Lexicon

G1343 - dikaiosyne

Strong's: G1343 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay Part of speech: feminine noun Root: from G1342 - dikaios, δίκαιος, "righteous, just" Hebrew equivalent (LXX): H6664 - tzedeq, צֶדֶק, "righteousness", and tzedakah; the standard renderings. NT occurrences: ~92

Semantic range (Thayer / BDAG)

Righteousness, justice (broad ethical sense), the state / virtue of being morally upright, doing what is right.
Justice as social-relational virtue, giving each what is due (the classical Greek philosophical sense).
(Pauline technical sense) Justifying righteousness, the imputed-or-credited righteousness of God received by faith. The technical Pauline soteriological term.
Right covenant standing, the covenantal-relational sense (NT Wright et al.) emphasizing God's covenant faithfulness manifested in Christ.
God's character as just, God's own righteousness, His being-rightly-related-to-everything (Romans 3:21-26).

Theological force, the Reformation crux

The word's most theologically loaded use is in Pauline soteriology, especially Romans 3:21-26 and Romans 4. The crux of the Reformation:

Dikaiosynē theou, "the righteousness of God"

Two main readings:

1. Imputed righteousness (Reformation). Dikaiosynē theou names a gift, the righteousness from God given to believers. God credits Christ's righteousness to those who believe. The believer is forensically declared righteous before God; the status of righteousness is gifted.

2. God's covenant faithfulness (New Perspective on Paul). Dikaiosynē theou names God's own attribute of being faithful to His covenant. Justification is God's vindication of His covenant people; faith is the marker of those who belong. (N. T. Wright, James Dunn.)

3. Transformative righteousness (Catholic / Eastern Orthodox). Dikaiosynē names actual character-righteousness produced in the believer by infused grace. Justification is making righteous, not just declaring righteous.

The Reformed and most evangelical traditions hold (1), the forensic / imputed reading. Sola fide depends on it: faith is the instrument by which the believer receives the imputed righteousness of Christ. Romans 4:3 (Abraham believed God; elogisthē, "it was credited / reckoned" to him as righteousness) is the lexical anchor.

The "righteousness from God" / "righteousness of God" distinction

Greek genitive dikaiosynē theou is grammatically ambiguous between:

Subjective genitive: "God's own righteousness" (His attribute)
Objective genitive: "righteousness from God" (His gift to believers)

Romans 1:17, 3:21-22 contain the most disputed instances. The Reformed reading prefers the objective sense (gift); the New Perspective prefers the subjective (God's covenant attribute manifest). Some scholars (Schreiner, Carson) read both senses operating simultaneously: God's own righteousness is gifted in Christ.

Notable verses

Pauline justifying-righteousness

Romans 1:17, "in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith"
Romans 3:21-22, "the righteousness of God has been manifested… through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe"
Romans 3:25-26, "to demonstrate His righteousness… to be just and the justifier"
Romans 4:3, "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness"
Romans 4:5, "God justifies the ungodly… his faith is credited as righteousness"
Romans 5:17, "those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness"
Romans 9:30-32, Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness attained it; Israel pursued by works and stumbled
Romans 10:3, Israel "did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God"
Romans 10:10, "with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness"
2 Corinthians 5:21, "He made Him… to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him"
Galatians 2:21, "if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly"
Philippians 3:9, "not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but… the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith"

Sermon on the Mount, kingdom-righteousness

Matthew 5:6, "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness"
Matthew 5:20, "unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees"
Matthew 6:33, "seek first His kingdom and His righteousness"
Matthew 5:10, "blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness"

James, works-righteousness debate

James 1:20, "the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God"
James 2:23, citing Genesis 15:6: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness"
James 3:18, "the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace"

OT background, tzedeq / tzedakah

The Hebrew background is critical. Tzedeq and tzedakah (cognate Hebrew nouns) cover:

Forensic righteousness, right standing in court (Deuteronomy 25:1)
God's covenant faithfulness, His own attribute (Isaiah 51:5-8; Psalm 33:5)
Saving righteousness, God's deliverance of His people (Isaiah 46:13; 51:5; 56:1)
Right action, moral conduct (Genesis 18:19)

The semantic richness of the OT tzedeq underlies the Pauline range of dikaiosynē. The Hebrew background gives the LXX-rendering its theological depth.

Patristic / scholarly note

Augustine (On the Spirit and the Letter, c. AD 412) develops the Reformed reading: God's righteousness is imputed-and-imparted; the believer is both declared righteous (forensic) and progressively made righteous (transformative). The medieval Catholic tradition (Aquinas, Trent) emphasized the transformative dimension, justification and sanctification as essentially one process.

The Reformation (Luther, The Freedom of the Christian, 1520; Calvin, Institutes III.11) sharply distinguished forensic justification from progressive sanctification, with dikaiosynē in justification language strictly imputed.

Modern: N. T. Wright (Justification, 2009) develops the New Perspective covenant-faithfulness reading. John Piper (The Future of Justification, 2007) defends the Reformed imputation. Thomas Schreiner (Faith Alone, 2015), Michael Horton (Justification, 2018) sustain the historic Reformed position with careful engagement of the New Perspective.

Verses in this codex

See Obsidian's backlinks pane for every verse page linking here.