God’s Right­eous­ness and Forgiveness

Many people today think that right­eous­ness and mercy are two con­flict­ing aspects of God’s char­ac­ter. It is claimed that on the one hand God’s right­eous­ness requires him to pun­ish sin, on the oth­er hand he is mer­ci­ful and wants to for­give and not to pun­ish the sin­ner. This idea of a con­flict between God’s right­eous­ness and mercy has shaped the concept of sal­va­tion held by many people today.

In this art­icle we want to show that no such con­flict exists with­in God and that Jesus was not sent to solve it. Jesus was born as a man, lived obed­i­ently, died, and rose again so as to be a per­fect medi­at­or between man and God. He came to offer us a rela­tion­ship with the Fath­er and with himself—a rela­tion­ship whose seal is etern­al life. The bib­lic­al expres­sion “right­eous­ness” or “justice” must be under­stood in the con­text of a rela­tion­ship, and not as an imper­son­al leg­al prin­ciple which must be fulfilled.

1 God’s Right­eous­ness, Faith­ful­ness and Mercy

People often asso­ci­ate God’s right­eous­ness with his unbiased and impar­tial judg­ments. This aspect of God’s right­eous­ness is expressed in pas­sages such as the following:

Man is humbled, and each one is brought low,
and the eyes of the haughty are brought low.
But the Lord of hosts is exal­ted in justice,
and the Holy God shows him­self holy in right­eous­ness (Hebrew: tsedaqah). (Isai­ah 5:15–16)

The times of ignor­ance God over­looked, but now he com­mands all people every­where to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in right­eous­ness (Greek: dikaio­syne) by a man whom he has appoin­ted; and of this he has giv­en assur­ance to all by rais­ing him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30–31)

The mean­ing of the Hebrew word for right­eous­ness tsedaqah and the cor­res­pond­ing Greek word dikaio­syne, which occur in the Bible pas­sages above, is not lim­ited to “unbiased and impar­tial judge­ment”. This ought to come of no sur­prise when we take the rich­ness of God’s being as our start­ing point. If we want to under­stand God’s right­eous­ness, we can­not neg­lect the fact that God is love (1 John 4:16). There is no con­tra­dic­tion in God’s being. There­fore we can­not sep­ar­ate and con­trast God’s right­eous­ness^[1] with His mer­ci­ful­ness, faith­ful­ness, good­ness, grace, forgiveness—that is, with everything His love implies.

For the Jews of the bib­lic­al times these terms were not con­tra­dict­ory either but in their lan­guage, Hebrew, the word “right­eous­ness” had a wider mean­ing and expressed vari­ous aspects of the rela­tion­ship among people and between God and man. One fact is worth men­tion­ing in this con­text: when the Jews trans­lated the Old Test­a­ment from Hebrew into Greek (known as the Sep­tuagint), the trans­lat­ors rendered the Hebrew word for right­eous­ness (tsedaqah) mostly as “justice” (dikaio­syne) but occa­sion­ally also as “mercy”.^[2] In some oth­er pas­sages they also trans­lated the Hebrew word for grace (chesed) into Greek as dikaio­syne (right­eous­ness, justice).^[3] They felt free to do this because they did not regard right­eous­ness, grace, and mercy as con­tra­dict­ory.^[4]

By look­ing at sev­er­al bib­lic­al examples we would like to point out how God’s right­eous­ness is con­nec­ted with His help, faith­ful­ness, good­ness, and even with His mercy.

Let’s look at an example from the life of a right­eous man in the Old Test­a­ment to illus­trate our point:

After­wards Dav­id also arose and went out of the cave, and called after Saul, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, Dav­id bowed with his face to the earth and paid homage. And Dav­id said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of men who say, ‘Behold, Dav­id seeks your harm’? Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, ‘I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s anoin­ted.’” …As soon as Dav­id had fin­ished speak­ing these words to Saul, Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son Dav­id?” And Saul lif­ted up his voice and wept. He said to Dav­id, “You are more right­eous than I, for you have repaid me good, where­as I have repaid you evil.” (1 Samuel 24:8–10,16–17)

