time it sticks, or they might just say, “What do you mean I’m not born again? I KNOW I’m born again because I experience God’s love for me when I pray and read my bible. I’m definitely born again, I just have anger issues. God knows that, and He’s patient with me. Stop judging me Bro.!”

Such a one doesn’t need the right faith to get saved, he needs to change his ways. Until then, nothing he believes matters. He could be a seminary professor between stays at the prison teaching future pastors what people need to believe in order to have their sins washed by the Blood of the Lamb but it won’t do him any good.

The first few chapters in Romans were written about self-righteous Pharisees and others who lived wicked lives, the kind of lives that would land them in jail in today’s society. They were not written about people who actually are good who also follow the Law of God. To put it another way, Paul was replacing Salvation by Being Jewish with Salvation by Being Good. He was NOT trying to replace Salvation by Works with Salvation by Faith. Sorry for the confusion caused by Luther.

It’s this self-righteousness at which Paul and Jesus took aim.

Self-Righteousness From Then Until Now

We don’t have to dig into extra-biblical historical texts to find out what these self-righteous were all about. It’s all right there in the Bible and has been a common theme for millennia. Let’s see what is said about them by these saints:

Solomon tells us, “There is a kind who is pure in his own eyes, yet is not washed from his filthiness.” ( Proverbs 30:12)

Ezekiel wrote, “When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he has committed, he shall die for it.” (Ezek. 33:13)

Jeremiah rebuked the self-righteous who were guilty of murder, saying, “Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the innocent poor; you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things, yet you said, ‘I am innocent; surely His anger is turned away from me.’ Behold, I will enter into judgment with you because you say, ‘I have not sinned.’” (Jer. 2:34-35)

Jesus blasted the self-righteous:

  • “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Hell as you are.” (Mt. 23:13)
  • “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices– mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice (fairness), mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.” (Mt. 23:23)
  • “You also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” (Mt. 23:28)

In Paul’s critique of the self-righteous in Romans, of which he was one at one time having been a Pharisee who was destroying the lives of Christians, he wrote the following. Keep in mind as you read he’s preaching to Jews who follow the Old Testament:

  • “So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? (Rom. 2:3) Those same things included wickedness, evil, greed, depravity, murder, strife, deceit, malice, insolence, inventing ways of doing evil, and being senseless, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. (Rom. 1:26-31) And that’s just a partial list. Paul was just getting warmed up.
  • “Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.” (Rom. 2:5)
  • “For those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” (Rom. 2:8-9)
  • “Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth– you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: ‘God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’ Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.” (Rom. 2:17-25)

Can there be any doubt that Paul is taking aim at religious people who think they are righteous when they are wicked, in agreement with the others I quoted before him? It’s within this context that Paul calls out the self-righteous, saying,

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness (i.e, self-righteousness), have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. (Rom. 10:3)

At first blush it does seem that those who know God’s Law should not be the ones who are “ignorant of righteousness,” like the heathen, but that’s exactly the point he is trying to make. They are ignorant of righteousness, even though they follow the Law.

Religious People Corner the Market on Self-Righteousness

Besides being self-deceived, there are other problems that come with the territory of religious people thinking they are righteous when they aren’t. It’s a package deal that also includes:

  • The boasting that goes along with it: “For it is by graciousness you have been saved, through faithfulness– and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works (of the Jewish Law), so that no one can boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)
  • Being “confident of their own righteousness and despise (look down on) others.” (Lk. 18:9) Spiritual elitism, snobbery, Pharisaical attitude, and judgmentalism, in other words.
  • Appearing to be righteous to others by putting on a facade when you are actually wicked inside. (Mt. 23:28)
  • Spreading their ways to others and corrupting them as well. (Mt. 23:13)

These maladies are unique to religious people who follow ancient text, believe they are God’s chosen people, gather a following, and exercise authority over others. It is a self-righteousness that is unique to those who follow long lists of rules and laws designed to shepherd the faithful who follow law-giving prophets like Moses and Mohammad. You will not find this among non-religious good people who know they are good and believe their goodness is good enough for God. The non-religious are not deceived into thinking they are following the Law of God while actually acting against that Law. If anything, they are the ones who are able to stand back from the church and see the hypocrisy that’s inside while the hypocrites inside can’t see it. They think they are better than the hypocrites who go to church and rightly so. They are better. Meanwhile the hypocrites inside think they are right before God based on their religious observance (faith in Christ, in the case of Christians) while condemning the good people on the outside, just like the Pharisees used to do.

Some will say the fact we are even having this conversation and I’m devoting a fair amount of time to it is a malady unique to religious people.

Probably so. But I digress.

