Even in more general passages, ' righteousness ' is the direct opposite to ' sin ' (cf. Ac 13'", 2 Co 1 1"). Thus in Ro 6", ' you must not let sin have your members for the service of vice ; you must dedicate yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, dedicating your members to God for the service of righteousness ' (and similarly in vv. "■-"). The expression in Ro8'"is less obvious. When St. Paul says that ' the human spirit is alive Sict SiKaioavrqv ,' does he mean, as in ch. 6, 'for the sakeof righteousness' (i.e. to practise righteousness), or 'as the result of righteousness ' (i.e. of the new, vital relation to God which the Divine righteousness has created through Christ — the thought of 5"'-)? Probably the latter is uppermost in his mind. In Ro 14", however, we have the term used in what is apparently a more restricted sense : ' the reign of God is not a matter of eating and drinking ; it means righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.' As peace is defined immediately to mean harmony and good feeling between members of the Church (v-'"). the likelihood is that righteousness denotes primarily either integrity or just dealing as an expression of the Christian spirit (so Clem. Rom. Ixii. 2), the very opposite of ' injuring your brotlier ' (v.i^). The larger interpretation of the three terms is not, of course, to be ruled out, especially as all three have been already conjoined in 5', and as the distinctively religious basis would never be far from St. Paul's mind. But the context (v.'", ' he who serves Christ on these lines ') suggests that the stress falls upon what may be called, for the sake of convenience, though inaccurately, the ' ethical ' bearings of righteousness and peace at any rate. (It is quite unlikely, however, that St. Paul had in mind the saying of Mt 6^', ' Seek God's reign and his righteousness.') Matthew Arnold has somewhere described this verse as one of the texts in shadow, which ought to be brought into prominence to correct materialistic, popular views about the Kingdom of God. But this was not St. Paul's point, even on the ' ethical' interpretation of his words ; he was not opposing conduct to super- naturalism in thus defining the nature of the
In the cognate sense of justice, i.e. of the moral goodness which makes an authority act fairly and impartially, ELKatoirvv-r\ for the Greeks was not only a human but a divine virtue. There is a remarkable passage in Plutarch's Life of Aristide^ (6) whinh brings out this usage of the term. Plutarch observes that the justice of Aristides was what impressed his contemporaries most, and won for him ' that most royal and divine title of " the Just." ' He then proceeds to moralize upon the disinclination of men to imitate and reproduce this quality of the divine nature. The quality of incorruption (a(fi(?ap<Tia) and eternity {rb aiSioi') they envy and felicitate God on possessing ; the qualit.v of power (to Kvptoi' Ka\ TO Suvardt') they dre.^d and fear ; they love and honour and revere the deity for his Siieatoa-iJvTj, and yet, Plutarch sadly reflects, the first" of these three emotions, the passion for immortality (' of which our nature is not capable '), is the strongest, while the divine apenj, i.e. justice, which alone of the divine excellences is within our reach, commands least interest.
* E.g. Gal 323-25, where the coming of faith, faith in Jesus Christ, marks an epoch after the regime of the Law.
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Plutarch is thinking specially of men in authority, and his language illustrates the use of the term in the Kpistle to the Hebrews (1"), where the writer quotes Ps 45 as a desrri]>lioii of the Messianic King," 'Thou hast loved justice and hated lawless- ness," and later on (7-) recalls the meanini; of Melchizedek's name as ' kinjf of justice.'
After St. Paul, the idea of righteousness ceases to occupy any special position in the apostolic literature ; tlie term either echoes hi.s tochnical u.saf;e, thou,u:h this is rare, or is employed in one or other of its o;eneral meaning's. The sole occur- rence in the Fourth Gospel (16"'") is remarkahle, because it gives a turn to tlie word which is un- familiar even to St. Paul. One of the three con- verging lines along which the Spirit, acting through the Church, confounds and condemns the unbeliev- ing world is the witness to the Resurrection, widcli proves that Christ was not a blasphemous Messi- anic pretender, as the Jews held, but innocent, just, acting according to the Divine will. ' He will convince men of righteousness, because I go to the Father and you see me no more.' The overcoming of death by Jesus, which is testihed by the presence of His alter e(jo, the Spirit, in the Church, is a con- vincing proof that He was ' right 'in His claims, and that Christians who believed in Him, not tlie .lews who murdered Him, were 'righteous,' i.e. fullilling the Divine will. The obscure line from the primitive hymn quoted in 1 Ti 3'*, ' he w^as vindi- cated by the Spirit' (cSixaiwBr) iv Trvev/xaTi), probably is an allusion to this point of view.t It is singular that this is the only t NT application of the OT sense of the phrase, which meant the open vindica- tion of Israel, by some signal act of Divine favour, Ijefore the nations who had been scoB'ers and per- secutors.