What the Bible says about Righteous Character
(From Forerunner Commentary)
In all its forms, sin is marked as mankind's enemy. It must be defeated to God's satisfaction for Him to accept us. If not, our relationship with Him will not be continued for eternity.
Because sin is an ever-present reality of life, it is essential that we have sufficient knowledge to recognize it before its fiery darts strike us down. This requires consistent, thoughtful study of God's Word and effort to build an awareness of its presence, enabling us to beat it to the punch, so to speak.
Overcoming sin is indeed a formidable task, but not a hopeless one. One reason why it is not hopeless, when rightly thought through, is quite encouraging. Jesus teaches in Luke 12:48:
But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.
We are admonished to be alert because our enemy is at the door (Genesis 4:7), stalking us as we make our way through life. However, we are also encouraged to understand that we are all judged individually. God judges everyone against the same standard, yet He judges individually according to our natural talents, gifts, dedication, faithfulness, discipline, time sacrificed, and energies exerted to overcome against what God knows we are capable of.
We stand alone, as it were, not measured against any other person. Though the ultimate standard is the holy, righteous character of the Father and Son, we are neither measured against their performance nor any other human's performance. We are not in competition against others.
Though not measured against the performance of the Father and Son, we are nonetheless urged to strive to be at one with them. They are in complete and total agreement with each other. It is to this oneness that God wants to bring us, not merely intellectually, but also in attitude and conduct. They do not sin, and imitating this sinlessness becomes our great challenge in life.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Sin, Christians, and the Fear of GodRelated Topics: Alertness | Awareness of Sin | God's Judgments | Imitating Christ | Imitating God | Overcoming | Overcoming Sin | Recognizing Sin | Righteous Character | Sin | Spiritual Alertness | To Whom Much is Given, Much is Required
Abraham knew his friend, God, pretty well: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" In a sense, he was throwing back to God the very understanding that he had of His holy, righteous character. He knew that in God's justice there could be no turning from what God is, and that His act toward Sodom and Gomorra would reflect what God is.
Well, there was probably never a more rhetorical question ever asked by a man on the earth. Even though Abraham knew a great deal about God, he may not have had a complete understanding of how far such an act like that is from God's character. There was never even a remote possibility that God would kill the innocent with the guilty in the city of Sodom.
God said, "Okay, I'll spare it for 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10. . . ." God could bargain like this because it is not in His mind to kill the innocent with the guilty. Why? Because for God to do that, He would have to cease being holy, and that is not possible. In essence, He would have to stop being God.
God is the supreme Judge of all the earth, and if He is unjust, there is no hope that justice will ever prevail. We know that human judges can be corrupted—they take bribes, they can be partial, they can be ignorant, and they can make mistakes. God, however, is never corrupt. No one can bribe Him. He refuses to show partiality. There is no respect of persons with Him. He never acts out of ignorance. He never makes mistakes.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Examples of Divine Justice
One of the failings of modern education is that it fails to teach children to look for and predict cause-and-effect relationships. This receives short shrift in our schools because values and moral judgments have been eliminated from curricula and classroom discussions. Modern—or rather, postmodern—educators strive for valueless teaching and what they call moral equivalency, that is, no idea, no person, no belief, no religion, no government, or no fact is better than anything else—everything has its own intrinsic value, neither more nor less than any other thing does. For those of us who have learned differently, this is a strange concept.
However, it is the basis of liberal intellectual humanism, the guiding beacon of most major colleges and universities, think tanks, advocacy organizations, political parties, governments, and corporations in America and in many other parts of the world, particularly Europe. In simple terms, it means that solutions to the world's problems will not be solved by eradicating the cause. Instead, they will be treated by assuaging the symptoms, because to acknowledge the cause would be to make a moral judgment.
For instance, the fight against AIDS is a classic case of postmodern, valueless thinking. The major cause of AIDS is clearly perverted homosexual behavior, but rather than enforcing anti-sodomy laws (which have their basis in biblical morality), the powers-that-be decided to caution against "unprotected sex" and handed out free condoms and free needles to intravenous drug users. They also threw billions of dollars at finding a cure for the disease and drugs that will dampen or delay the onset of full-blown AIDS. The cure, however, is simple: stop the behavior (biblically termed "repentance") and quarantine the diseased. But that is not politically correct.
This example points out the ultimate solution for every problem of behavior: character. If people had the character not to lie and steal, billions of dollars of fraud and the trauma of countless victims would disappear. If people had the character to be faithful to their spouses, divorce and the heartache and compounded problems it brings would cease. If people had the character to forgive and work out disputes fairly, war would soon become a distant memory.
While carnal human beings walk this earth, this is a pipe dream. Even under the government of Jesus Christ in the Millennium, there will still be sin and the evils it causes, though they will be far less frequent than happens today. Then, however, most of the world will understand the need to develop holy and righteous character and will be working on building it in their lives.
From the words of Deuteronomy 5:29, God must on occasion experience the same disappointment in people as we do: "Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all My commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever!" Thank God that we know the solution and can put it into practice in our own lives!
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
The Solution? CharacterRelated Topics: AIDS | Building Character | Cause and Effect Principle | Cause and Effect Relationships | Character | Commandments, Keeping | Homosexuality | Humanism | Immorality | Postmodernism | Repentance | Repentance as Change | Righteous Character | Sodomy