Jesus goes into great detail about self-righteous religious people:

The Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised. Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But give what is inside the dish to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.  Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.  Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.” One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.” Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them. Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. Because of this, God in his wisdom said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and others they will persecute.’ Therefore this generation will be held responsible for the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the beginning of the world, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, this generation will be held responsible for it all. Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.” (Lk. 11:38-52)

Notice he didn’t tell them they shouldn’t follow the Jewish parts of the Law. As near as we can tell Jesus followed them as well. That is, after all, what Jews do. Doing that, as a Jew, was not in and of itself a problem. The problem is not following the universal moral aspects of the Law such “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and thus being arrogant, greedy, unjust, wicked, and murderous.

You would think the plain words of the Ten Commandments which say, “Thou shalt not murder” would give them a clue that they weren’t actually following the Law but when you’re in that self-superior frame of mind it’s easy to justify your own actions as not being against the Law.

Jesus encouraged his fellow Jews to follow the Jewish laws but much more than that he was concerned about the heart attitude of those who did.

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and despised others, Jesus told this parable:

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The 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. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.” 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.” I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Lk 18:9-14)

The tax collector was unrighteous and knew it, firstly because in their day a tax collector was a Jew who betrayed his own people by working for the Roman Empire and secondly because it was easy to oppress his fellow Jews by extracting more taxes than what was required and keep the difference for himself. His guilty conscience finally got to him and all he could do was confess his sin. Meanwhile the Pharisee couldn’t see how he oppressed his fellow Jews or any of his other sins and thus thought he was better than the tax collector. His observance of fasting and tithing, which did not actually make him a better person, in his mind made him superior and without sin.

St. Paul the Former Self-Righteous Pharisee

Paul’s life serves as a model for what he is getting at in Romans and elsewhere. He was one of those self-righteous at one time in his life when he was the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus, so he’s really preaching to his former self. He said that concerning the righteousness which is in the Law, he was blameless. (Php. 3:6) But we also know that he gave approval to Stephen’s martyrdom (Acts 8:1) and he admitted the following about his former self:

  • He was a “prideful, insolent man who abusively railed against others, speaking evil and slander against them, persecuting them with shameful acts of wrongdoing.” (1 Tim. 1:13)
  • “You have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.” (Gal. 1:13)
  • Afterward I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was unknown by face to the churches of Judea which were in Christ. But they were hearing only, ‘He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy.’” (Gal. 1:21-23)

Luke describes Paul’s former self by quoting Paul saying he:

  • “Persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the high priest and all the Council can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished,” (Acts 22:4-5)

Paul essentially admitted here that he had been a Jewish terrorist, so he was only blameless in his own eyes and in the eyes of his fellow Pharisees. To people who have their heads on straight and to God who gave him the Law to follow he certainly was not blameless. People who are like that don’t have love for others so by definition are not righteous people. He thought he was serving God, but it was zeal without the knowledge of love, even though he had the best learning his Jewish faith could provide, knowing the scriptures like the back of his hand. Saul the Pharisee was deceived, and it’s this type of deception he takes pains to address in Romans, Philippians, and other epistles.

One wonders how he could have been so deceived to think he was blameless. What Old Testament was he reading? The Reviled Substandard Perversion? It just goes to show to what degree religious zealots can interpret scriptures to justify their own carnal ways. It’s no wonder Paul’s message centered around right living and how faith in Christ got him there. He had a lot of making up to do after leading God’s people in the way of iniquity as a Pharisee.

In modern times these epistles have been interpreted by the Reformers and Evangelicals who followed to be Paul writing to every Jew on the planet encouraging them to go against doing what God had over and over again told the Jews to do, and him trying to convince his fellow Jews that by doing those things, in and of themselves, they had become self-righteous.

Kind of misses the point, don’t you think?

Some of the same ones think Paul came along and altered the course of Christianity away from what Jesus and his apostles had practiced in the beginning which was obedience to the Jewish Old Covenant law of God, with Paul single-handedly convincing the church to abandon God’s Law. I don’t think he did at all. To Paul the moral aspects of the Law are universal while the uniquely Jewish laws became allowable, if done for the right reasons, but optional for Jews, unnecessary for Gentiles, and undesirable for anyone if used in the wrong way, the way he and his fellow religionists had previously used the Law .

I believe Paul adds clarity to what Jesus preached. To Paul, Jesus was the beginning of righteousness in his life, the Way toward an end, and the end of righteousness for all who believe. For the first time in his life, after he became a follower of the Way, he was fulfilling the righteousness that was in the Law. Not the letter of it, necessarily, but what really mattered, which was the spirit of the Law.

