Dikaiosune
|
dikaiwsune is the Greek word dikaiosune
(pronounced dik-ai-o-soo-nay). This Bible word for “righteousness”
reveals the true worth of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. In their quest to discover why
Job was going through such turmoil in his life, Eliphaz, Job’s friend, asked
this searching question: “Can mankind be just before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?” (Job 4:17). Then another of his friends, Bildad,
asked a similar question. “How then can a man be just with God? Or how can he be clean who
is born of woman?” (Job 25:4). This is a question that still puzzles
many today! How can a sinner be declared forever right before God? In order
to understand the answer, we must realize that God must first be just with
Himself. What do we mean? God,
who cannot lie, said, “The wages of sin is death.” That is not a strong suggestion. That is a command! In order for God to be true to His
word, then all who have sinned must die! And there can be absolutely no exceptions, not any! How then is it possible for God to be
just with Himself and for sinners to be allowed to live? How can God be just and allow a
sinner to be right Before Him?
The answer is found in the gospel of God’s grace. “For I am not
ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone
who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness
of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith’” (Rom. 1:16-17). The gospel (the
death and resurrection of Christ) makes known the righteousness of God. The word translated "righteousness"
in the English is the Greek word "dikaiosune." It was a word used both in the Greek
and Roman court systems. The
word eventually came to mean "adjustment to the standard of the
law." When a law was
broken, the one convicted of the crime had to be adjusted to the standard
imposed by the law. This
adjustment was to be made by meeting whatever requirement the law demanded.
If the law required a fine, the fine had to be paid. If the law demanded death
as the just settlement, then death it was. We would call this “justice.” When the penalty was paid, justice was satisfied. This is
precisely what the word “dikaiosune” means. However, the justice that Paul had in mind had nothing
whatsoever to do with man’s legal system. The word used in the Bible means
adjustment to God's standard. The gospel made known God’s adjustment to His
righteous standard. God's Righteousness
The God of the Bible is the author of righteousness. The
absolute standard of righteousness comes from Him. God alone set the standard
of right. He is the source of
all righteousness. John made this clear
with these words: “This is the message we have heard
from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is
no darkness at all” (1 Jn. 1:5). Righteousness is
a part of who God is. God is the epitome of absolute perfection. “Therefore the LORD has kept the
calamity in store and brought it on us; for the LORD our God is righteous
with respect to all His deeds which He has done, but we have not obeyed His
voice” (Dan. 9:14). Human Righteousness
Man’s righteousness falls far short of God’s righteousness. Every human being is born a sinner. “For all
have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). To be a sinner
means that we are “not right when measured against God’s standard.” In fact, our very best when compared
to God's righteousness falls far short (Isa. 64:6). One sinner may be more righteous than another, but when
compared to all are sinners. When measured against God’s supreme right
standard, man’s righteousness slips into a sea of relativity. What may be
right for one person may not be considered right to another. What may be
right for one legal system may not be right for another. What may be right to
one human government may not be right with another. “For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with
some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by
themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without
understanding” (2 Cor. 10:12). God’s Justice
The God of the
Bible is not only a God of absolute righteousness, but He is also the God of
absolute justice. Like righteousness, God's justice is a part of His being. “The Rock
His work is perfect. For all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness and
without injustice. Righteous and upright is He”
(Deut. 32:4). Because God is
totally just, He must always adjust that which is not right back to
His righteousness. Why? God must be true to Himself. He cannot compromise who He is. Someone has said, “God's required
righteousness is that righteousness which His essence requires Him to
require.” This is why God must judge all
unrighteousness! God must judge
all sinners. And His required judgment is death. Human Justice
Our human
understanding of justice is flawed because our thoughts are contaminated by
sin. Sin distorts everything that we think and do. Our human judgments do not always fit the crime. We do not
have all knowledge, and so we never have all the facts, and the facts that we
have are not always one hundred percent accurate. Our sin creates hidden motives that taint and distort our
judgment. Depravity
obscures every judgmental issue. It causes rationalism that pollutes every
verdict. Our emotion also gets
in the way to color the facts that we think we may know. We cannot be one
hundred percent fair in our legal system. Our human court system is not
perfect. We are not fair with our friends or our families. We must admit
before God that we are sinners. We are part of a fallen creation, and we are
not righteous, and we are not just. We have all sinned and fallen short of
God’s perfection. Has God Been Just?
At the beginning
of this study we asked this question, “Has God been just?” Death is the only payment for sin
that will satisfy God's justice and restore His righteousness. Because of
God’s desire to make known the riches of His glory, He has determined to
extend grace and allow a sinner to be just before Him. However, God cannot
compromise His integrity in allowing that to happen. He cannot bend, or
twist, or distort in any way His righteousness and His justice by allowing
even one single sin to go unjudged. Nor can He allow one sinner into His
presence without the penalty being paid. God's justice requires Him to always
adjust that which is not right to His righteousness. God demands death to
restore His righteousness, and death it must be. God’s Righteousness
Restored In Christ
In order to
reveal the riches of His glory and motivated by an indescribable love, God
elected to pay man’s sin debt. But God, as God, could not die. God is eternal
life (Psa. 90:2). So in order to die, God became a man. He bypassed Adam’s
sin by coming into this world through a virgin. Jesus Christ knew no sin (2
Cor. 5:21). God, in the person
of Jesus Christ, then died - the just for the unjust. The death of the Son of
God paid in full God’s demand for righteousness. God's demand of death for sin was adjusted to in Christ.
God's righteousness and His justice came together in perfect harmony through
the sacrifice of Christ. Is there one
word that says all of this? Yes! Dikaiosune! Dikaiosune means
“adjustment to the righteousness of God.” It is this “righteousness” that the
gospel makes known. When we by faith
believe in Christ, we are immediately placed into union with Him. We are
spiritually immersed into His body. We are placed into the One who satisfied
forever God’s divine Judgment. When we are placed into the body of Jesus
Christ, we die in Him. “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live” (Gal.
2:20a). The wages of sin
is death, but we pay our debt the moment we are placed “into Christ.” God forever adjusts us to His
absolute righteousness “in Christ.” “And may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my
own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the
righteousness (dikaiosune) which comes from God on the basis of faith”
(Phil. 3:9). “He made Him who
knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the
righteousness (dikaiosune) of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Can
God remain just and at the same time be gracious to those who are in His
Son? Yes! In Christ we are justified before
God. To be justified means to be declared forever right. So how can we answer
Eliphaz and Bildad’s question, “How can a man be right before God?” There is
only one way. Justification before God is made available as a gift of God’s
grace by faith alone in Christ alone. “Being justified as a gift by His grace through the
redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). God’s Righteousness Required
God’s
declaration that all who sin must die is still in force. He has set apart a
special day in which every human being will be judged by Him according to His
standard of righteousness. “Because
He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through
a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him
from the dead” (Acts 17:31). Like those who were outside of Noah’s
ark faced God’s righteous wrath, all who are outside of God’s Son will also
face God’s just judgment for sin in full. Where do you stand? Sources New American Standard Bible Chafer’s Systematic Theology Bible Knowledge Commentary; New
Testament James V. “Nap” Clark Robert B. Thieme, Jr. A.T. Robertson Word Pictures |
How can a person be forever right before
God? Is that possible?
|