Opus 2014-175: Un-self Righteous, part 1 of 2

Warning!  Theology ahead!

We can be righteous and not be perfect.

Another verse that some Christians like to quote is,

(Isaiah 64:6 KJV)  But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

They interpret this to mean that it is impossible to be righteous in reality.  This verse is usually misquoted.  I heard it again on the radio this week.  Notice the plural “righteousnesses.”  This means the spiritual games we play.  It does not refer to our spiritual condition.  It is a serious miss-quoting of what the Bible actually teaches.

It is true that we are all sinners from birth.  Here are simple statements from both Testaments.

(Psalms 51:5 KJV)  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

(Romans 3:23 KJV)  For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

But you cannot read the Bible long before you come across such verses as,

(Genesis 7:1 KJV)  And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Here in the first book of the Bible you have God declaring that He sees Noah as righteous.  I don’t think God is blind or delusional.  He is also not a liar or a politician putting spin on an issue.  For those into Hebrew I would point out that both “righteous” (6662) and “righteousnesses” (6666) come from the same family of words.  One is an adjective and one is a noun.

If you have the time and are still in denial about this simple fact, do a word search on the word “righteous” and see how many times it is applied to God’s people.

To be concluded...

homo unius libri