What is the beginning of righteousness?

So one can be rightous only to a god?

Your question is a bit weird.

If you mean to ask that only God is the authority on what is righteous then yes. As a Christian, God is the only authority of righteousness, and He declares what is and what is not righteous.

If your question is asked exactly as stated then no. If God deams someone righteous then I would see them as righteous as well. I can also “think” someone to be righteous but that does not mean I am correct.

If I didnt understand your question please clarify more.

The beginning of righteousness starts with the fear of God which is wisdom (Psa. 111:10, Prov. 9:10). This fear is “awe.” Despair soon follows and righteousness is then near (Luke 18: 10-14). Righteousness is derived through fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). passion

Ouch dude… you have twisted more of the bible in one post than I have seen people using many posts!

You are wrong!

Wisdom is NOT equated to Righteousness!

Fear is not faith either! If God presented Himself suddenly to anyone without Faith then their fear is manifest even while they have no faith! You may see a being or know a being and fear a being and still have NO FAITH in that very being!

Dude… I will wait for your response while you drill that foot out of your mouth!

Everytime when you see a debate that includes a priest, they always quote from the bible.

They should read more other religious, philosophical , and scientific texts because they have stop growing in learning. Check out Cicero the book of nature of the gods, or check out a different branch of christian texts, the book of mormons, won buddhism, lotus sutra.

Hi Astral. Thank you for your comments. You said, ”You are wrong! Wisdom is NOT equated to Righteousness!

I think it is. 1 Cor. 1:30 flatly states it: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:” (bold is mine). Luke 2:52 and also Luke 2:40 connect it. Acts 6:3 drives the point home and is raised again in Eph. 1:17. If you still think I’m wrong, please tell me why and please cite chapters and verses for your support.

You said, ” If God presented Himself suddenly to anyone without Faith then their fear is manifest even while they have no faith!”

But such persons “without faith” would be missing the required wisdom! You can’t obtain the wisdom without the requisite “fear” (as the Psa. 111:10 and Prov. 9:10 verses demonstrate). And then you have to deal with Phil. 2:12 which explicitly says; “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Thank you again for your comments Astral. Passion

passion.

I wish to tell you that one day you will be a great asisstant for you like to quote much. I will support you that the beginning of righteous is faith.
For what reason does a person has such faith in righteous? For one reason I believe, he hopes and expects something heavenly thing or treasure, something valuable he would like to possess.
Until one day he loses his patience then say, faith and righteousness what a senseless idea and a waste of time. This is my conclusion.

Aaron, waiting for Moses to return. Then one day he stops waiting. And thus the covenant is broken.

You must endure till the end. Who can endure to the end unto God?

Hi Dan02. Thank you for your comments. I appreciate it. You said; ”I wish to tell you that one day you will be a great asisstant for you like to quote much.”

I hear you. Yet, when reaching a conclusion based upon a Biblical argument, it is helpful and useful to back it up with the Biblical evidence to support the argument. That way, people can verify the veracity of the conclusion or refute it.

You said, ”I will support you that the beginning of righteous is faith.”

Yes, and meanwhile the righteousness of salvation is entirely dependent upon Christ’s faith rather than our own (Gal. 2:16, Rom. 3:22) because human faith is fallible and a “work” formed by a human ego which lacks certainty.

You said, ”For what reason does a person has such faith in righteous? For one reason I believe, he hopes and expects something heavenly thing or treasure, something valuable he would like to possess.”

Yes, you make a reasonable point Dan02. Humans are selfish, egotistical and fatally flawed so any attempt by man to “earn” his salvation (what you refer to as the “heavenly thing or treasure”) through his human efforts are doomed to failure (Eph. 2 verse eight). The “reward” is that Christ did all of these things on our behalf thereby freeing his elect from the impossible burden (bondage) of doing it ourselves.

You said, ”Until one day he loses his patience then say, faith and righteousness what a senseless idea and a waste of time. This is my conclusion.”

I hear you. Human effort to “earn” the reward of righteousness unto salvation is doomed to fail. That is why the reliance on Christ’s finished work is mandatory. Thank you again for your thoughts Dan02. I appreciate your thoughts. passion

Ok Dan and Passion. I can honestly say that I am not fully understanding your posts. But to help to clarify my position I will post some passages and give you the explanation of them. I will begin with how Faith is the begining of righteousness.

