Romans 5 - Righteousness

Hello everyone, so if you’ve been keeping track of the blog, you will of known I am having troubles with the Romans Sunday school class at my church. Today, I am going to attempt to write some notes, and hope for some feedback as well. This will be on Romans 5, although it’s actually more on the word “Righteousness” because for Sunday June 9, 2002, that Sunday school class we talked mostly about the word Righteousness.

So a few weeks back, I said I’d read one chapter at a time, the way the class goes. And let me tell you, it held up for one week. I read Romans 4 last week, ready for last week’s Sunday school class, and then the week after I did not read Romans 5. So yesterday, I was kind of unprepared for the class. Kind of upset with myself for not reading Romans 5, but I’ll get to it this week.

So I went to class, unprepared, forgot my bible, forgot a pen/paper to take notes. But luckily, I had my Palm, which has a bible, and I was ready to take notes. Here is what my notes looked like (exactly how I wrote it on my Palm):

Righteousness

is it same as ''spiritual gifts''
b/c given by God
-not a qift you can excel in?
- not something work for
- God looks into our hearts, not abt words, but not even we know our heart, not deserved, don't know our own faith
- person not w/ God not justified by faith, therefore no righteousness.
.b/c are not w/ Christ
- read Psalm 51 or kinq david, even though did bad things. God still stayed w/ david & he repents
- God not lookinq for works but w/ a broken heart & humble
- yes/no given by works,
- Adam sin abuse of free will, relationship,


That is essentially what I got from the class, in between my drifting periods. Two Sundays ago, we talked about how does one attain Righteousness? We kind of decided on the fact that Righteousness is not something you work for, not something earned through works. The general consensus was that Righteousness is given by God. That God just gives this “gift” to those who I guess deserve it. This was generally agreed by the fact dealing with Abraham, who was credited with Righteousness in Genesis:

Abram believed the Lord , and he credited it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15:6

So it sounds like all Abraham needed to do was “believe” the Lord. However, what happened yesterday after some more talk, some differences started coming aloud.

So again, we tried to define how to attain Righteousness. So we agreed that Righteousness is a gift from God, given by God. However, is it the same as say the Spiritual Gifts in the “Spiritual Gifts” test? We say it is not, since it does not appear in the Spritual gifts list. The list at gifts that are given by God, and one can excel in them. But Righteousness is something also given by God, but one does not necessarily excel in it. So again, I still don’t have a clear understanding of how one gains Righteousness.

So Gavin McCombie (the Sunday school teacher) explained a little more about this part. He said that “Does one earn it?”, and answer is “yes and no”. God knows us all, He knows us better than we know ourselves. He looks into our hearts and know everything, and so it’s not about the words we say, or the things we do, but what in our heart. What God wants is for us to be humble, with broken hearts, and it’s not so much about what we do. I think to me this makes some sense, but from what I’m getting, Righteousness does not have much to do with how we understand the Bible, and what we do to glorify God, or is it?

So I decided to look up the word at Dictionary.com and it says as something that kind of contradicted what Gavin was saying:


Righteousness

\Right"eous*ness\, n. [AS. rihtw[=i]snes.] 1. The quality or state of being righteous; holiness; purity; uprightness; rectitude.

Note: Righteousness, as used in Scripture and theology, in which it chiefly occurs, is nearly equivalent to holiness, comprehending holy principles and affections of heart, and conformity of life to the divine law.

Righteous
adj.
1. Morally upright; without guilt or sin: a righteous parishioner.
2. In accordance with virtue or morality: a righteous judgment.
3. Morally justifiable: righteous anger.


The above for Righteousness tells me that it is “comprehending holy principles” which I think goes alone with doing something. Comprehending will mean you have to do something, which means earning it, thus by works.

And another thing that I see now is this (from dictionary.com again, same page)

Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at all times. --Ps. cvi. 3.

Now I thought that last part meant it was in Psalm 3 or something, but I can’t find it there. But what struck me was the “doeth righteousness”. How do we “do” Righteousness is it’s just something given to us by God? Because that totally contradicts what we talked about in class. So if this is in the Bible somewhere, I think I’ll need some clarification on this one.

So this word is definitely giving me some struggles of how a person is Righteous? Because almost all explanations point to having to do at least something. With the exception of being humble and with a broken heart, because those are I guess characteristic of oneself in a way too. But not something that you do I don’t think. I’m not sure, I think there is a fine line between doing and being.

I think what the class is trying to get at is we have to “be” someone, not “be like” someone, so to speak. It’s like the differences between “believing” the Lord and “believing in” the Lord. So for Righteousness, maybe it’s that we must try to “be Jesus”, and not “be like Jesus”, although I kind of fail to see a big difference between the two. Oh, if you have not noticed, we did not really touch too much on Romans 5, just Righteousness, which may have a connection, and probably does, just it was continuation from week previous.

I am going to put up a feedback button for you to all give me some suggestions on your thoughts on this and anything else on this blog. In the meantime, use my Guestbook for now to write any suggestions/somments. Now, here is what’s happening with me.

Today I went driving for a bit, wanted to see where I can play squash, and went to the Ontario Racket Club (ORC) which is quite expensive. Also went to this place called “The Rock” which is also a health and fitness club. This one is pretty nice, it’s a different feel than any other club, it’s got this outdoor feel to it I think. Their specialty as the guy said is the Rock climbing gym inside. So let me tell you, all their memberships work out to be like a whopping $50 a month. That is even more expensive than what I paid last summer, which was at this upscale fitness club, with towel services and everything.

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog team Sanctuary lost to SCBC SOCs, score was 16-6 I think. Yesterday, we played the St. Christopher on the Heights Anglican Church Knights. This was another great game, although out team was not as cheerful as we usually are. I made some very nice catches, and next time we play at Oriole Park, I am making sure the other outfielders tell me when I get to than darn fence, instead of crashing right into it. We played a great game, but we lost again 17-5 I think.

Current Events Today:
- A whole slew of carjackings this weekend, be careful everyone.
- GO trains delayed even more with maintenance workers still on strike
- Lakers hold a 3-0 lead on the Nets after winning again yesterday night