Driv­en by jeal­ousy, King Saul per­se­cuted Dav­id into the desert. On his way Saul went into a cave to “relieve him­self”. He was unaware that Dav­id was hid­ing in the cave—a unique oppor­tun­ity for Dav­id to elim­in­ate his arch enemy and repay him right­eously. Dav­id’s com­pan­ions promp­ted him to act: “And the men of Dav­id said to him, ‘Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, “Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.”’ Then Dav­id arose and stealth­ily cut off a corner of Saul’s robe.” (1 Samuel 24:4) Dav­id acted right­eously, but not in the sense of pun­ish­ing justly. His “heart struck him” (verse 5), and he was not will­ing to do Saul any harm. Dav­id was mer­ci­ful and showed that he wanted the best for Saul, even though Saul did not deserve it. Faced with Dav­id’s mercy, Saul acknow­ledged that he was “more right­eous”. If Dav­id, a god-fearing man, saw no con­tra­dic­tion in show­ing mercy to Saul instead of pun­ish­ing him justly, how much less does it con­tra­dict God’s right­eous­ness for him, the Fath­er of mer­cies^[5] to have mercy on the undeserving?

1.1 God’s Right­eous­ness Towards His Nation

In one of the most des­per­ate peri­ods of Jew­ish his­tory, Daniel prayed for his nation:

To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fath­ers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and for­give­ness, for we have rebelled against him…. There­fore the Lord has kept ready the calam­ity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is right­eous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. (Daniel 9:8–9 & 14)

He con­tin­ues:

…we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, accord­ing to all your right­eous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jer­u­s­alem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquit­ies of our fath­ers, Jer­u­s­alem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. (Daniel 9:16)

In the Hebrew text the same word “right­eous” occurs both in verse 14 and verse 16 (see under­lined). Verse 14 speaks about God’s right­eous judge­ment, while in verse 16 Daniel, who is con­fid­ent of God’s loy­alty to his cov­en­ant, asks for mercy in accord­ance with God’s right­eous acts. The reas­on he does this is that in the Old Test­a­ment God’s right­eous­ness is not lim­ited to his impar­tial judge­ment. It expresses his faith­ful­ness to his cov­en­ant and his prom­ises. His right­eous­ness is mag­ni­fied because he remains faith­ful even though his people are unfaith­ful. He for­gives them and ful­fils his prom­ises although his nation had failed.

In anoth­er pas­sage God says the following:

Listen to me, you stub­born of heart,
you who are far from righteousness:
I bring near my right­eous­ness; it is not far off,
and my sal­va­tion will not delay;
I will put sal­va­tion in Zion,
for Israel my glory. (Isai­ah 46:12–13)

Here the Jews are reproached for being stubborn-minded and far from right­eous­ness. They were unworthy of receiv­ing God’s for­give­ness. Nev­er­the­less, in His faith­ful­ness and love, God grants them sal­va­tion and glory. In this pas­sage God’s right­eous­ness is a par­al­lel­ism for his sal­va­tion and does not stand for judgement.

From the pre­vi­ous and sev­er­al oth­er pas­sages we can see that for the Jews God’s right­eous­ness was not in any way at odds with His grace and for­give­ness. On the contrary—by show­ing mercy God con­firms his right­eous­ness because he proves to be faith­ful even when people are not faith­ful.^[6]

When God made a cov­en­ant with his nation he prom­ised to be with them, to lead them and to reveal him­self to them. In return, the Jews also prom­ised to obey him, to fol­low him and be faith­ful to him, to have no oth­er gods beside him. This faith­ful­ness, from both man and God, is also called “right­eous­ness” in the Bible. It is right­eous when God and man behave towards one anoth­er as they prom­ised.^[7]

1.2 God’s Right­eous­ness Towards Indi­vidu­als in the Old Testament

Indi­vidu­als in the Old Test­a­ment testi­fy about God’s right­eous­ness which they exper­i­enced through his for­give­ness and grace. In a psalm we read:

Have mercy on me, O God, accord­ing to your stead­fast love;
accord­ing to your abund­ant mercy blot out my trans­gres­sions. (Psalm 51:1)

These words are a plea for for­give­ness for a grave sin. The psalm­ist knew that, being a sin­ner, he has no right to demand mercy, and God’s judge­ment is just:

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you may be jus­ti­fied in your words and blame­less in your judge­ment. (Psalm 51:4)

How­ever, the psalm­ist, filled with regret for his sin, trusts alone in God’s mercy. He knows that he can­not offer any com­pens­a­tion for his sin. He can only hope for the free gift of for­give­ness from God:

Deliv­er me from bloodguilt­i­ness, O God, O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
For you will not delight in sac­ri­fice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sac­ri­fices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and con­trite heart, O God, you will not des­pise. (Psalm 51:14–17)

The psalmist’s sure hope led him to sing joy­fully of God’s right­eous­ness. When God grants grace his faith­ful­ness is dis­played and his right­eous­ness confirmed.

Like­wise, in anoth­er psalm we read that the author was deeply con­scious of his numer­ous sins. Yet, he asks God to pre­serve him accord­ing to his faith­ful­ness, lov­ing­kind­ness, com­pas­sion and sal­va­tion. He pro­claims these as God’s right­eous­ness as an encour­age­ment to many:

I have pro­claimed glad tid­ings of right­eous­ness in the great con­greg­a­tion; Behold, I will not restrain my lips, O LORD, You know. I have not hid­den Your right­eous­ness with­in my heart; I have spoken of Your faith­ful­ness and Your sal­va­tion; I have not con­cealed Your lov­ing­kind­ness and Your truth from the great con­greg­a­tion. You, O LORD, will not with­hold Your com­pas­sion from me; Your lov­ing­kind­ness and Your truth will con­tinu­ally pre­serve me. For evils bey­ond num­ber have sur­roun­ded me; My iniquit­ies have over­taken me, so that I am not able to see; They are more numer­ous than the hairs of my head, And my heart has failed me. (Psalm 40:9–12)

Psalm 103 is a song of praise for God’s mer­cies. Verse 6 speaks of God’s right­eous deal­ings with the oppressed:

The Lord works righteousness
and justice for all who are oppressed. (Psalm 103:6)

God’s right­eous­ness is also dis­played in his rebuke of the sin­ner. How­ever, because of his stead­fast love, patience and grace, he will not keep his anger forever:

The Lord is mer­ci­ful and gracious,
slow to anger and abound­ing in stead­fast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger for ever.
He does not deal with us accord­ing to our sins,
nor repay us accord­ing to our iniquities.
For as high as the heav­ens are above the earth,
so great is his stead­fast love towards those who fear him; (Psalm 103:8–11)

For those who fear God his right­eous­ness goes hand in hand with his stead­fast love.

But the stead­fast love of the Lord is from ever­last­ing to ever­last­ing on those who fear him,
and his right­eous­ness to chil­dren’s chil­dren. (Psalm 103:17)

In God’s right­eous­ness they see hope for salvation:

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
let me nev­er be put to shame;
in your right­eous­ness deliv­er me! (Psalm 31:1)

The psalm­ist knew that because of his sins he did not deserve the help he received.

…my strength fails because of my iniquity,
and my bones waste away. (Psalm 31:10b)

His hope res­ted on God’s faith­ful­ness which he exper­i­enced through his grace.

1.3 God’s Right­eous­ness in the New Testament

The New Test­a­ment also teaches us that God is faith­ful and right­eous and that he forgives.

If we con­fess our sins, He is faith­ful and right­eous to for­give us our sins and to cleanse us from all unright­eous­ness. (1 John 1:9, NASB)

God does not need to give an account to any­one when he gen­er­ously shows mercy. This is expressed in the par­able of the work­ers in the vine­yard when the own­er of the vine­yard says:

Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last work­er as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my gen­er­os­ity? (Mat­thew 20:14–15)

Accord­ing to human stand­ards it would appear unright­eous to pay the same wage to the man who worked for one hour as to the man who worked for twelve hours. But God is not bound by human stand­ards. His gen­er­os­ity, good­ness and love sur­pass all human expect­a­tions of right­eous­ness and rewards.

Jesus teaches us to be ready to for­give without receiv­ing any com­pens­a­tion or satisfaction.