Romans 4:5
But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

This passage tells us that even though this person is a lazy person, and a person who says that things that are evil are good (justifies what is ungodly) His faith is still counted as a righteousness! This faith is not to be mistaken with otherkinds that I believe Passion was speaking of. Yes humans can have faith in the wrong things. But the entire intent of this verse is dealing with the primary Faith! Faith in God and no other!

Romans 3:28
Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

This passage states that no matter what lawful deeds he performs there is no Justification (righteousness counted) for him because he has no faith!

Next I will also provide another verse that exemplifies this in the reverse!

Romans 4:2
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

This is stating much the same as 3:28 but in a way that completely finishes the justification of what I said that passage means!

Therefore no matter which work you do or do not do. There will be no righteouness counted in you without any faith! Because of this… having faith is the very beginning of Righteousness!

Now… about the other post that Passion made regarding fear and wisdom. Yes it is stated that fear of the Lord is the begining of wisdom. However this still does not count as a faith in the Lord. Never have I read that anywhere in the bible that fear is equal to faith! Now this does not in any way discount the validity of your statement, but I would like to know what this has to do with Faith and Righteousness?

On concerning the 1 Cor. 1:30 passage you quoted. This passage is stating the attribute of Christ! Not us! and only in Him and through Him are we granted these. And this naturally requires that Faith come first. This once again reinforces my claim of Faith as the single starting point of righteouness.

You can perform every last speck of works that are good before God but if you have no faith then there is nothing with which to justify your works and therefore no righteousness counted in you!

You can have wisdom without righteousness!
You can have fear without faith!
Because of this I cannot see how they can apply to righteousness in the mannor you are presenting them.

I hope my passages and explanation help out.

Much of this have I already discussed on another board concerning Calvansim vs Arminianism. These two topics can furth expemplify this thread in bigger way.

Hi Astral. Thank you for you comments. I understand the gist of what you are saying. I’m pretty much with you in some parts. However, there are a few points I’d like to address.

You said, ” Therefore no matter which work you do or do not do. There will be no righteouness counted in you without any faith! Because of this… having faith is the very beginning of Righteousness!”

Who’s faith? Is it human faith or Christ’s faith? Human faith is flawed and therefore righteousness cannot be as you say, “counted in” a person by it. Only Christ’s faith is perfect and it His perfect faith which is conveyed to His elect that counts as making them righteous (Gal. 2:16, Rom. 3:22).

Man is entirely unrighteous of himself (Rom. 3:10-11). Only by virtue of Christ’s faith and righteousness already being conveyed to an individual, can that individual be deemed “righteous.” That conveyance was already secured at a time that was “before the foundations of the world” – before the world was even created (1 Pet. 1:20). So, the salvation of an elect individual was already foreordained even though that individual did not exist yet in the material empirical world.

You said, ”Now… about the other post that Passion made regarding fear and wisdom. Yes it is stated that fear of the Lord is the begining of wisdom. However this still does not count as a faith in the Lord. Never have I read that anywhere in the bible that fear is equal to faith!”

In your earlier post you said, ”You are wrong! Wisdom is NOT equated to Righteousness! This is an entirely different statement than the one you raise now which is, ”Never have I read that anywhere in the bible that fear is equal to faith!”.

Fortunately, 1 Cor. 1:30 sheds some light where wisdom and righteousness are connected (which was my previous response to your original comment). 1 Cor. 1:30 says “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:” (bold is mine). Thank you again for your comments Astral. I appreciate your taking the time. passion

What translation of Bible are you reading? My initial thoughts are that you got hold of a very bad translation. Something seems really wrong here. Please provide me with the type of bible you are referencing from and I will try to clear some things up.

After reading some of the verses you posted there seems to be something mistaken in your discerning of them. I use the KJV, its the most acurate translation I am aware of in english.

If you said faith is the beginning of righteous then you support my conclusion
does it matter where or how I presented them , I presented in a way simpler but at the end that you for your premises and conditional proofs
for my conclusion

the end

Hi Astral. Thank you for your follow up. You said, My initial thoughts are that you got hold of a very bad translation.

I use the KJV. It is an excellent translation.

