Lookahead:  So what did these righteous men all have in common?  They zealously sought God on a continual, exclusionary basis, skipping the worldly detours—even when they had faith challenges.  A bonified Kingdom Occupier (KO) continually seeks God, and also HIS righteousness.  When KOs are routinely awestruck and serving the most perfect example of righteousness, it’s bound to rub off on them sooner or later.  I don’t think righteousness is anything that they work for—it just becomes a natural by-product or offshoot of seeing what the King is up to each day.  Basically, they embrace His desires/priorities/ LOVE as they watch Him at work.

For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:17

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and HIS righteousness and all these things will be added unto you. Matt 6:33 (my underline)

Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:33 clarify that it’s HIS righteousness and in Romans 14:17—yup—I believe Paul was referring to HIS righteousness.

Jesus’ comment almost seems to indicate that the righteousness of God is something separate from the Kingdom of God.  But I also believe that it is a Kingdom state like the peace and joy companions—we are serving the most righteous King ever, and that’s part and parcel of Kingdom life.  Delving further into righteousness…

What does the righteousness term mean to the average American?  I was accessing the cobwebbed memory cells in my brain to determine whether my recollection was correct:  that years ago, “righteous” was used to refer to good drugs or the resulting high. Googling it came up with the factoid that the term “righteous” was often associated with surfers in the 80s (maybe they used it to refer to favorable wave conditions?). I also saw a sample quote showing its contextual usage: “Did you see Chuck Norris kick all those guys in the head ? That was righteous!”  So that may be the secular interpretation of what “righteous” means; and I guess I could add the Websterian take on/to that, which says things like “the quality of morally right or justifiable, fair, just (i.e., based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair).”

Having said that, what does righteousness mean to the typical Christian?  Well, maybe we should start with the atypical.  In my personal experience, after running from Jesus for about eight years, I suddenly came to the realization that I was not doing right things.  I was doing wrong (wicked) things.  An extreme revelatory moment occurred, during which I instantly became aware that this wrong behavior would lead to my destruction.  This happened two days after I was permitted a microscopic glimpse of God’s Infinite Peace—that completely rocked my world then and since.  After this supernatural experience, I had stubbornly committed my habitual sin once again.  But this time I found myself overwhelmed with and actually incapacitated by guilt.  In that AH-HAH moment, I finally realized that unrighteousness is sin—and that sin leads to death.  And I presently realize that—the day I finally surrendered to Jesus and welcomed Him into my heart, I (forever thankfully) received His righteousness. 

Off the topic of moi…and deep-delving into Old Testament Hebrew:  the first occurrence of the word “righteous” is in Gen 7:1 when God is speaking about Noah—Then the LORD said to Noah, “Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.” The Hebrew adjective is צַדִּיק meaning (includes root definitions) “just, just towards men, having just cause, righteous in government (in administering the law), vindicated/justified, made right.”

Psalm 50:6 And the heavens shall declare His righteousness: for God is judge Himself. Selah.

This verse captures it somewhat.  Righteousness is doing right.  God decides or judges what is right.  But righteousness is not judgment and justice.  There are other words for that.  God is always doing right versus doing wrong; he additionally communicates to us what is right.  In the New Testament Greek, it’s dikaiosuneh meaning divine righteousness.  Finally, righteousness is different than holiness—with the latter meaning set apart, clean, pure.  My opinion, we human beings ain’t wired for holiness.  But my position on the subject is in agreement with http://www.gotquestions.org: “’Without holiness no one will see the Lord’ (Hebrews 12:14). The difference between God and us is that He is inherently holy while we, on the other hand, only become holy in relationship to Christ and we only increase in practical holiness as we mature spiritually. The New Testament emphasizes the pursuit of holiness in this world and the final attainment of holiness in the world to come.”   

Back on topic, what would the typical Christian believe that righteousness means (as referred to in Matthew 6:33 and Romans 14:17)?  Well, letting scripture interpret scripture, who, among men, did God consider to be righteous? After a whirlwind word search on Blue Letter Bible, I was surprised to see that only a handful of people were referred to as being righteous in scripture!  They ranged from Abel to John the Baptist on the Bible Timeline—and Jesus singled out both of these men:  Matt 23:34,5… And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah…(my underline); Matt 21:32 For John came to you [walking] in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did believe him…

Paul corroborated Jesus’ assessment of Abel’s righteousness in Heb 11:4: By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous. Paul also quoted from Genesis a few times in his epistles:  For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Romans 4:3

Finally, God the Father Himself referenced three righteous men—in speaking about the coming judgment of Jerusalem, through His prophet, Ezekiel:   Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in (Jerusalem), they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD… Ez 14:14.

So what did these righteous men all have in common?  They zealously sought God on a continual, exclusionary basis, skipping the worldly detours—even when they had faith challenges.  A bonified Kingdom Occupier (KO) continually seeks God, and also HIS righteousness.  When KOs are routinely awestruck and serving the most perfect example of righteousness, it’s bound to rub off on them sooner or later.  I don’t think righteousness is anything that they work for—it just becomes a natural by-product or offshoot of seeing what the King is up to each day.  Basically, they embrace His desires/priorities/ LOVE as they watch Him at work.  They choose to seek the King’s Righteousness as a top priority—and He never disappoints.  And in fact, Kingdom Occupiers (KOs) understand that all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags (sorry—AKA menstrual cloths) Isaiah 64:6—and that nothing we can do is going to be able to reach God’s bar height.  But they also mercifully understand that…He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2 Corin 5:21  Because of the infinitely wondrous gift of Jesus Christ we are now considered perfectly righteous in the eyes of God.  We stop striving to be better because we realize that all we have to do is yield to God’s power.  This understanding contributes to the state of Kingdom Peace they rest in—no longer in a state of cavernous separation (war with?) from God.

A KO will do what God says.  This often may reduce down to being the human-in-loop in any given situation.  IAW Spiritual Laws, human intervention is frequently needed to accomplish God’s work.  I myself can confirm that (Kingdom Post #28) what He’s told us to do may make no sense.  But when we view it in hindsight, we (and others) will understand that we saw His heart in action.  And we will experience His joy and peace throughout the process.  As an aside, I’m sure you’ve heard the one about the pastor’s wife who debated vigorously with God, then finally submitted and did a cartwheel in a conservative church service—while a man was silently saying to God that he would only believe that He was real if someone did a cartwheel! 😊

We have previously identified prerequisites for Kingdom entry as (a) being a Child of God, and (b) trusting in God to handle every Kingdom-related aspect in our lives. So as a KO initiate, we will already understand that we have the righteousness of God in Christ and we will completely trust that He was the propitiation for all our sins, past, present and future. Consequently we will consider any- and everything in our lives as secondary to the fulfillment of our longing to experience His Righteousness and His Kingdom-on-earth.