Deut 6:25
“And it will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the LORD our God, just as He commanded us.
There’s is your answer. That is one of these passages that has a definition of a term. Scripture has quite a few of those…
2 John 1:6
And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, that you should walk in it.
Love is walking in His commandments that He gave way way back. 1 John tells us sin is lawlessness. There’s your basic definitions of terms that are not defined in church, sin, love, and righteousness, and are plainly given in Scripture.
1 John 2:29
If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.
The new covenant gives us that desire to do His ways, it brings us closer to Him through obedience to His Torah. Everyone who practices following the Torah is born of Him, is born of the Father.
1 john 3:6-7
No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. 7Little children, let no one deceive you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;
That’s deep, and a pretty strong statement. It’s very true, if we practice righteousness, we’re righteous just as Messiah is. We are practicing, this is our practice to do what we know. We practice Torah because that’s what we do. It doesn’t mean we’re perfect but that’s our practice. All of Scripture, is about just four things; the people of Israel, the land of Israel, the law given to Israel and the king of Israel, it’s about those four basic groups.
Gen 18:19
“For I have chosen him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; in order that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.”
Many believe righteousness is something separate from His ways. They’ll tell you righteousness does not mean His Torah. I don’t know how they could separate the two, because the two are one. It’s just another word for saying the same thing. Torah is righteousness, righteousness is Torah. What does righteousness mean? Doing the right thing, what does Torah tell us? What to do, to do the right thing and what not to do, the way of God(Elohim). In Gen 18:19, how did Abraham know what “by doing righteousness” was? I don’t read in there, what’s that? He didn’t ask; what is righteousness? He doesn’t say that.
Gen 17:1
Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; Walk before Me, and be blameless.
It has been 13 years since God(Elohim) last met with Abraham and appeared to him. The name of God(Elohim) is used only once in this chapter. In case you didn’t know, whenever you see the capital letters LORD in the Scriptures that is where His Name in Hebrew was, and what they did, they replaced that with the term Lord, in most English translations. Look up Tetragrammaton. You may find it in the preface of your Bible or in the first few pages of your Bible.
He says I am God(Elohim) Almighty; translated in Hebrew is Al Shaddai, or El Shaddai. Abram was already declared righteous by faithfulness in Gen 15:6.
Genesis 15:6 Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
He’s already reckoned as righteous so why does he have to be blameless, walk blameless? It’s a continuation, that is what being righteous is, being blameless. Abram is demonstrating his faithfulness by walking blameless before God(Elohim). Israel was told to do the same thing by the way, in
Deut 18:13 “You shall be blameless before the LORD your God.
Romans 10:8-10
But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved; (I was taught, all you have to do is ask Jesus into your heart. Read the next verse) 10for with the heart man believes, resulting in righteousness (what is righteousness again? Following the Torah), and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.
If the believing, which results in following the Torah, isn’t there, what do you have? Nothing. That’s the Old Covenant and New Covenant, that’s the difference. The one thing that is lacking, there’s one thing they lacked, it was a heart that feared God(Elohim) to cause them to be obedient, that’s what they lacked.
Psalm 128:1-3 (a thousand years later?) How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, Who walks in His ways. 2When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, You will be happy and it will be well with you. 3Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine, Within your house, Your children like olive plants Around your table. 4Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed Who fears the LORD. 5The LORD bless you from Zion, And may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. 6Indeed, may you see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel!
It is almost what He told Abraham word for word. How did Joseph know that having relations with Potiphar’s wife would be a sin against God(Elohim)? That’s in…
Genesis 39:7-9 And it came about after these events that his master’s wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.” 8But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put all that he owns in my charge. 9“There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God?” How does he know that this is a sin against God(Elohim)? We talked about Abel; how did he know to do the right sacrifices? These things can’t be attributed to luck or to intuition. God’s(Elohim’s) words pre-existed creation, which includes His Torah.