RIGHTEOUSNESS
RIGHTEOUSNESS
1 John 2: 29; 1 John 3: 1 - 14
JT The 29th verse of chapter 2 bears much on the beginning of the third chapter, and it indicates the important fact that righteousness flows from what God is. The introduction of Abel as the typically righteous man, as the man whose works were righteous, is helpful on that line, because his righteousness was not the fulfilling of any specific injunction or command. It flowed from a certain manifestation of God’s attributes.
GWW It flowed from an appreciation of divine revelation really. Your thought is that that must be the basis of righteousness with us at the present moment?
JT That is what I thought. In John’s epistle it is connected with our nature as born of God, but I think Romans works it out as the result of our appreciation of the light of the revelation of God.
WLP Pursuing righteousness shows that it is practical.
GWW How are you connecting this with Romans?
JT Romans is the unfolding of righteousness, in an objective way, in God. It says, “The righteousness of God without the law is manifested” (that is to say, that kind of righteousness) “being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe”, Romans 3: 22. That is, God has come out in Christ to show what His righteousness is; and the result of that is the practice of righteousness in the Christian by the Spirit; whereas here it is the outflow of the nature more. As born of God we practise righteousness.
GWW Do you limit, in Romans, the thought of righteousness to God taking account of what is evil and dealing with it according to His own holy nature and being?
JT No, I think it includes His taking us up — His taking man up in mercy. His righteousness is seen not only in dealing with the evil, but in the blessing of men.
[p. 80] He reserves the right to act in mercy, so that righteousness works out in a positive way. “He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever”, Psalm 112: 9. In God and in us it is not limited to the negation of evil or the dealing with it authoritatively. It is also evidenced in blessing.
JS In the retention of man.
JT Yes, in retaining man here in blessing. That is what His righteousness is. It works out in the same way in the christian. Men are to be retained here before God in blessing. If we were to withdraw (as we speak) from a brother for evil, destruction of the brother is not in view but rather his retention in blessing.
AFM In Romans 4 we are said to be reckoned righteous, and that precedes the practice of righteousness, according to chapter 8, does it not?
JT Yes. One has to be reckoned righteous on the principle of faith. I think the practice of righteousness in Romans is by the Spirit, and so it is the result of the light. The power of it is the Spirit.
GWW Have you not a little thought more as to God’s side? Is it God’s righteousness?
JT Well, I think what was said as regards the retention of man in blessing is most important. God is just and justifies him that is of the faith of Jesus. Now it seems to me that “of the faith of Jesus” (Romans 3: 26) lays the basis for the order of man that is to be retained. It is not exactly that you have faith in Jesus there. It is that you are of that faith, light as to that order of man is in your soul, and God justifies one who has that faith. He is to be retained here in blessing; but then there is no other man to be retained. Chapters 8 and 12 show the result for God. I speak only of the truth as presented in Romans. Ephesians shows that those justified and indwelt by the Spirit are set down in heavenly places. The “faith of Jesus” lays the basis for all that follows, because it is that order of man that God has in His mind.
BTF Would you say that Romans sets a soul free before God on a righteous [p. 81] basis?
JT Yes, I think it gives us a good conscience, but at the same time, corresponding with the good conscience, we have light as to the order of man that is seen in Jesus. That is the order of man that is to be retained and sustained here.
JD-s Therefore the importance of righteousness and its place. It stands at the threshold of blessing. I suppose that is the reason why we have it so prominently presented in the Romans.
JT It really is in that respect the foundation of God, and it is therefore so important that we should have it. Now Abel is the first one that is said to be righteous. In Hebrews 11, he is said to be righteous; his works are said to be righteous, and it is in the light of the fact that he had faith. He had some apprehension of Christ. It is not that he was told to do this or that, he apprehended what was suitable to God from what had taken place in regard of his parents.
JD-s From what had been made known of God to his soul; and is not that the way we get holiness, as well as righteousness, and indeed everything else that reflects the character of God in the believer?
GWW What was remarked as to Abel is very interesting. He had got some sense in his soul that there was something for man out of death. This he must have learned from the coats of skin with which his parents had been clothed. He appears to have laid hold of the fact that God would find a righteous ground for action through death.
