Righteousness by Faith

Our righteousness is according to faith. The Bible tells us that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Our righteousness is according to faith: this means that we are expected to believe we are accepted by God even when we cannot see anything to support this belief according to our five senses. It is easy to believe that we are right with God when we are actively serving in church, we are praying every night and everything seems to be going well for us. But what about when things aren’t going so well and we are struggling to maintain the “good little Christian” routine? Righteousness by faith is not always as easy as we would like to think it is.

Kenneth E. Hagin is thought of as being the pioneer of the Word of Faith movement. Hagin would typically focus on faith for healing and faith for finances. Hagin would also say that faith could be applied to any other legitimate need, such as the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Hagin would state emphatically that the believer needs to believe that his need is met regardless of what his senses tell him: if a Christian is believing God for healing – he should not look to the lying symptoms of his physical body. I believe it is the same with faith for righteousness: we should believe that we are accepted by God – regardless of our conduct and behaviour.

The first term used by Thayer’s Greek Definitions to describe the Greek word dikaiosunē (G1343) is: in a broad sense: state of him who is as he ought to be, righteousness, the condition acceptable to God. The state we ought to be in is that we are children of the Most High God. The state that we ought not to be is eager-beaver little Christians anxiously running around church trying to please God with our pathetic efforts to be just like Jesus according to our own efforts.  The emphasis should be on God’s unconditional love for us and what He has done for us through Christ – not on what we can do for God through our works.

It is assumed that as we resume fellowship with God through Christ (right-standing with God) the good works should follow from there. The state that we ought to be is that God lives His life through us. The question is – if God lives His life through us, why do we need to make such stringent efforts to vet every mode of behaviour and decision that we make? As if we need some sort of safety net just in case the Holy Spirit decides to “test” us to make sure we know our right from our wrong and our good from our bad.

Righteousness is all about focus: do we focus on our proud attempts to do what we believe is right? Do we focus on those things other people say we ought to do – but find we cannot do? Or do we focus on the fact that God accepts us apart from our works so that we can enjoy intimate fellowship with Him through Christ; thus allowing Holy Spirit to take control over our lives?

Grace produces good works. Grace is also righteousness conscious. Sin-consciousness produces more sin, as it creates a cycle in one's life to sin. The Bible says that the strength of the law is sin (1 Cor. 15:56). Paul said that he died, spiritually speaking, when the law came and sin revived in him (Romans 7:9).

Focusing on right living only brings one to sin, I believe, and focusing on Jesus and His love for us and that we are righteous by His blood, leads to right living.