Alien Righteousness? - Timothy Ministries

Forensic
This adjective describes something as having to do with discussion, debate or
declaration in a public forum. An announced verdict or other declaration in a
courtroom is therefore a forensic pronouncement, and such a courtroom
pronouncement relates closely to our use of the word forensic in theological
discussion. In theological formulations, forensic generally means that the
thing in view has to do with a judicial declaration.
Now let’s briefly consider the phrase:
The Righteousness Of Christ
Biblically, we cannot precisely define “the righteousness of Christ” since
Scripture never uses this exact phrase. 7 Generally speaking, though, past
Reformers and present Evangelicals have used the phrase “the righteousness
of Christ” to refer to the cumulative total of all Christ’s righteous deeds
(together with their merit) which He accomplished during His earthly life. In
Evangelical teaching then, for God to impute the righteousness of Christ to
us means that God chooses to think of us as having done all that Christ did.
That is, God thinks of us as having lived an ethically perfect life, and allows
us to benefit from the merit of that life.
Speaking of an ethically perfect life, let’s think for a moment about the
word:
Ethical
In Christian discussions about justification, the word ethical means
“pertaining to right and wrong in conduct; being in accordance with the rules
or standards for right conduct or practice.” Theologically, then, ethical
righteousness is a righteousness based upon actual conduct (performance) as
evaluated against an authoritative standard like God’s law. A complementary
idea to ethical, and one that in theology must be held in tension with it, is:
Relational
The word relational is a general term which simply speaks of the reciprocal
attitude or interaction that two or more persons have toward or with one
another. In this work, however, I will emphasize the kinship connotation of
7
Peter refers to “[the] righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ” (2Pe 1.1), but in
this instance refers to it as the source, not the result nor object, of our faith (contra
Hiebert, Lenski, and Kistemaker); see David Strange, An Exegetical Summary Of 2 Peter,
2 nd edition, (SIL International, Dallas, TX, 2008). The phrase “His righteousness” is used
in the NT, but it refers to “the righteousness of God” which we will discuss below.
7