Monday, July 3, 2023

Charles Lee Irons on the Intimate Relationship between Ethical and Legal Righteousness

  

When “righteousness” is used as a status term, that is, in reference to someone’s righteousness before God, it means either that God has taken note of the person’s actual moral/behavioral righteousness (e.g., Deut 24:13; Ps 18:20-24), or that he has graciously reckoned righteousness to their account so that they are now, treated and regarded as if they were in fact ethically righteous in his sight. (Charles Lee Irons, “ΔΙΚΑΙΟΣΥΝΗ ΘΕΟΥ: A Lexical Examination of the Covenant-Faithfulness Interpretation” [PhD Dissertation; Fuller Theological Seminary, May 2011], 164)

 

 

Deut 24:10-13:

“When you make your neighbor a loan of any sort, you shall not go into his house to collect his pledge. 11 You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you make the loan shall bring the pledge out to you. 12 And if he is a poor man, you shall not sleep in is pledge. 13 You shall restore to him the pledge as the sun sets, that he may sleep in his cloak and bless you. And it shall be righteousness for you (וּלְךָ֙ תִּהְיֶ֣ה צְדָקָ֔ה/και εσται σοι ελεημοσυνη) before the LORD you God” (ESV)

 

This special category of “righteousness before God” is significant, because it shows that although one can discern a broad distinction between legal righteousness and ethical righteousness, there is actually overlap between the two point. For “righteousness before God” is neither purely ethical nor purely legal. In some cases, such as Gen 15:6, it is purely legal. In most other cases, it is both ethical and legal, that is, the ethical righteousness is the basis of the legal recognition of that righteousness in the divine course. (Ibid., 165)

 

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