Matt. 6:33 “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and HIS righteousness…” KJV
what exactly is meant by God’s righteousness?
and why does the Douay Rheims have it like this:
“Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice,”
I get very confused as to whether this is about being justified, saved etc.
Righteoness, justice, holiness are virtually synomonous in this case. Man has no righteousness of his own-only that given him by God. Man’s righteousness exists only to the extent that he’s in
union with God, from Whom all righteousness flows.
So in Phil 3 St Paul can say, “What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, *not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God *on the basis of faith.” Phil 3:8-10
“A righteousnes of my own that comes from the law” is basically Pelgianism, and in any case is the basis of the Old Covenant, that man may be righteousness enough, on his own, to obey the law by his own efforts. The Church, along with the New Testament, teaches otherwise; the law, good and holy and spiritual as it is, was simply a teacher, teaching us that we
cannot be righteous apart from God; we always, inevitably, fail miserably at fulfilling the law on our own.
“The righteousness that comes from God” is based on
faith, because faith is the re-establishment of the knowledge of God and the relationship with Him that was essentially destroyed at the Fall, so that now we’re no longer *apart from Him. *
In the end, man’s righteousness or holiness or justice, that which authentically fulfills the law, is defined by
love, the very nature of God which we’re to be transformed into.
