Righteousness and Justice in the Bible

Righteousness (Hebrew tsedaqah, Greek dikaiosyne) is one of the central themes of all Scripture. It embraces both personal uprightness and social justice, and the one cannot be separated from the other. In the Old Testament, God demands justice toward the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger: "Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isaiah 1:17). The LORD himself proclaims: "For I the LORD love judgment" (Isaiah 61:8). The prophet Micah admirably sums up what God requires: "To do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God" (Micah 6:8). But the New Testament unveils a deeper righteousness still: not the one man produces by his works, but the one credited to him by faith in Christ. Paul affirms it: "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all... that believe" (Romans 3:22). No one becomes righteous before God by his own merits, for all have sinned (Romans 3:23); it is the righteousness of Christ that is credited to the believer, the doctrine called justification by faith. This received righteousness then transforms the heart and overflows in works of justice toward one's neighbor. Faith without the practice of justice remains incomplete (James 2:17).