Righteousness AND The Righteous
Self-Righteousness AND The Self-Righteous
UnRighteousness AND The Un-Righteous
“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Yeshua ha Messiach is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.”
Strong stuff there. By this and many other verses we know that we must qualify to be counted among the saints.
Among the questions that I have is one that considers this point rather pointedly. Is obedience to the law (aka Torah) enough to be qualified?
Well, no. But don’t shoot me yet. Let’s take a look.
The rich young ruler. The Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes. A certain tax collector plus several others. But for now, let’s look at just the one tax collector: Zacchaeus.
But before we do, please go to biblegateway.com and with the NKJV look up the words “tax collector” and read all the passages.
Long Pause…..
Ok – let’s look at this:
“Then Yeshua entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Yeshua was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. And when Yeshua came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”
Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”
And Yeshua said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Folks, be VERY careful who you judge, no matter how they appear. Yeshua knew his name. Yes, Zacchaeus was seemingly “the worst of the worst.” He was a CHIEF tax collector. That is like, today, being a card-carrying democrat IRS agent. When was the last time you wanted to show mercy to one of those?
And consider this: Yeshua knew his name. He was one of the lost ones of Israel. Yeshua sought him out and began the work of saving him.
Before they knew anything about Zacchaeus or his repentant heart, the law-keeping religious folks decided to judge both him and Yeshua. While Yeshua knew what was going on with Zacchaeus, they did not. Would you want to be counted with Zacchaeus, or with them? YHWH seeks a repentant, broken, and willing heart, mind, and soul.
Further, Zacchaeus proved his repentance by adhering to the Spirit of the Law. He was very rich; but he first gave half of his possessions to the poor. With the other half he paid back everyone he had ever wronged. He had turned from his unrighteousness to righteousness. Thus, Yeshua named him a son of Abraham. From the stone that was Zacchaeus, YHWH raised up a son. Zacchaeus had coupled his belief that Yeshua was the Messiach with the works fitting of repentance.
So, what qualifies us? Ask a dozen different believers and you’ll get a dozen different answers. But the Word gives us very specific answers.
It’s clear from the Word that righteousness is one of the main qualifiers. And righteousness has a very close relationship with obedience. In the case of Zacchaeus, did they, the religious “law keepers” consider themselves to be obedient and righteous? Assuredly, they did; and they believed that this gave them the right to have no mercy on those who they perceived of not living up to their righteousness. The Truth is, we simply can’t understand true righteousness unless we first have an understanding of true mercy. And this understanding of true mercy can only come by the understanding provided by the Spirit of YHWH as the result of the provision by Yeshua of His blood (Luke 24 – read it carefully and thoroughly!)
The Scriptures define for us exactly what is required to qualify to abide in His presence:
“Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill? He who walks uprightly, And works righteousness, And speaks the truth in his heart; He who does not backbite with his tongue, does not do evil to his neighbor, (and) does not take up a reproach against his friend;”
But how do we get there? That is the question, and the Word provides numerous answers. But here is the starting point:
“My son, if you:
- Receive my words
- Treasure my commands within you
- Incline your ear to wisdom
- Apply your heart to understanding;
- Cry out for discernment,
- Lift up your voice for understanding,
- Seek her (understanding) as silver,
- Search for her as forhidden treasures;
- Then:
You will understand the fear of the Lord,
And find the knowledge of God.
“For the Lord gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk uprightly;
He guards the paths of justice,
And preserves the way of His saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice,
Equity and every good (Way).”
Folks, YHWH, by His Word, just gave us a step-by-step instruction that is married and sealed with a promise! Can you see it? Look again – carefully – please!
Do you want to understand the righteousness and justice that will qualify you being of His ecclesia, a saint, and a son or daughter of YHWH and brother or sister of the King Yeshua? Then follow the instructions!
Yeshua ha Messiach came to teach us two basic things:
- The Kingdom of YHWH will come to restore the Earth, and,
- Some few people can be a part of that Kingdom if they are called and they follow His instructions
So let’s look at the Word and see what some of these instructions are that He gave to us by the Spirit of His Word:
Genesis 18:19 – “For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the Way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him.”
- YHWH knew Abraham from the beginning for the purpose that Abraham would command his household in the Way of Righteousness and Justice. These two go hand-in-hand and are necessary in order for YHWH to fulfill His promise. No righteousness and justice, no promise. Think about this. It is a covenant, and requires two sides. Both sides have an obligation.
Leviticus 19:15 – “‘You shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.’”
