Inheriting Righteousness
Have you ever thought about how much you’ve inherited from others? Your life is inherited, to begin with. Your way of life is inherited as well, from those who have gone before you and built up the world to be what it is—who developed the technologies, coordinated the supply chains, and built the infrastructure that shapes our daily lives. Most of the knowledge we learn in school was passed down from the generations before us, as are many of our recipes, our holiday traditions, and our sports. And of course there are bad things, too, like predisposition to diseases, cultural blind spots, broken systems, and so much more. For good or bad, our lives are profoundly shaped by all that we have inherited. Profoundly, but not completely.
We still make our own choices. We still decide what to do with the inheritances we have received, whether we value them or cast them aside, whether we leverage them for good or waste them or use them for evil. No matter what we have inherited, the choice to do right or wrong is still our own. And this is what makes Hebrews 11:7 so surprising. It talks about Noah trusting God and building the ark to save his family, and then it goes on to say that “By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.” Hold on a second—I know we are heirs of many things in many ways, but an heir of righteousness? The dictionary defines righteousness as “the quality of being morally right or justifiable.” How can moral rightness be inherited?
That’s an important question, because the Bible is clear that unless we have perfect righteousness, we’ll never be able to stand before a perfect God. And who has perfect righteousness? The answer is not encouraging:
“All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” – Isaiah 64:6
Like sheep on a hillside look white against the green grass, we might be able to view ourselves as righteous when we compare our choices to the world around us. But if you look at those same sheep in the fresh snow, you’ll see their imperfections contrasted against a deeper kind of purity. When we look at our righteousness compared to God’s perfection, it simply does not come close. Who then can be saved?
The good news of the gospel is that God has provided a way to share his perfect righteousness with us. Jesus came to earth and lived the perfect human life that none of us could attain. Then he took our sin to the cross and paid for it once and for all and now he offers us his own perfect righteousness in its place. There it is: an inheritance of righteousness. An inheritance “that is in keeping with faith” because we must trust him to provide what we cannot. Like Noah believed God’s words of salvation and acted on them, we must also believe and put our lives in God’s hands. We still have a choice. And if we choose to trust God, we will inherit his righteousness.
The righteousness that God provides to those who trust him is the greatest inheritance we could ever receive—better than money, fame, power, position, or any inheritance ever given on earth. By it we are restored to peace with our Creator, to life, to joy, to hope and security and love and a home that lasts forever. But the perfect righteousness that opens the gates of Heaven is not something we could ever achieve for ourselves. It is an inheritance, received by faith.
