The price of peace is righteousness.
- Ezra Taft Benson
Scripture's requirements in regards to personal holiness and sanctification are referred to as Conditional Righteousness. As believers rightly laud the inconceivable and costly atonement of Christ, it's easy to forget His emphatic insistence we daily deny ourselves and shoulder a cross of our own.
There are thousands of verses directly and indirectly referencing the topic. Is there a quick and easy way to consider and communicate the Cliff Notes?
Scripture reveals our need of two kinds of righteousness equally important to the campaign for mankind's salvation:
1. Positional Righteousness: The all important righteousness that can only be imputed by Christ through His costly atonement. This righteousness is thoroughly explain and appreciated even by churchianity, though its claims on the lifestyles and very lives of Christians needs much clarification.
2. Conditional Righteousness: Of eternal importance to each individual, this righteousness concerns itself with our thoughts and attitudes, words and deeds in regard to ourselves, others and ultimately God.
Since Christ's atonement is a finished and largely well-documented work, we will concern ourselves with the latter form of conditional righteousness about which Paul instructs each of us to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
As is so often the case, in honor of Tri-Omnity, if not our own triune nature, there seemed to be three aspects of conditional righteousness. In fact all of the Bibles over 6,000 directives can be summed up in one or more of the three following categories, namely obedience, productivity and/or thankfulness.
Simple As 1, 2, 3
1. Obedience: Submission and rebellion towards God comes in a variety of forms and intensities. From direct to indirect, obvious to subtle we yield or withhold our inner and/or outer lives from the will of God for us as revealed in Scripture. For our purposes here, we consider obedience right merrily in regard to sins of commission:
- "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister." (1 John 3:2-10 NIV)
2. Productivity: While hardly en vogue today, the Bible is full of injunctions and warnings regarding productivity or the lack of it. Following are just a few:
- “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. (John 15:1, 2, 4-6 NIV)
- "In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins. So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:5-11 NLT)
3. Thankfulness: Without question the original sin of angels and men has and continues to be entitlement (see GodBlog article "entitlement") which is the very opposite of thankfulness. How perhaps as many as a third of the then perfect and holy, advanced and heavenly angelic race could be so inflamed by entitlement as to rebel against God before the introduction of sin and temptation, in the perfection of the heaven of heavens remains the greatest unsolved mystery of eternity. Far less mysterious is the reaction of humanity in the wake of the Luciferian Rebellion. Fallen and mortal, plagued by temptation and deception, mankind seems all too easy prey to the likes of sin above, around and within. While there are a myriad of passages directly and indirectly dealing with thankfulness, truth be told the entire record of Scripture references the topic. Every good or evil attitude or action arises from a sense of thankfulness one lack thereof.
The categories of such a proposed trinity righteousness, while not necessarily self evident to all, seem to provide enough generality and specificity to encompass all godly human endeavor. Also present is a flow of one into another.
Decades of contemplation have convinced me that these categories are as necessary to conditional righteousness as they are problematic. Dependent on depth and honesty of definition and evaluation, globally millions possess one of these crucial virtues. Tens if not hundreds of thousands may demonstrate familiarity, if not expertise in two of the above. But to find individual fluids in all three is a feat indeed. In fact, given the quantity and quality of new and ever present forms of worldliness, it may well require two or three modern Christians to fit the bill. A dilemma not unlike that described by the apostle James when it comes to the power to perform the truly miraculous:
- "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit." (James 5:13-18 NKJV)
In this rendering of the passage, we're introduced to yet another trinity, namely power in prayer, or in our case the lack thereof. Unfortunately our lack of modern day elders able to routinely and miraculously heal the sick, much less perform the kinds of signs and wonders Elijah was known for, strongly suggests either we have no genuine elders, or they lack genuine faith.
On a brighter note, where we fail as individuals might we not succeed in teams? What if persons or groups of people possessing at least one trait of either of the above trinities where to join with others to round out the set? Might this union of "two or more gathered in My name" create a spiritual quorum in both quantity and quality?
Sadly, while one might reasonably imagine that such pairings are commonplace given the quantity of modern churches, all evidence seems to be to the contrary. Errant and fractured denominations as well as worldly and apathetic congregations all testify to the glaring lack of one or more of the virtues described in the subsets above. Such a state argues the need to more fully delineate the path and process of growing in the virtues of righteousness and Christian maturity described above, as well as by Peter regarding mandatory additions to faith:
- "By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires. In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are shortsighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins. So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 1:3-11 NLT)
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