I had intended to deal with the justice of God today, but as I started writing I realized that I needed to deal with his holiness and righteousness first. A proper understanding of God's justice, especially as it relates to our sin, is reliant upon a proper understanding of God's holy and righteous nature.
The meanings of the terms righteousness and holiness are interconnected throughout scripture, though never the same. They are also both closely connected with the idea of God's perfectness. First of all the basic meanings of the two terms are very different. Holiness refers to a separateness while righteousness refers to obedience to the law. To be holy is to be set apart or separate from something and to be righteous is to be, literally, within one's rights.
The idea of being set apart is not uncommon in today's Christian community, however it is commonly misused. The Old Testament idea of holiness is generally reserved for references to those people or objects that had a direct connection with God. The tabernacle, and later the temple, were set apart because they were to be used only for the worship of God. The priests had holy garments that were worn only during their priestly duties within the temple. Likewise the Jewish people as a whole were to be set apart for God, that is that they were to worship and bow only to God and not to others, a purpose which they consistently failed to fulfill.
The idea of righteousness was, in the Old Testament, a legal one. One was righteous when one was acting within the bounds of the law of Moses.
When we apply these words to God their common definitions, which depend on God, do not completely apply. God is not set apart for God, however God is wholly separate from this world. While God is in the world, he is omnipresent, he is not of the world, in fact the world is of God. God is a being that is set apart from the world because he was its creator, he is more than the world. In the same way God is righteous in anything he does because he is the origin of law. God in incapable of not being righteous because he is the definition of righteousness.
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Applying Righteousness to God, as I understand it, essentially is or becomes a dividing line between what God is and what God is not. That which is not God is unrighteousness. That which is God is righteous. My meditations on God's Infinity drew me to the place where I think the most important information is this dividing line of Righteousness. In any situation or thought, if I can find that line, I can say that, if it is within that line it can be of God even if I don't understand it or necessarily agree with it. If God is Infinite there is an infinite amount that I do not know of Him. I cannot say X or Y is wrong simply because they are outside my understanding of God.
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