Righteous means to be in right relationship with the king. In 2 Corinthians 5:17-19 it says,
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.”
God reconciled the world to himself in Jesus. Jesus made it so our sins would not be counted against us. In 2 Corinthians 15:21 Paul says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Meaning that the old you that was not connected to God is now gone. You are now the righteousness of God. That is the new you. This is our new identity: righteousness.
In Colossians 2:9-12 Paul says,
“For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.”
“In Christ you have been brought to fullness.” Come on somebody! If what was broken was made whole, how could it be broken any longer? Good question, I’m glad you asked. It can’t.
Paul says, “In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ”. Circumcision is something that you do once, not over and over again. You would have a big problem if you were repeatedly circumcised. This circumcision was made in the heart and put off the flesh of the old self. In a regular circumcision done by the hands of man the flesh is cut off once and then it is gone. In the same way the circumcision made by God in putting off the flesh is a one time procedure. When you go down in baptism you die and are buried with Christ. This is the old self, the flesh, dead and buried. When you are raised from the water you are raised to the life that Jesus was raised with. This is the circumcision made by the hand of God through faith in Jesus. If our old self is dead, how could it still be alive? Good question. It can’t. Follow me on this. This is why you must be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We must learn to think and act in the new ways of our new self.
The old self was put off, therefore we must not continue in the old pattern of things. The old patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. We must learn how to think from our new position of acceptance, importance, wholeness, fullness, completeness. We must learn to become in our minds what we have become in our spirit.
More on righteousness to be continued….