Appropriating the Righteousness of God

 Reflection on Today's Readings, Thursday of 28th Week in Ordinary Time, Year 1, October 14th, 2021
Texts: Romans 3:21-30; Ps. 130:1-6ab; Luke 11:47-54
The path of righteousness is the path of the Law: we become righteous by keeping the Law. St. Paul calls this righteousness the righteousness of God, which means it is not ours but appropriated by keeping the Law. By keeping the Law we make God's righteousness ours. St. Paul tells us, today, that this righteousness of God which is revealed and appropriated through the law is also manifested and appropriated through faith in Jesus Christ. The same ways of life demanded by Law is also made possible through faith in Jesus. It is by our ways of life that we are pleasing to God and appropriate His righteousness. In today's gospel reading, Jesus condemns the way of life that is not pleasing to God. He says “Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. So you are witnesses and consent to the deeds of your fathers; for they killed them, and you build their tombs." Jesus asks us to break away from evil and wickedness.
Calling the righteousness the righteousness of God also tells us that by our faith in Jesus Christ, we receive the life of God and we become godly by our conduct and ways of life. Put differently, we are born of God by our ways of life. This is clear in the words of St. John: "But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13).
It is also clear in today's first reading that the righteousness is freely bestowed on those who have faith, not by keeping of the Law or any special work done. The righteousness is bestowed on sinners because of their faith. It is worked for by Jesus, that is, it is bestowed on the merit of Christ's redemptive price, not on the merit of the sinners. St. Paul puts it thus: "For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith."  This righteousness is bestowed at baptism, for it is baptism that cleanses us of our sins and makes us the children of God and members of the Church. At baptism we reject sins and profess our faith in Jesus Christ.  

Lord Jesus, thank You for the price you paid for our life in God; grant that we may deepen the life daily by our ways of life. Amen.

Fr. Andrew Olowomuke