It is one thing to know that God is sovereign and so rules the world by his own will. This is a truth about God which we are glad to know. The law to which men are bound is God’s law – not a law that is “above Him” but a law that is “within Him.” 9 And this standard, being nothing other than the nature and will of God, is the standard to which the immutable God has bound himself: he acts always in a way that is consistent with his own perfection. Righteousness consists in glorifying God and nothing less. It is for this reason man’s “unrighteousness” ( adikia, Rom 1:18) is described in terms of “not glorifying God as God” (v. John Piper captures this well when he argues that Paul “conceive of God’s righteousness as his unswerving faithfulness always to preserve and display the glory of his name.” 8 God is ever concerned to glorify himself in all that he does, and his “righteousness” tells us just that. In the words of Mastrict, “God is proto-, in fact auto-dikaion.” 7 God in his own perfection is the essence and standard of what is right. But viewing the question from the vantage point of biblical theism, the answer is not at all speculative: God is sovereign, and as such it is his nature and will that constitute the very essence of righteousness. “For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn around and walk away from us.” 5 In light of the unpredictability and inconsistencies and the disagreements among Plato’s many gods, 6 and given his non-biblical frame of reference, his frustration is understandable. In his Dialogue with Euthyphro he appears frustrated at his inability to come to any certain conclusion as to “whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.” For him, the answer was illusive. Interestingly, Plato rather blindly grappled at some length with this question. He acts only and always according to the very highest principle of justice: himself. It is God’s own nature and will that determine what is right and wrong, and when Scripture affirms that God is righteous it assures us that God always conforms to himself – he faithfully adheres to his own perfections. That righteous standard to which God conforms is himself. Of course there could be no standard above God. The idea is not that God is bound to some abstract rule external to himself – that would imply that there is some standard above God himself, some superior rule to which he must conform. 4 It is that aspect of his holiness which distinguishes him as consistent with his own moral demands. A righteous man is one who is right and who does what is suitable, one who maintains a “right relation with” 2 what is expected.įor this reason, theologians have described God’s righteousness as the ethical dimension of his holiness, or as his “transitive holiness,” 3 or as a “mode” of his holiness. One who is righteous “lives up” to expected obligations he acts in accordance with what should be done. He is a “righteous judge” (2Tim 4:8).īut how shall we understand this attribute of righteousness that is so characteristic of God? The primary words which the biblical writers use ( tsedek and dikaiosune) denote, in a physical sense, “being straight,” or in a moral sense, “being right,” and hence, “conformity to an ethical or moral standard,” 1 being and doing what is right. “The judge of all the earth shall do right” (Gen 18:25). Righteousness is essential to his very being and characterizes all that he does: God is morally and ethically right, and he acts only in keeping with what is right and just. That is, he is himself right, just, and true. The Psalmist declares that “righteousness and justice” ( tsedek and mishpat) are the foundation of God’s throne.
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