- YHWH requires that we utilize justice in our judgement. We are prohibited from treating one person any differently from another. Righteousness is righteousness and evil is evil, no matter who is demonstrating one or the other. Are we to prefer one another in the ecclesia? Certainly! But if someone of the ecclesia demonstrates unrighteousness then we are to call them on it, whether poor or rich or popular. And we must show equivalent justice in judgment to the unpopular and the poor in spirit.
Deuteronomy 9:5 – “It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
- Huge lesson here. Is our own righteousness anything aside from His? No. We are just branches. YHWH is the ground and the root and the trunk and the sun and the rain and the air, without which our branches just wither and die, or never exist to begin with. He imparts His righteousness to those who He chooses for His purpose, which is to drive the wicked from His Land, the works of His Hands from the beginning. With this in mind, we must maintain the humility (contrite heart) that makes us malleable for His work. Humility is essential to walking in righteousness and justice.
Deuteronomy 24:13 – “You shall in any case return the pledge to him again when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his own garment and bless you; and it shall be righteousness to you before the Lord your God.”
- Think about the Spirit of this one for a minute. Yeshua said to give and to expect nothing in return and that we are to forgive each other our debts. In fact, we are told to deliver others from their debts (break their bonds). Do we deprive others, in any way, because we feel that they owe us something? It can be physical or personal. Do we hold grudges because we believe that someone “owes us an explanation” or some such thing? When the sun goes down – or better yet before – forgive them and release them. It will be righteousness to you because this is mercy, and because it shows that we do not rely on others for our life. We must demonstrate that we rely only on YHWH for our life and our well-being, and that we are good stewards of what He has leant to us for the purpose of helping others.
1 Samuel 26:23 – “May the Lord repay every man for his righteousness and his faithfulness; for the Lord delivered you into my hand today, but I would not stretch out my hand against the Lord’s anointed.” Cont’d: 2 Samuel 22:25 – “Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to my cleanness in His eyes.”
- Students of the Word should know the story behind these verses. Saul was the evil-spirit influenced (perhaps possessed) first King of Israel who conspired with witches and who constantly tried to kill David. David had every logical reason and opportunity to “take Saul out.” Saul was a conflicted, and some would say, evil man. But Samuel, the prophet of YHWH, had anointed Saul to be King of Israel. Saul would disobey YHWH and then blame it on the people of Israel instead of humbling himself and taking responsibility. Seemingly, not a contrite heart. But David trusted YHWH and would not touch His anointed. Saul’s son Jonathan witnessed this and loved David. So think about this: The contrite of Heart will pray and consider deeply that they do not know what YHWH plans for those who have authority over us. Look at Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar.
There is a way of righteousness that is taught throughout the Word of YHWH. More accurately, there is The Way of Righteousness that is written by men by the guidance of the Spirit of YHWH throughout the Scriptures and then demonstrated by Yeshua and the Apostles in the New Testament. This is the Way that Yeshua spoke of when He said, “I am THE Way…no one comes to the Father but by Me.” There is no other Way by which we may dwell in the assembly of YHWH. In the Book of the Psalms, The Way of Righteousness is dictated to us by men of YHWH over and over again. But keep the eyes of your understanding open – many of these verses are speaking of the future Kingdom that will come:
Psalm 4:1 – Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer.
Psalm 4:5 – Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.
Psalm 5:8 – Lead me, O Lord, in Your righteousness because of my enemies; Make Your way straight before my face.
Psalm 9:7-9 – But the Lord shall endure forever; He has prepared His throne for judgment. He shall judge the world in righteousness, and He shall administer judgment for the peoples in uprightness. The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.
Psalm 11:7 – For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness; His countenance beholds the upright.
Psalm 15:1-3 – Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill? He who walks uprightly, And works righteousness, And speaks the truth in his heart; He who does not backbite with his tongue, Nor does evil to his neighbor, Nor does he take up a reproach against his friend;
Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness. (The righteous will be re-made like Yeshua with glorified bodies “like the angels”.)
Psalm 18:20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me.
Psalm 23:3 He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. (He will restore the souls of the righteous in glorified bodies.)
Psalm 24:5 He shall receive blessing from the Lord, And righteousness from the God of his salvation.
Psalm 31:1 In You, O Lord, I put my trust; Let me never be ashamed; Deliver me in Your righteousness.
Psalm 33:5 He loves righteousness and justice; The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord. (Prophetic)
Psalm 35:24 Vindicate me, O Lord my God, according to Your righteousness; And let them not rejoice over me.
Psalm 35:28 And my tongue shall speak of Your righteousness And of Your praise all the day long. (Prophetic).
Psalm 36:6 Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O Lord, You preserve man and beast.
