Information Related to "Rightly Understanding 'Justification' and 'Righteousness'"
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The words righteous or righteousness in English translations of the Scriptures describe primarily personal character as demonstrated in appropriate behavior. But justify, justified and justification have a slightly different focus.
Scholars, while correctly defining justification as meaning "to impute righteousness" or "to be declared righteous," may draw wrong conclusions from these definitions. Though not technically inaccurate, using the English words righteous and righteousness in defining or describing justification sometimes obscures important contextual and behavioral distinctions between how Paul in particular uses the words righteousness and justification.
In Paul's letters the focus of justification is mostly on the legal acquittal of guilt, while righteousness is used mostly in reference to virtuous character. Justification-being legally declared free from guilt-does not instantly make one perfectly righteous. Paul makes it very clear that growth in godly righteousness is a process.
That process starts with baptism, "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ" (Galatians 3:27). But attaining the mature righteousness of Jesus Christ is a goal toward which we must continue to strive. It is not bequeathed to us instantaneously but comes through a spiritual growth process as we learn from the Scriptures through the guidance of others who have preceded us in Christ.
"And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head-Christ" (Ephesians 4:11-15).
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