AAT Cain did not avail himself of this light.
GWW There was no appreciation of light with Cain. The same light was shining for both, but Cain had no appreciation of it.
WLP Abel justified God. When speaking of being retained, do you mean set apart?
JT Ultimately all will be removed in judgment save those that are according to Christ. In the meantime God sets apart him that is godly for Himself. Of course we know Abel was put to death, but that does not set aside the fact [p. 82] that he is for God, and he will be raised up at the last day.
AFM Would you say that Abel in a way is a type of one who has the faith of Jesus?
JT I think he is. I think God takes account of him in that way. The order in which we find righteousness in the Old Testament I think is first of all in Abel, and then in Noah. Noah preached it. I do not apprehend that he preached simply that men should pay their debts, although of course that would go with it. He undoubtedly presented some expression of the righteousness of God.
GWW It is a remarkable thing that God came out in Abel and Enoch. God found Enoch righteous. He walked with God and was pleasing to God. Noah presents the thought that every bit of revelation God made, when responded to in the believer, becomes the foundation of righteousness in his soul. This he presents in testimony.
JT So it would be very interesting to know just what Noah spoke about when he preached.
GWW If we studied those earlier chapters of Genesis we would see the way revelation came out; with each fresh dealing with men on His part there was a shining out of what God was; and what is still more interesting is to see it all coming out in testimony in Noah, because he preached it to the men of his generation.
BTF And a very effectual part of Noah’s testimony was preparing the ark for the saving of his house.
JT That supported his preaching. It was a public testimony that was unmistakable. He condemned the world by it. But then God had said that His Spirit should not always strive with man; but his days should be 120 years. It was a merciful thing for God to extend the time in which His Spirit strove in grace with man. I suppose Noah would be in keeping with that. One acquainted with the mind of God, and in sympathy with it, would not wish to have the period of grace shortened. The full year — the acceptable year of the Lord — is to be spent out.
GWW It is very interesting. Noah was a just man in his generation, and Noah walked with God, and so the testimony of Abel and Enoch is assumed [p. 83] in his.
JD-s Noah would understand what was set out in Enoch.
JT He would at least have the testimony of a walk pleasing to God, and that man taken up to heaven.
ANW And would he not condemn the world by what he did rather than by his preaching?
JT The building of the ark condemned the world.
JS It was a right thing morally to build the ark.
JT Quite. It was built for salvation.
AAT And it was a right thing for the family to get into the ark. Is the thought of righteousness involved there?
JT In the ark there was the testimony of salvation; however limited, it is there. It was a divine thought.
AAT I gather from a remark made here that one’s apprehension of God is expressed in one’s practical righteousness. If so, is it not possible to know forgiveness of sins and not know about righteousness?
JT But a true apprehension of righteousness leads to the doing of it. For instance, forgiveness; according to the parable in Matthew 18 the man did not forgive as he had been forgiven; the Lord says to Peter “seventy times seven” (Matthew 18: 22), I suppose it is unlimited forgiveness, and that is righteousness. It is righteous to forgive.
GWW The fact is, the failure on that point comes to this, that people have taken up the thought of forgiveness without seeing that forgiveness of sins is that which has been proclaimed on God’s part through the death of Christ, and that they stand before God on that wonderful footing.
JD-s “We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins”.
GWW Not merely past sins, but the believer is set in the forgiveness of sins with God, and if there is a sense of that in his soul he must maintain the spirit of forgiveness with all he comes in contact with. If he does not he is a wicked servant, and, as you say, the man in Matthew 18 is taken up on that ground. He did not show this to his fellow servant; he did not act consistently with the grace of his Master. That constituted his wickedness.
[p. 84] JT It is not that you would suggest any licence. “There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared”, Psalm 130: 4.
WHF You were saying God’s righteousness is in asserting His rights in mercy in forgiveness.
JT That is what He is doing now. But man turns that into lasciviousness. The world shall learn righteousness when God’s judgments are in it. The enforcement of His rights in mercy does not produce that now, but rather lasciviousness in an unconverted man. It does not affect him at all. It rather produces, you might say, disrespect for God, and righteousness has to suffer. This is the suffering time for righteousness, but presently righteousness shall reign. Now grace is reigning. That is a very important thing to remember; it is grace reigning through righteousness now, and therefore the unconverted man turns it into lasciviousness and righteousness has to suffer, but when righteousness rules it will not suffer. Then wrong suffers, sin suffers, so the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness when God’s judgments are in it.
