Righteousness - a Record of Conduct, but not Success
Deuteronomy 6:25
And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”
Deuteronomy 6:24-25 (in Context) Deuteronomy 6 (Whole Chapter)
As we saw in Genesis 15:6, believing God is credited to us as righteousness, even when are subsequent actions are going to be dreadfully unrighteousness. Apparently then, belief does not make us righteous per se. God just chooses to see us as such.
Next we see that careful obedience to what God commands will be our righteousness. Well, we know later on in scripture that obedience does not have to be perfect. When God told the Hebrews to gather only a day’s worth of manna, he expected “careful obedience”. How careful? Well gather too much and it will all turn to maggots; gather to little and your family will go hungry. So, just to make sure, they were to bring it to the priest for measurement. Well, it turns out that no one gathered the right amount; but the ones who brought it to the priests? Well, theirs all measured exactly right. Hundreds of years later, we saw that principle play out in Israel’s military battles. As mighty as the Israeli army was, it was through the Spirit of God that they won. For disobedience resulted in losses and/or subsequent catastrophe; other times God brought victories overcoming apparently overwhelming odds.
Bottom line, success per se does not bring about righteousness, for the success is not ours, lest we boast. To the contrary, God expects merely our obedience, and that itself is our righteousness.
Interestingly, obedience is typically preceded by obedience… though not always. But when it is, God credits us with righteousness the moment we believe… and then our resulting obedience is our righteousness. Again, a concept that was Jewish before it was Christian. Today, as Christians, we are saved the moment we repent of our sins and give our lives to Jesus (belief credited as righteousness); we then follow the law God has written on our heart (obedience as righteousness).
The contrary rules are in place as well. Going back to Adam, Adam was righteous because he believed God and refrained from eating the apple. Adam then disobeyed, and his disobedience was Adam’s unrighteousness. However, he still believed God, and was still credited with righteousness.
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Paul tells us that if there were no men to testify for our Lord, the very rocks would cry out. So, what how “righteous” is creation? Does creation “believe” God? Through physical laws, the answer is yes, and the creation is “careful to obey” those laws. However, mankind is in fact part of that creation. For the majority of history, mankind has believed in the concept of deities. Over time, we moved to a monotheistic perspective, the creation having more righteousness credit to it over time. And it was important that our collective account be credited, because what we did with the rules and regulations we perceived has been collectively monstrous at different locations and periods of time. Quite often, with so many religions in the world, the obedience part has a been a mix… but at least the majority of mankind had some level of belief. But now? Today? That belief is waining. Creation has increasingly less righteousness due to obedience… and in these times, even our free credits are drying up.