Paul reiterates the issue in Philippians:

I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless. (Php. 3:4-6)

“Confidence in the flesh” is another way of saying, “self-righteous”, both in his attitude and in his theology about what God desired of men.  His confidence came from following the uniquely Jewish laws and his pedigree as a descendant from Abraham and thus one of God’s Elect. Notice again how he considered himself “blameless” as to the righteousness which is in the Law, even while he was a Jewish terrorist. Knowing man’s tendency to get lost in the details of lawkeeping and miss the bigger picture, Jesus, as was Rabbinical practice, reworded the Law by boiling it down to two propositions, “Love God,” and “love man,” so people like Paul’s former self wouldn’t miss the Law’s essential, life giving message. This was the cure for the malady of self-righteousness. The cure was becoming righteous, in deed.

We Are Called to be Self-Righteous – In a Good Sort of Way

Evangelicals today tell us that we should not ever think of ourselves as righteous people apart from some “imputed” righteousness. In other words, if we should think that our own conduct has made us righteous then we will be guilty of being self-righteous.

Let’s be clear; God loves righteousness and blesses those who do righteousness. We really ought to know whether our actions are righteous or not or if we have actually attained to a goal of being righteous, don’t you think? If not and the only way to be righteous is through transferred righteousness, then these scriptures don’t make much sense:

David was lead in the paths of righteousness and serves as an example for us. David called on God to judge him according to his righteousness and integrity and God awarded him because of the purity of his hands and his righteousness, having kept the Law and avoided iniquity. He could easily say, “Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that does righteousness at all times,” because he experienced that blessing that came from being righteous. (Ps. 106:3) He also prayed that the priests would be clothed in righteousness. It seems reasonable to assume he would know when the priests were actually righteous. (Ps. 11:7, 106:3, Ps. 23:3, Ps. 7:8, 2 Sam. 22:20-24, Ps. 132:9)

Solomon also serves as an example for us. He said he led in the way of righteousness. He told us “When a man’s ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him,” and said it’s better to be poor and righteous than to be rich without righteousness. That’s some good consolation if you are poor and also know you are righteous. (Pr. 8:29, 16:7, 8:20)

Ezekiel asks us “when the righteous turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live?” (18:24) He already answered that in 3:20 saying, “When a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits iniquity and God lays a stumblingblock in front of him he will die.” Ezekiel could tell when a man was righteous and hoped such a one would recognize when he ceased to be righteous on account of his iniquity.

Zepheniah tells us to, “Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the LORD’s anger. (Zeph. 2:3) How can you seek and find it if you can’t know you are righteous or humble?

Noah, Daniel, and Job, according to Ezekiel, had they been with the people who were in danger of severe judgement from God, could have delivered their own souls by their own righteousness. (Ez. 14:14) If that’s “self-righteous” I want to have what they have.

Isaiah pleads with us to “learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:17) Again, doing right is what defines a righteous person, according to 1 Jn. 3:7.

Here you have eight Old Covenant giants of faith who encourage us by word and example to be righteous.

What about the New Testament? Did the message change? Would those same saints be considered self-righteous if they lived today?

Paul tells us that the Kingdom of God is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), and that we should awake to righteousness and sin not because some who don’t have the knowledge of God are unrighteous (1 Cor. 15:34). He encourages his disciple Timothy, “O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faithfulness, love, patience, and meekness.” (Tim 6:11) Paul was a firm believer in righteousness being what you do, not a status based on what you believe.

James says, “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace. (Jms 3:18)

Peter encourages us, saying, “For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.” (1 Pet. 3:12) Notice Peter contrasts the righteous with those who do evil, not those who lack faith in Christ and so don’t have “imputed” righteousness.

John explains what should be obvious: “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous,” (1 Jn. 3:7) Does it get any simpler than that? A righteous person is not one who has faith but one who does righteousness.

The angel of Revelation said, “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” (Rev 22:11)  According to Evangelical imputed righteousness theories the only way to remain righteous is to remain a believer. If that were the case, the angel would have said, “Let him who had faith in Christ continue to have faith in Christ,” but instead he put the emphasis on actually being righteous, because that is the only basis for acceptance by God.

Jesus told us, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled,” (Mt. 5:6) “Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt. 5:20)

How is it even possible that we should seek to be righteous, as all of these scriptures indicate, even surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees (not hard to do it seems), without knowing when we have actually arrived at having a righteousness that can be measured by our conduct? In the words of Vizzini (Princess Bride): INCONCEIVABLE!

Is there even a hint in any of these scriptures that the way to be righteous in God’s eyes is to have faith in Christ and that will take care of a supposed problem that no man can be righteous in his own efforts? Don’t ALL of these scriptures indicate that righteousness is based on behavior, and not on what one believes?

Since faith without works is dead at some point we should be able to realize we have the works to be acceptable to God and be able to say confidently, “I am righteous, because my acts are righteous,” without being accused of being self-righteous.