AFM You would not say that is the character of the present time exactly? You would not say God’s judgments are in the world now?
JT Except as seen morally in the saints; but the public situation, as proclaimed in the gospel, is that grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. Man in the flesh takes advantage of this, and therefore it is the suffering time of righteousness. Every believer, being a righteous man, has to suffer.
AFM Would you compare that with Abel?
JT The first righteous man was put to death. He had to suffer.
AAT You would not say righteousness was suffering in the assembly although it is in the world?
JT That of course raises a very important line of thought, that there are the two spheres — the one over which Christ rules and the other over which God rules in a special way. In the first, normally, righteousness does not suffer. Christ rules over the house of God directly and He [p. 85] rules in righteousness, as 1 Corinthians 15 and Revelation 2 and 3 abundantly show. In the Scriptures the history of righteousness follows on to Melchisedec, who is said to be the king of it. He is a very important man to come in at that juncture. By interpretation he is king of righteousness, and at the same time king of peace.
AFM That is the righteousness enjoyed in the world to come, do you mean?
JT Well it shows the great place righteousness had in the course of the testimony.
AFM “A king shall reign in righteousness”, Isaiah 32: 1.
JT Yes, but Melchisedec coming in in Genesis 14 is very important. As regards righteousness, he comes in when a man had suffered in the rescue of his brother. He comes in to bless Abram.
JS Are God’s rights in mercy foreseen in the clothing of Adam and Eve?
JT I should say that is the first great testimony of His righteousness. He had a right to do that and He did it. On this ground, although driven out of Eden, Adam and Eve were, in a sense, retained. Adam recognizes his wife as the mother of all living.
AAT And He would have retained Cain if he had availed himself of God’s provision.
JT “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin [sin offering] lieth at the door”, Genesis 4: 7.
GWW The great object with the enemy was to sweep man from under the eye of God. He would carry all off. Well now, if one might so say, if God had allowed Satan to carry that out it would have cast an eternal slur upon God. He intervenes through the death of Christ, procuring for Himself a perfectly righteous ground on which to set on one side the effort of the enemy and retain for Himself that order of being that He had desired.
JT That is very beautiful. So the “faith of Jesus” is important to note. Those that are of the faith of Jesus are the ones to be justified.
GWW The second of Galatians has been spoken of already this morning. “While we seek to be justified by Christ”, Galatians 2: 17. You have the same thought there. Our identity is in another Man.
JT Quite. Romans 3: 4 suggests, I believe, character; the verse in Galatians position or status.
GWW There seems to be that foreshadowed in the clothing afforded Adam and Eve. It has come out of death and, however obscurely Abel laid hold of that fact, he apprehended that on that ground only could he approach God. He saw there was acceptance with God through death. In that way he was looking on to what God had before Him as the basis for all His works.
JT In him the relationship of brother appears, and is emphasized. Seven times in Genesis 4 is Abel referred to as Cain’s brother. The righteous man is the brother. How are you going to treat him? To be in relation with a righteous man tests us.
ANW I think your reference to these two men is very remarkable — that Abel was a brother. I notice that, grievous as Adam’s sin was, the curse of God is not said to be upon him, but the curse of God did come upon Cain. It is the seriousness of destroying a righteous man.
JT Cain was cursed on account of his treatment of his brother; Canaan was cursed on account of his treatment of his father.
JS Relationship appears to become the test.
JT Quite so. It is in John’s epistle.
ANW I was going to say Abel had a testimony to which he answered; Cain had a further testimony in the fact that he saw Abel accepted, but he slew him.
GWW Cain’s “way” marks apostasy. The warning comes before us in Jude as to him. “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core”. Rejection of the testimony was fatal.
JD-s Do you connect the children of God in the first verse of the third chapter with the twenty-ninth verse of the second chapter?
JT Yes; the twenty-ninth verse of chapter 2 introduces [p. 87] the subject in chapter 3. Righteousness is one of the marks of the children of God.
