How does the Bible define "righteousness"?

The Protestant view of justification largely hinges on their definition of "righteousness." In the Protestant view, to be justified one must be righteous, and to be righteous one must have kept all of God's commandments perfectly. It's akin to needing to score a 100% on the SAT, with anything less than 100% being a complete fail in God's sight. In this post I will go through the Bible and show why the term "righteousness" does not mean "perfect law keeper" or anything similar, which in turn will totally undermine the Protestant understanding of salvation and the Gospel. 

The Greek words for "righteous" ("just") and "righteousness" are used a few hundred times in the Bible, so if the Protestant thesis is true, there should be some clear evidence for it. Most of the occurrences uses the terms "righteous" and "righteousness" in passing, so not much can be gleaned from the bulk of the texts. That said, I did not find a single instance where "righteous" or "righteousness" was tied to perfectly keeping the law or commandments. This means that the Protestant definition does not come from the Bible, and rather from traditions of men. Instead, the notion of being righteous, according to Scripture, simply refers to doing good actions (e.g. Mt 6:1; Acts 10:35; Eph 6:1; 1 Th 2:10; 1 Jn 3:7,12) or having an upright quality about your character (e.g. Mt 1:19; Lk 1:6; 1 Tim 1:9; 1 Pt 3:14). Nothing is ever implied about perfect or flawless obedience. 

What does it mean to say Jesus "died for" us? - More problems with Penal Substitution

Calvinists insist that Penal Substitution is proven by the fact the Bible often says that Jesus "died for" us (e.g. 1 Cor 15:3), thinking that this means that Jesus 'took our place' in God's divine 'electric chair'. While that claim is understandable, that is not automatically what we should assume, since to do something "for" another commonly just means "on their behalf," not necessarily in their place. For example, to "pray for" your enemy (Mt 5:44) does not mean you prayed what they were supposed to pray in their place. Rather, it just means you prayed on their behalf (cf Acts 12:5). 

When I looked up the term "for" in Greek, of the 170 times it was used it most often meant something along the lines of "on behalf of," and rarely did it mean "in substitution of" another person.

A discussion on Judeo-Christian monotheism - Steven's Response

Opening Essays: Nick : Steven ::: Concluding Essays: Nick : Steven

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I'd like to thank Nick for participating in this discussion, and hope it's allowed the reader to see classical polytheism in a more viable light.

Recall that the resolution was that Judeo-Christian monotheism (as opposed to classical polytheism) is true. In order for Nick to have established this, he must have done a couple of things. First, he'd have to show that a perfect god exists, because if no such god existed, Judeo-Christian monotheism would be false. However, the existence of such a god wouldn't be enough to defeat classical polytheism, since all it claims is that more than one god exists. So, it's entirely compatible with a perfect god existing, just so long as it isn't the only god that exists. Nick’s task was then two-fold: (i) show that a perfect god exists, and (ii) show that no other gods exist. Did he accomplish this?

A discussion on Judeo-Christian monotheism - Nick's Response

Opening Essays: Nick : Steven ::: Concluding Essays: Nick : Steven

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In this post I will respond to Steven's case for why the Judeo-Christian God cannot exist.

The way I understand his argument, it is a variation of the age-old "problem of evil" argument in which it is claimed that it is unreasonable to believe there is a God when there is so much evil and suffering in the world. Steven calls his case a "moral argument," with God failing to act in a morally upright manner by letting evils like child abuse take place.

Who killed Jesus? (And why the Resurrection?) - More problems with Penal Substitution

Every Easter the Protestant blogs are full of posts about the Resurrection, and rightfully so. One thing about the Protestant view of the Resurrection of Our Lord has always bothered me though: their view that the Resurrection was essentially nothing more than a 'sales receipt' to show that the Father accepted Jesus' sacrifice. Last year I wrote a brief article on why the Protestant view of Imputation makes the Resurrection of Jesus superfluous, but over the last few days I came to realize another troubling feature about the Protestant view.