The Blessed Kind of Righteousness

I AM now at the final Beatitude, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 

PERSECUTION is something that happens to us (not something we do) and inheriting the kingdom of heaven is something that is given to us (not something we earn), so the central thing in describing us is “righteousness”. It is when worldlings see righteousness in us that they want to persecute us, and it is when God sees righteousness in us that he can welcome us into his kingdom. 

BECAUSE righteousness means to measure up to a standard, the best understanding of this is that we are acting according to what it means to be “in the image and likeness of God”. After all, THAT is the primary definition of being human! 

PROBLEM: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. Meaning, “None is righteous, no, not one”. No one measures up to the image and likeness of God. 

THE AMAZING thing is that the first mention of righteousness in the Bible is that Abraham “believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” Which means that the way humans are viewed by God as righteous is not by acting righteous enough for him to accept them, but by believing God and being made righteous. 

THIS IS WHY Paul said so wonderfully, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’” 

HIS POINT was that it is only in the gospel, the good news of great joy in Jesus Christ our Lord, that humans can be righteous. It is only one someone experiences “the power of God for salvation” as a human “who believes” in Jesus Christ that we become “the righteous” who “shall live by faith.” 

ONE OF the most beautiful summaries of our relationship with God is, “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” We enter the kingdom of God by grace through faith, we are made righteous by faith, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us as those who are credited with righteousness by faith, and so we experience the righteousness, peace, and joy of God in the Holy Spirit. 

IT WILL take another post to explain righteousness in relation to persecution, but first we must understand this righteousness. It means to be like Jesus. It means to be restored to the image and likeness of God as was God’s work in creation. It is why we are a “new creation”, because righteousness had to be restored to us. And the way the world treats us will be in relation to our righteousness that matures in us as we grow up in Christ. 

THIS IS WHY Jesus said we would be treated by the world the same way the world treated him. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” And, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” We are persecuted for the sake of the righteousness of being like Jesus, which simply means that the world will treat us the way it treated him. 

THE POINT in this is that being persecuted because of being like Jesus is not a judgment that we are failing to make the good news known well enough, or that we are dishonoring our Savior by incurring the wrath of worldlings. 

INSTEAD, we are to see persecution for the sake of our Christlikeness as evidence that we are in the kingdom of God because we are being treated by the world the same way Jesus was treated. 

SO, while the world despises us and our Savior, we are “imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” In other words, we keep growing up in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord and rejoice to be “counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name” of our Savior, Jesus the Christ, the Son of the living God.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)