Meditation 249
Romans 8: 6-11
This week’s lessons have to do with new life in the Spirit. This passage in Romans tells us that “if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” (verse 10). We have life in the Spirit because of righteousness. The word that is translated as righteousness here is dikaiosune, which means justification.
For most people in the Greek speaking world of the apostle Paul’s day this word means moral uprightness or justice as it is pratised by an individual, but Paul used this word as describing the duty that God required of people and human behaviour in harmony with God’s will. (“Dikaiosune in the Usage of Paul.” Leland Jameson). In Paul’s understanding of righteousness, it is the condition of being in a right relationship with the Lord.
Throughout the writings in the gospels and epistles we are told of the life in the Spirit. The life that we have in Jesus. The life that is for those whose mind is set on the Spirit. To have the mind set on the Spirit is to have life and peace. It is a way of looking at the world that has us give thanks for all that God has done and will do, rather than to be worried about our own gain.
The following prayer poem that I shared about this time last year describes an aspect of what it means to live in harmony with God’s will.
The Path
God bless the path on which you go
God bless the earth beneath your feet
God bless your destination.
God be a smooth way before you
A guiding star above you
A keen eye behind you
This day, this night, and forever.
God be with you whatever you pass
Jesus be with you whatever you climb
Spirit be with you wherever you stay.
God be with you at each stop and each sea
At each lying down and each rising up
In the trough of the waves, on the crest of
the billows.
Each step of the journey you take.
When we have the righteousness that comes by the Spirit we are invited to life from God’s point of view. To see God as the smooth way before us, to know that we are in God’s company each day, to rest in the truth that we are not left to our own devices, this righteousness is a way of being before God that can give us peace and wholeness.
I like your description of Righteousness as; “it is the condition of being in a right relationship with the Lord”, Better than the connotation of Righteousness as being “Holier Than Thou”.