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my broth­er sin against me, and I for­give him? As many as sev­en times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you sev­en times, but sev­enty times sev­en. “There­fore the king­dom of heav­en may be com­pared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his ser­vants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thou­sand tal­ents. And since he could not pay, his mas­ter ordered him to be sold, with his wife and chil­dren and all that he had, and pay­ment to be made. So the ser­vant fell on his knees, implor­ing him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the mas­ter of that ser­vant released him and for­gave him the debt. But when that same ser­vant went out, he found one of his fel­low ser­vants who owed him a hun­dred den­arii, and seiz­ing him, he began to choke him, say­ing, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fel­low ser­vant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in pris­on until he should pay the debt. When his fel­low ser­vants saw what had taken place, they were greatly dis­tressed, and they went and repor­ted to their mas­ter all that had taken place. Then his mas­ter summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked ser­vant! I for­gave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fel­low ser­vant, as I had mercy on you?’ And in anger his mas­ter delivered him to the jail­ers, until he should pay all his debt. So also my heav­enly Fath­er will do to every one of you, if you do not for­give your broth­er from your heart.” (Mat­thew 18:21–35)

The debt owed to the king was impossible to pay.^[8] But no-one would accuse the king of being unright­eous for freely for­giv­ing his debt­or. When we hear of the king’s mercy our hearts burn with joy and we confirm—yes, this is right­eous, this is good.

Jesus also taught us to pray:

…and for­give us our debts,
as we also have for­giv­en our debt­ors. (Mat­thew 6:12)

If God demands of us to for­give freely, is He not able to do the same? The par­able of the king who settles accounts with his ser­vants demon­strates that the king is able to for­give without requir­ing com­pens­a­tion and that he also does it.

2 Who Can Be Forgiven?

If God can freely for­give why doesn’t He for­give every­one? Isai­ah teaches us that an unre­pent­ant per­son would abuse God’s grace if he received it:

If favour is shown to the wicked,
he does not learn righteousness;
in the land of upright­ness he deals corruptly
and does not see the majesty of the Lord. (Isai­ah 26:10)

If a wicked per­son received for­give­ness he would con­tin­ue in his wicked­ness. For­giv­ing him would only lead to the abuse of this for­give­ness. God does not for­give such people because He does not want to sup­port evil. He does not for­give everyone.

…but if you do not for­give oth­ers their tres­passes, neither will your Fath­er for­give your tres­passes. (Mat­thew 6:15)

…but who­ever speaks against the Holy Spir­it will not be for­giv­en, either in this age or in the age to come. (Mat­thew 12:32b)

He for­gives those who humble them­selves, con­fess their sins, and want to learn to live upright lives, which is the right response to His grace.

For the grace of God has appeared, bring­ing sal­va­tion for all people, train­ing us to renounce ungod­li­ness and worldly pas­sions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, (Tit­us 2:11–12)

Jesus’ aim was to draw us closer to God and to arouse in us regret for our sins and love for God. This is what happened to the woman in the fol­low­ing story:

One of the Phar­isees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Phar­isee’s house and took his place at the table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sin­ner, when she learned that he was reclin­ing at table in the Phar­isee’s house, brought an ala­baster flask of oint­ment, and stand­ing behind him at his feet, weep­ing, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anoin­ted them with the oint­ment. Now when the Phar­isee who had invited him saw this, he said to him­self, “If this man were a proph­et, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touch­ing him, for she is a sin­ner.” And Jesus answer­ing said to him, “Simon, I have some­thing to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teach­er.” “A cer­tain money-lender had two debt­ors. One owed five hun­dred den­arii, and the oth­er fifty. When they could not pay, he can­celled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I sup­pose, for whom he can­celled the lar­ger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turn­ing towards the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anoin­ted my feet with oint­ment. There­fore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are for­giv­en — for she loved much. But he who is for­giv­en little, loves little.” (Luke 7:36–47)

She had become entangled in sin and lacked the strength to change her situ­ation. Scorned by her fel­low Jews, there seemed to be no hope for her. She had prob­ably heard Jesus speak­ing and through her encounter with Jesus she was filled with the long­ing for pure love and life, which she did not hes­it­ate to express. She did not want to sin any more and expressed her read­i­ness to repent. As a res­ult she received for­give­ness. The same offer is val­id for all of us. If we accept the call of Jesus, as this woman did, we too can exper­i­ence his forgiveness.