JD-s We are children of God as begotten of Him, and therefore righteousness should mark us, inasmuch as it marks God; our dealings with our brethren — indeed with all — should be on that line. Anything less than that is unsuited and is a contradiction really, and a denial of the fact that we are begotten of God and, therefore, His children. We see the great love conferred upon us in being called the children of God. It seems to me it is in connection with what we have in the twenty-ninth verse — the practice of righteousness.
JT Then the righteousness practised by the children of God is not simply one that conforms with legal requirements; the world, we may say, could take account of that, but what it says here is “Therefore the world knoweth us not”. The world does not know the children of God nor the righteousness they practise; a righteous man, as seen in Abel here, is not taken account of by the world except as one to be persecuted.
JD-s The Father and the world, according to John’s epistle, are put in contradistinction. Therefore, if we are begotten of God, in that way children of God, and have to do with the Father, of necessity what will mark us will not be appreciated or valued by the world. The world and the Father are diametrically opposed.
WLP Righteousness condemns the world.
WHF The children of God are of divine origin and therefore the practice of righteousness is natural to them. J.S. To love your brother is righteousness. It is a right thing to love your brother.
JT Yes, quite. There is to be a retention here of an order of man that is according to Jesus. That is the point one has to have before one’s soul in all one’s walk and ways. It is what is according to Jesus, because He is the righteous Man.
ANW It is striking that righteousness should be connected with the forgiveness of sins, because men in the world view forgiveness — if they view it at all — as though [p. 88] God would say sin is not sin. It seems striking that mercy and forgiveness should be connected with the righteousness of God. Men in the world will look for forgiveness as though God would say they are not so sinful after all, whereas that is not the idea at all.
JT No, I think righteousness always judges sin with authority. That is, holiness repels. It is something intolerable; but righteousness deals with it with authority.
JD-s You might say a little more about what makes a righteous man according to God unpopular in the world. I think it would be very useful to us if you did.
JT I think it is worked out in this chapter. It says of the Lord that He loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; His whole course was marked by this, and it brought Him into suffering, as we see typified in Abel. So I think as you aim at being like Jesus in your relations here that you are not popular. You are different from the world. Your spirit is different and in the discharge of legal obligations you do it in His spirit. You do it as He did it. So I think it is that which brings us into reproach and suffering.
GWW In that blessed Man we see One wholly actuated by love in the midst of a scene actuated by hatred and evil. There could be no moral affinity between the world and Christ. God is going to set aside evil in this world and love is to be the prevailing influence of the world when that blessed Man comes to fill the universe with love under the eye of God. If actuated by that at the present time you must receive at the hands of the world what He received — hatred. Man does not want the principle of love to his neighbour, being wholly actuated by himself by feelings of hatred.
JD-s In this epistle righteousness is the opposite of lawlessness. If born of God and therefore belonging to the family who are regarded as the children of God, and practising righteousness, one should of necessity come into conflict with the lawlessness that marks the present scene. It is worthy of note that righteousness is dealt with so extensively in the epistle to the Romans, which is the foundation epistle. There the first feature of the kingdom [p. 89] of God is said to be righteousness: “Righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”, Romans 14: 17. And so in 2 Timothy 2 those separated under the gracious hand of God are marked first of all by righteousness. I think that is of moment as showing the importance of righteousness in the mind of God.
ANW Might I ask why it does not come first in Corinthians where the apostle says “Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption”?
JT I think wisdom was important in that letter on account of the conditions at Corinth; on account of Greek pretensions wisdom stands in the forefront.
WHF I do not think the world understands anything about righteousness.
GWW But when the world sees the representation of what God is in His children, it is keen enough to hate it. The world does not intend to allow principles according to God to rule down here.
AAT I suppose we see that coming out in connection with our young brothers who cannot undertake to take human life in war.
Rem They suggest a generation like Jesus.
JT Yes; He grew up as a tender plant before Jehovah and in favour of men as a Man; but directly the Holy Spirit comes upon Him and He stands up in the synagogue at Nazareth to preach, it says they marvelled at the gracious words proceeding from His mouth. So far, so good; but the citizens of Nazareth would have Him to do something that would distinguish them. He was brought up there, and so they would only too gladly have their town helped and distinguished. And then the Lord brings in the great fact that God had gone outside the limits of Israel in the exercise of His grace. In the Old Testament times He, through the prophet, had gone to the widow and had also cured Naaman. They would not have that. They “rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong”, Luke 4: 29. Thus we see how [p. 90] the world hates the righteousness of God. I think that what the righteousness of faith says is of great import. It speaks. “But the righteousness of faith speaks thus: Do not say in thine heart, Who shall ascend to the heavens? that is, to bring Christ down; or, Who shall descend into the abyss? that is, to bring up Christ from among the dead. But what says it? The word is near thee, in thy mouth and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach: that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart is believed to righteousness; and with the mouth confession made to salvation”, Romans 10: 6 - 10, New Trans. We have been dwelling on the effect of the Lord’s testimony in the synagogue and how it brought persecution, but here the apostle alludes to a time when Israel should be scattered (Deuteronomy 30). The righteousness of faith in that day would say to them that it was a question of the state of their hearts as to what God is. “If thou ... shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart is believed to righteousness”.
Ques You have been speaking about righteousness in relation to our brother; but in relation to the world, how do we practise righteousness otherwise than by discharging our legal obligations?
JT Certainly you do that, but that would not bring you into reproach. What brings you into reproach is the character of God, as seen in Christ, coming out; and maintaining in you, towards all, an attitude such as marked Christ. This does violence to social distinctions, national feelings, and even family claims (although these latter have their place). The pride of the world is bound up in its own principles and distinctions.
AR S. If you stand for the rights of God?
JT That brings you into reproach.
GWW The world is stirred up and you have to suffer; but if we do not present what is morally according to God we may slip through this world pretty quietly; but [p. 91] the moment what is according to God comes out in our life the opposition of the world is tremendously stirred up at once.
ARS It seems to me, as our brother said, if you simply meet your ordinary obligations in business and the like, the world will respect you, indeed, honour you, for you are of value to the community among whom you may be, but the moment you stand for the rights of God, which have been violated here, they will not have it at all.
AFM When called to war now a non-combatant experiences the hatred of the world very largely.
JT You see how it was wrought out with the Lord. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”. He was brought up in Nazareth and was in favour with God and man there (Luke 2: 52), but He stands up and says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor”, and then when He asserts the full bearing of that they will not have it. They were filled with wrath, and would have killed the Lord. It was a question of the rights of God.
ANW Do we not occasionally get into trouble through a faulty maintenance of the rights of God? We think we maintain His rights when we do not. Is there a standard of righteousness, or is it controlled by my individual conscience?
JT The standard is what God is in Christ.
GWW We feel a good deal of suffering perhaps through hardly a right stand sometimes.
JT The thing is so wide it would be difficult to cover the different phases of righteousness, but take one point. God is not a national God. He is not God of any nation now specifically. He is God of the nations as He is of the Jew, so that He has no preference as regards nations. He set up Christ as head of every man, whoever he may be. Well now, you have to hold to that.
GWW Yes, but if you stand up for that at the present time, you are going to get into trouble.
JT But it is in keeping with the dispensation in which we are. God has set up Christ as head of every man. Well, I must regard every man.
[p. 92] GWW The principles of the kingdom that are set forth in the opening chapters of Matthew are to govern us at the present time as people in whose midst the kingdom of God has been established morally, and we are to act on them towards one another. They must govern and actuate us as those in the kingdom.
If we are controlled by those principles in our relations with one another, we are to a certain extent coloured by them; we are waiting for the time when those principles will be universal. That is what we are looking out for, but those principles will bring us into antagonism with the scene around us at the present time because that scene has to go out before God’s kingdom is established. Man’s world must disappear before God brings in His own.
JT I think that is what brings about the conflict. Men may not be able to give an account of why it is they oppose, but there is an intelligent spirit behind them.
JD-s The world to come is to be established on the basis of righteousness, and everything is established for us now on that basis. So if we know righteousness as it is presented in this epistle, our righteousness will not be accepted by men in the present age.
JT As the Lord says: “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven”, Matthew 5 : 20.