Many will say the reason the scriptures encourage us to be righteous is to show to us that it can’t be done in our own strength so we will turn to faith to get us there. It makes more sense to me, and hopefully to you as well, that the reason we are encouraged to be righteous is because God actually wants everyone to do just that, because if you are not righteous, actually righteous as judged by your conduct, then things will not go well for you on Judgement Day.

One way to be righteous is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus never said it’s impossible to love your neighbor in your own strength. Paul even devotes a whole chapter to telling us what it looks like to have agape love for others in 1 Corinthians 13, with no hint that nobody can do this on their own.

Are Christians the Only Righteous Ones in God’s Eyes?

According to John, Christians aren’t the only ones who have received a spiritual circumcision. In his epistles anyone who does what is good, does what is right, or anyone who loves, is born from above. If you are born from above (born again), you have been spiritually circumcised, and you are a righteous person. Here’s how the apostle John describes a righteous person:

You know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. (1 Jn. 2:29)

He who does what is right is righteous. (1 Jn. 3:7)

This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. (1 Jn. 3:11-12)

Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. (1 Jn. 4:7)

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 Jn. 4:16)

Anyone who does what is good is from God. (3 Jn. 1:11)

Does that include a Muslim? Or an atheist?

Did John say “everyone except Muslims, atheists, or…”?

It looks to me John was being prophetic and doing a preemptive strike on Evangelical exclusivism almost 2000 years before it became a thing.

Yes, I know, spiritual circumcision and being born again have always been understood as a blessing for Christians only but it’s clear from Romans 2:24 that Paul is not writing about Christians when he uses the term “Gentile”. How do we know? He also wrote just two verses earlier, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.” It’s highly unlikely Christians were blaspheming the name of God because of the Jews so these Gentiles are just what the label implies: non-Jews. Notice also it says, “as it is written” which hearkens back to times in the Old Testament when the Jews were the cause of God’s name being blasphemed among the Gentiles, long before Christians existed. (see 2 Sam. 12:14, Is. 52:5)

Paul is making a point that Gentiles, including non-Christian Gentiles, will rise up in judgement against some of his fellow Jews. They will rise in judgement not because they will later be sacrificed as pawns and end up with the same fate as the religious-yet-wicked Jews, but because they actually do meet God’s standard of righteousness while the self-righteous Jews don’t.

It’s insight like this that makes me want to promote Paul from Theologian to Prophet.

I think even Muslims would add Paul to their extensive list of prophets if they understood him in this way. They have respect for Jesus but they see Paul through the lens of Christians like Luther who twist what Paul was getting at with regard to self-righteousness. But until the Church grapples with her wrong understanding of righteousness Paul will be forever looked on with derision by Muslims and many others.

What the Cross Accomplishes

If righteousness is actual and experiential rather than legal or positional, why then the Cross? Have we made it of none effect by saying righteousness can be attained without the cross?

I get accused on a regular basis, and so will you if you teach what I’m writing here, of making the cross worthless. “If what you are saying is true then Jesus died for NOTHING!”

I beg to differ. The scriptures tell us what the Cross if for. If this is nothing, I want to get all of it I can:

  • For the new believer seeking to get right with God he has an advantage because he has access to divine assistance to overcome his wicked behavior. That’s Good News (Gospel) for the repentant seeking salvation.
  • For a good person who was not a wicked person to begin with, he has access to divine assistance to help him become more like Christ. That’s Good News for good people who want to get better.
  • For the wicked person prior to faith the cross demonstrates the love of God, assuring him in a most graphic way that God is willing to forgive him if he turns from his wickedness. That’s Good News for the wicked who is overcome by guilt and needs assurance of God’s love for him so he won’t give up in despair. For him it eliminates a huge barrier to gaining access to divine assistance.
  • For every person on earth the Cross draws him into a faith walk where old things pass away and all things become new. As Jesus said, ”If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto me.” That’s Good News for mankind.
  • For the religious who think following the uniquely Jewish laws while ignoring the universal moral law is what gives them life the Cross draws him away from that and into the Way of God where there is true life. That’s Good News for those like Paul and his fellow Pharisees to whom the the Law has brought death rather than life.

This is a follow on post to Salvation by Being Good, and There Are None Righteous – Except For Everyone Who Is, the first two chapters in a book I am writing called Salvation by Being Good.

You might also be interested in other chapters of my book which I have posted such as:

God Really is Just – Justice Demands Forgiveness

Scriptures That Teach All Men Will Be Judged by Their Conduct, Not Their Belief

Or take a look at the Table of Contents for Salvation by Being Good:

Salvation by Being Good – Table of Contents

 

8 comments for “Righteousness by Self-Effort is Good, Expected, and Attainable

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *