Righteousness צְדָקָה

Yesterday we talked about how Abram was struggling with what God had promised him and his present reality because the two were not adding up. God expands on his promise to make him into a great nation in this way. Genesis 15:4-5 “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Wow that seems really over the top of God. But God knows what he is doing. So how does Abram respond to this seemingly crazy promise. Genesis 15:6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. We’ve looked at our word for believe already and will explore it more in the future since it comes up a lot in the Bible. But for today our word is צְדָקָה righteousness, honesty, justice, justness, blameless. It is used 156 times in the Old Testament. Our word is used most of the time to separate people from God in our character. When God tells the Israelites he will give them the promise land he points out that it is not something that they deserve because of their behavior. Deuteronomy 9:4-5 Do not say to yourself, “The Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my צְדָקָה righteousness.” … It is not because of your צְדָקָה righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Understand, then, that it is not because of your צְדָקָה righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people. Notice how God goes out of his way to communicate that they are not righteous but rather stiff-necked. God does this throughout the Bible both Old and New Testaments. The contrast is clear when we look at how God is described with our word. Job 37:23 The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great צְדָקָה righteousness, he does not oppress. Psalm 31:1 In you, Lord, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your צְדָקָה righteousness. Psalm 36:6 Your צְדָקָה righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. The point of righteousness is that God is righteous and we are not which leads us to how can this problem be solved. That is our word for tomorrow. As we close let’s look at Romans chapter 3 where the Holy Spirit makes this contrast in a very detailed way. He does this to show everyone our desperate need for God’s grace. Romans 3:9-20 What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.