Psalm 36:10 Oh, continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You, And Your righteousness to the upright in heart.
Psalm 37:6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, And your justice as the noonday. (Prophetic)
Psalm 40:9 I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness In the great assembly; Indeed, I do not restrain my lips, O Lord, You Yourself know. (Hmmm…so righteousness is the good news!)
Psalm 40:10 I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart; I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth From the great assembly. (Righteousness is lovingkindness and His truth!)
Psalm 45:4 And in Your majesty ride prosperously because of truth, humility, and righteousness; And Your right hand shall teach You awesome things.
Psalm 45:7 You love righteousness and hate wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions. (So, how do we get “oil for our lamps”?)
“You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor;
My adversaries are all before You.
Reproach has broken my heart,
And I am full of heaviness;
I looked for someone to take pity, but there was none;
And for comforters, but I found none.
They also gave me gall for my food,
And for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
Let their table become a snare before them,
And their well-being a trap.
Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see;
And make their loins shake continually.
Pour out Your indignation upon them,
And let Your wrathful anger take hold of them.
Let their dwelling place be desolate;
Let no one live in their tents.
For they persecute the ones You have struck,
And talk of the grief of those You have wounded.
Add iniquity to their iniquity,
And let them not come into Your righteousness.
Let them be blotted out of the book of the living,
And not be written with the righteous.
But I am poor and sorrowful;
Let Your salvation, O God, set me up on high.” Psalm 69:19-29
Folks, I’m not going to copy and paste every mention of righteousness in the Word of God. Yeshua said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Get your bibles, your concordances, and whatever else you need to seek out this righteousness with ALL of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. We must empty our cups of everything that we think that we know so that we may be filled with the true understanding of righteousness.
So, returning to the title of this chapter, what are self-righteousness and un-righteousness? In my opinion, there are many similarities between these two. But the fact remains that if we are judged as being either self-righteous or un-righteous, the final result is pretty much the same in either case.
The key to this, as demonstrated in the Word, is that where we concerned, our righteousness has two sides. One is what we do in and of ourselves, and the other is what we do or don’t do to others.
This is demonstrated by Yeshua numerous times, but let’s look at two occasions for now, namely, the rich young ruler and the Pharisees.
The rich young ruler kept the whole of the Law (aka Torah) spotlessly. It’s even written that Yeshua loved him. But he lacked two things to be counted among the Saints: He was selfish and he needed to deny himself and follow Yeshua. In this, Yeshua showed no partiality to this young man who kept the Law. But the rich young ruler was not ready to lay down his life for others and for Yeshua, and he went away sad. He thought that his self-righteousness was sufficient.
With the Pharisees, Yeshua taught a different lesson:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.”
The Word doesn’t tell us that Yeshua loved these Pharisees (even though He would lay down His life for them as well, showing no partiality.) In fact, He called these guys all kinds of names; sons of their father the devil, vipers, hypocrites, you name it. In the case of the verse above, they were practicing both self-righteousness and unrighteousness.
This is further demonstrated here:
Then the Pharisees and scribes asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands?” He answered and said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far from Me.
And in vain they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men —the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do.”
He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”—’ (that is, a gift to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!”
It’s clear that the Pharisees were practicing un-righteousness and teaching others to do the same and this resulted in nullifying the commandment of YHWH. They were not demonstrating mercy and justice to their mothers and their fathers for self-righteous reasons.
Paul gives a detailed writing about unrighteousness here (and in other places) as well as showing the root source of unrighteousness:
“Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who “will render to each one according to his deeds”: eternal life (as a son or daughter of YHWH) to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.”
So, whether self-righteous or un-righteous, the root cause is the same:
Self.
It’s no wonder then that Yeshua said that we must first deny our self before we can follow Him and be a disciple. Forsake ALL that we have. New wineskins. Reckon the old man dead. Put off the old man and put on ha Messiach.
The works of self are unrighteousness. Taking the Word of God as a whole, there is no way around this fact.
The indisputable teaching of the Word is this: If we do not have the Spirit of self-denial, which is agape, then we can not have His righteousness.
And if we do not have His righteousness, then we are not His.
No one can serve two masters. We can not be our own master and also say that Yeshua and His Spirit are also our Master.
Folks, we’ve been taught bunk all of our lives. We’ve been taught that there is a creature out there named Lucifer who is our chief enemy and who we must fight to the death. But the fact is, the Word shows us, from the beginning, that our chief adversary is our Self. And the spirit of the Adversary, which we mistakenly always refer to as “Satan,” is the spirit of self. We will prove all things concerning this horrible dilemma in the next section. Shalom!