“The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and strength,
The spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
And He will delight in the fear of the Lord,
And He will not judge by what His eyes see,
Nor make a decision by what His ears hear;
But with righteousness He will judge the poor,
And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth;
And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth,
And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.
Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins,
And faithfulness the belt about His waist.” (Isaiah 11:2–5; all Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible).

When we think of righteousness, we should think of Jesus. When we think of justice, we should think of Jesus. Since the fullness of deity dwells in Him (Colossians 2:9) and He dwells in His disciples, we should manifest God’s righteousness and justice, following Christ’s example. A few thoughts about this are worth considering.

First, when Jesus judges, He judges in righteousness, not by appearances. We can say much about this—perhaps too much for a brief article like this. Jesus knows our hearts. He knows our motives. He does not make mistakes.

However, most importantly, He does not jump to conclusions. If we want to be like Him, we have to avoid the temptation of allowing our emotions and impulses to guide our reasoning. We allow fear, distrust, suspicion, prejudice, and self-righteousness to guide our thinking. We see that a wrong has been committed, and we assume that we know who caused the problem and what motivated them. We can be wrong, but we will not admit that. This may be part of the reason why Jesus said, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged” (Matthew 7:1). Even when we think we are helping the other person, we might be working from false assumptions. Christian author Bill Perkins recently wrote the following:

“God never gets angry about a perceived injustice. He never flies off the handle because of an imaginary wrong. We, on the other hand, may do just that. In fact, I suspect we get angry at perceived wrongs or irritations, more often than real ones. That’s why we should anger slowly—as James said, our anger never ‘achieves the righteousness of God’” (Bill Perkins, “Jesus Got Angry Four Times“).

Second, righteousness and justice are not only things Jesus does: They are essential parts of who He is. Jesus could not simply choose to be righteous for a few minutes and then move on to something else. He could not bring Himself to it: His holiness, righteousness, justice, and every other attribute were not things He merely chose to do and be when it was convenient.

In Ephesians 6, Paul spoke of the whole armor of God. You can find an entire series about this topic and the subject of spiritual warfare on this website. Two vital pieces of that armor are the breastplate of righteousness and the belt of truth. As committed Christians, we should wear this armor constantly. We should “put on Christ” and wear Him wherever we go (Romans 13:14; Galatians 3:27). Jesus wore righteousness like a belt around His loins. Likewise, we should be armed and ready to bear His righteousness and truth to the world.

How do we stand against temptation? We clothe ourselves in Christ: In His life, His forgiveness and grace for us, His resurrection power, His indwelling Holy Spirit, and the whole armor of God. His righteousness in us will give us victory in life.

How can you manifest Jesus’ righteousness to those around you? Share your thoughts or suggestions by clicking the “Leave a comment” link below.

Copyright © 2021 Michael E. Lynch. All rights reserved.