You said, “After reading some of the verses you posted there seems to be something mistaken in your discerning of them…”

Not at all. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with what these verses mean or possibly because you asked different questions with each of your successive posts which may have caused you some confusion. For example, in your earlier post you said, ”You are wrong! Wisdom is NOT equated to Righteousness!" I responded to that post. You then responded, misquoting your original post by saying,”Never have I read that anywhere in the bible that fear is equal to faith!”. You can see your original statement that “wisdom is NOT equated to Righteousness!” is different than your follow up “Never have I read that anywhere in the Bible that fear is equal to faith!.” You misquoted yourself and that might be what is causing your perplexity. I did not say in my posts that “fear is equal to faith,” but rather that fear is the beginning of wisdom. If this is not the source of your confusion, then please ask me a specific question about my comments or about verses that I cited and I’d be happy to respond.

My sense is that you are misunderstanding what “faith” means as it relates to salvation. You seem to be placing emphasis on human faith as having substance in salvation, whereas I’m placing emphasis on the fact that it is Christ’s faith that has this substance (Gal. 2:16, Rom. 3:22). I’ll quote two of the verses I cited to support my position on this below, from the KJV, with my emphasis for your review. They say;

“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Gal. 2:16 (bold is mine)

”Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:… Rom. 3:22 (bold is mine)

So, according to these verses, it is Christ’s faith (faith OF Christ) not human faith that matters most, and this was the point that I raised a number of times in my previous posts. Thank you again for your comments Astral. Passion.

Faith-in-God is often, actually, faith-in-God’s-promised-rewards.

Meanwhile, there can be righteousness without faith – which is less motivated and less insane.

I personally think that righteousness is collectivism.

Make Guaradius king on earth!
He’s the bomb!

Lower forms consume life in order to live.
Higher forms gleen free energy.

We eat a plant or an animal. This is hypocracy sometimes, it is life killing life, though all life wants to live.

But then there are the higher beings, which recharge themselves by the ressonance of the stars. They never have to kill.

There is a problem…
The highest beings don’t exactly spend their life trying to save humanity from itself.

Would you try to save the lives of the bacteria on your toilet paper?
Nope.

So this is the problem with spiritualistic salvation.
Try to find a metaphysical species that you can get along with, then learn from it and worship it as best you can.

<3

Since none seem to be interested in trying to define righteousness in the light of perspectivism but only in how to attain it as it is aparently accepted as a Judaeo-Christian absolute, the answer cannot be much more complex than this; be nice to equal minded people and ignore the rest.

I think the problem is that you missed a nuance in your understanding. I can understand your confusion but you have not understood the verses correctly. I will do my best to help you out.

Gal 2
16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

You may think it strange but when that passage says “by the faith of Jesus Christ” it is not talking about Christs faith in you! It is actually talking about your Faith in Christ! This is one of the problems with the engrish language! It can be worded to cause a great deal of misunderstandings. This is one of the reasons a lot of research from german is never translated over. Simply to avoid mistakes such as this kind.

So your faith is of Jesus Christ. This is effectively labeling a specific kind of faith. Your faith and my Faith are of “Jesus Christ”. I hope this is explanatory enough for you. It works a bit like when God said that those who come to kill in My name are not Of me! Does this mean that Those who come to do good works in God name are of Him? It would appear so. Does this mean that we(our works) are now God? Not really.

Based on your interpretation there is no need to have faith in Christ to have righteouness because He already has faith in us! If this was already the case all people will be going to heaven and none will perish in hell.

In very simple terms. Your faith in Christ is named “Faith of Jesus Christ”. This means you have faith in Christ! And your faith while it may not be perfect is still REQUIRED!

This does not mean in the least that I am implying that Christ has no faith in us… because He does, and yes it is important! If Christ has not faith in us we would all perish! But none-the-less it is best to not missunderstand what these things mean.

Having Faith of Jesus Christ is just another way of saying having Faith in Jesus Christ! The ‘of’ merely denotes that there is a name for your faith!

Now… on the part about you saying that I missquoted. I really did not and let me explain my reasonings.

This is what you wrote in a previous post.

The beginning of righteousness starts with the fear of God which is wisdom (Psa. 111:10, Prov. 9:10). This fear is “awe.” Despair soon follows and righteousness is then near (Luke 18: 10-14). Righteousness is derived through fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12). passion

In your first sentence you equated righteousness with fear and with wisdom. Your equation looks like this to me… righteousness=fear=wisdom. And since there is no righteousness without faith we can add it to the equation to make it look like this… faith=righteousness=fear=wisdom.

I was thinking collectively but failed to point out why. This is my mistake and I apologize for not making it clearer in my reply.

You obviously know many things about the bible. It has been really fun chatting with you!

Hi Astral. Thank you for your comments and follow up. I appreciate it. You said, ”Based on your interpretation there is no need to have faith in Christ to have righteouness because He already has faith in us!

