In the book of Job, written sometime between the early sixth and late fifth century BCE, God describes Job as a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. What is such a man like? If we were to be blameless and God fearing, what sort of things ought we do?
I don’t know about you, but growing up I often imagined good ole Job as a quiet, monkly figure who amassed wealth and other manifestations of favor from God through smart and godly business practices. I imagined his actions as self-contained. He surely was righteous because he did no wrong, a passive righteousness, a lack of sin. Similarly, I conceived personal righteousness in the same terms – if I don’t actively sin, I am being righteous. Always righteousness was framed in terms of protecting it from sin.
Job considers righteousness as something completely different. Job, in verse 14 of chapter 29, poetically links righteousness and justice, saying:
I put on righteousness and it clothed me;
my justice was like a robe and a turban.
While it makes perfect sense in retrospect, it something that I never really considered before. Just as robes and turbans clothe a person, justice the the action of the righteous. Lets look around this verse and see how Job was righteous.
- delivered the poor who cried and orphan who had no helper
- blessed the wretched
- caused the widow to sing for joy
- eyes to the blind
- feet to the lame
- father to the needy
- championed the cause of the stranger
- broke the fangs of the unrighteous (those acting unjustly, apparently)
- made the unrighteous drop their prey (those who were people oppressed) from their teeth
How different this is from what I used to imagine? Job is not cloistered, separated from society, being a “perfect” individual. Here he is actively engaged with those around him, helping those in need and opposing those who oppress. He is righteous because he takes an active stance against sin in the world. Thus, if we are to be righteous, we must conceive righteousness in the same terms – it is not enough to not actively sin, we must act for divine justice on earth. It is not our righteousness that needs protecting from sin – it should be sin (or injustice in the world) than need fear our righteousness!
Addendum: As Hank rightfully pointed out, I am not talking about how we obtain righteousness, instead I am talking about how we show our righteousness. We are declared righteous by God through no deed nor merit on our part – but, we need to be righteous instead of trying to protect our righteousness.