Rather, it is because Christ’s faith was perfect to God and human faith is not. It has nothing to do with Christ’s “faith in us.” Humans are sinners. There are no righteous human beings - none are righteous no not one (Rom. 3:10). Therefore, human faith is not sufficient for purposes of salvation. And that is why it requires Christ’s perfect faith before God and not man’s faith which is an imperfect work (Eph. 2:5-8, 2 Tim. 1:9, Gal. 2:16, Rom. 3:22).

You said, “…Your faith in Christ is named “Faith of Jesus Christ”. This means you have faith in Christ! And your faith while it may not be perfect is still REQUIRED!

But that is not what the verses say. The verses say it is the “faith of Christ” (bold is mine). Furthermore, as you acknowledge, human faith is imperfect. As a result, that imperfection, no matter how minor (and it is major regardless) prevents any person from reaching the level of righteousness that salvation requires. And it is specifically for this reason that it requires Christ’s perfect and flawless faith to supercede our own imperfect and corrupted faith; and this is why humans need to be saved by some means other than our own works because human faith is a work, something that “we do” (1 Thes. 1:3) and is therefore flawed.

Human faith is frail, laden with failure, impure and extremely indecisive – even as Apostle Paul said of himself and all human beings (Rom. 7). Even the most notable of believers such as the apostles were said to have “little faith” (Matt. 8:26). Even where human faith can be demonstrated to be “great,” it is still only in the human sense which is insufficient to meet God’s perfect standard of salvation because “there is none righteous no not one” (Rom. 3:10) and ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23).

And since ALL fall short of the glory of God, then it can only mean that even those who have profound human faith and who are good deed doers fall positively short of the glory of God because these human beings are no less included in the “ALL” who fall short of the glory of GOD (Rom. 3:23). So, you can see that it requires Christ’s faith which does NOT fall short of the glory of GOD and furthermore that his faith is counted to our credit, although we certainly did not earn it and are not worthy of it. It is only by grace and mercy that we receive it.

You said,”This does not mean in the least that I am implying that Christ has no faith in us… because He does, and yes it is important!”

It’s not that Christ has faith in us, but rather that Christ loves us and because of that love he saves us (Rom. 5 verse eight). If you have any verses that specifically says that Christ has ”faith in us” please cite it and I’ll respond to it.

You said,”In your first sentence you equated righteousness with fear and with wisdom. Your equation looks like this to me… righteousness=fear=wisdom. And since there is no righteousness without faith we can add it to the equation to make it look like this… faith=righteousness=fear=wisdom. I was thinking collectively but failed to point out why. This is my mistake and I apologize for not making it clearer in my reply.

No apologies necessary at all Astral. Dialogue and debate is how people learn (2 Tim. 2:15, 2 Tim. 3:16). True philosophers as well as Christian thinkers not only engage in honest dialogue but encourage it! In addition, it is never easy to understand what a person might actually be saying given the nuances of etymology – especially so when typing! Nevertheless, although my original comment did not equate righteousness with fear and wisdom, I appreciate your explaining your construction and so, I’ll leave it at that. Thank you again for your comments and follow up Astral. I appreciate it. passion

Emotional sensitivity and reflective abilities play here, I believe, a key role. So it’s more a matter of becoming more and more alive - once you appreciate the state you don’t let yourself go against it too often and too much. And thus your sensitivity, and most importantly: moral sensitivity, develops. Not into any particular ethical system, but rather open-minded, open-hearted attitude that really needs not to be conceptualized, but rather lived more and more fully. Well, I think that generally that kind of morals is really worth talking about, granted you find best pleasure in things life-oriented.

Very nice. I find it hard to articulate this as well as you did. To open your heart to others by giving of yourself and paying it forward ---- living it. It IS the living-walk-the-walk of it – not just the (more common) talking-the-talk of it. The pleasure of this kind righteous life is deeply satisfying.

Thank you, I’m flattered.

Thought provoking, I have never thought that that way before. Women do have it!

I love the two dash-dash terms. Hope to remember them!

Again a new concept and a new shape of thought: “a pleasure that is deeply satysfying”. Poses some interesting questions, eg. the quality of pleasures, our attitudes to our sensations or, more broadly, offers at least refreshing view on a hedonistic lifestyle. AND, the whole sentence, gives you the fine taste of the righteous life.

Any suggestions as to the matter of some further petaliferous deliberation?

Beware!

Pawel