What is a righteous man according to the Bible?

"Righteously." A righteous man is one who renders what is right to all outside himself; to God first and foremost. When the Lord Jesus said, "Render therefore to Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's" He was preaching practical righteousness.

How plain it is! How easy it is! Abram was not a righteous man himself. Abram was a sinner like you and me. But just because he believed God's word, God counted him righteous. As if God said, "Abram, you are a sinner, but because you believe Me, I count you a righteous man." God had not told him to act as a righteous man, nor to do something, or keep the commandments and the law, or to be a good man. He just simply and plainly said that Abram BELIEVED GOD, AND GOD COUNTED IT TO HIM FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (see Rom. 4:3) God counts sinners righteous when they believe God's word, not because of works they may do.

We get the expression, "this blessedness," in verse 9. It refers to faith being "counted for righteousness," or "reckoned for righteousness," or righteousness being "imputed." These, and similar expressions, occur a number of times in the chapter. What do they mean? Whether referring to Abraham or David or to ourselves who believe today, they mean that God accounts us as righteous before Him in view of our faith. We must not imagine that all virtue resides in our faith. It does not. But faith establishes contact with the work of Christ, in which all the virtue does reside. In that sense faith justifies. Once that contact is established and we stand before God in all the justifying virtue of the work of Christ, we are of necessity justified. It could not righteously be otherwise. God holds us as righteous in view of our faith.

But, further, this is viewed, on the other hand, and for the very reason that righteousness before God is treated of, as applied to or judged of in the person who is to be accounted righteous. The man is accounted righteous; righteousness is accounted to him or reckoned to him. Thus, when it is said, Faith was imputed to him for righteousness, it is not the distinct substantive value of his faith which was reckoned as righteousness in itself, and then imputed to him, but that he was accounted righteous, held for righteous before God, because of his faith. The why or how remains. A believer in Christ is justified-through faith; he is reckoned righteous; yet it is not the value or strength of his faith which is accounted as itself equivalent to righteousness, and then imputed; yet it is said for us also, to whom it shall be imputed if we believe (who believe); but that he was accounted, and we are accounted, righteousness on the ground of believing. That is, the meaning of imputed righteousness is not a substantive righteousness, apart from the person, and afterwards reckoned to him, but the condition of the person in God's sight. God views him as righteous, though he be not such as would entitle him to it by reason of anything inherent. It is righteousness reckoned to him, but not thought of apart from him, but his standing before God. They are in righteousness in God's reckoning, though they are not intrinsically so. Hence it is imputed or reckoned. The whole difference lies in this.

But I must get my ideas of righteousness from the Righteous One, or I shall have no true thought of righteousness. I shall possibly take honesty among men to be the righteousness spoken of here. But it is not that. I get the truth about a man when I get to see him in his relations with God. I suppose Cain and Abel got on well enough together until it became a question of approach to God. Both may have been equally honest in their relations with men, but the true nature of both came to light when they set up their altars. No doubt Saul of Tarsus was very correct in all his relations with men, for as to all that the letter of the law required, he was blameless, but he was all wrong in his relations with God. But everyone that does righteousness is born of God. Christ, the Righteous One, is in him. “I in them.” And if the Righteous One is in me, as my life, I am sure to practice righteousness.

He that practises righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. Practising righteousness is answering to all the different relations and responsibilities in which we are found.*

The practice of righteousness begins with God and then extends into all life's relationships. No unbeliever can be said to practise righteousness because they have never begun at the beginning. They do not practise what is right in relation to God. The Word of God teaches practical righteousness in every relationship of life: husband - wife; parent - child; employee - employer; ruler - subject; brother - brother etc. Righteousness is consistency in any relationship in which we are placed. It must start firstly with our relationship with God.

In the first place, then, the Lord speaks of His way with a righteous man — not absolutely such, as already said, but distinctively so: "If a man be righteous, and do judgment and justice, he hath not eaten upon the mountains, nor lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, … he hath walked in my statutes and kept mine ordinances to deal faithfully; he is righteous; he shall surely live, saith the Lord Jehovah." This was entirely subversive, therefore, of the proverb which Israel was using. There is no question about their ancestry; each one was responsible for himself; and this is the basic principle of all that follows.

This leads the Apostle to his next great subject. Just as the Galatians had heard a message and believed it, had been justified by faith, and received the Spirit by faith, so Abraham had heard a message from God. He had believed it, and God reckoned it to Abraham as righteousness. You remember the story — one of the most beautiful in the Bible, to make plain how a sinner is justified. It was a clear, starry night. The Lord brought Abraham forth out of his tent, and He said to him, "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them," and He said unto him, "So shall thy seed be." Abraham believed the Lord's word, though he was then an old man, and his wife an old woman. In the eyes of man this promise was impossible; but Abraham believed God, and God counted, or reckoned, this faith to him as righteousness. So the record goes in Genesis 15:5 and 6. Nothing could be more clear and more simple. It was by simple faith in a simple statement. Abraham did not look at the impossibility of the promise, but he looked at the almighty power of the One who made it. And he said, "Yes, Lord, I believe you." And God said, "Abraham, I count you to be a righteous man." Even so does God count me a righteous man, wretched sinner though I am by nature. God says, "Christ died for the ungodly." I say, "That is myself; I believe it: I thank Thee." And God says, "I count you a righteous man." Reader, does God account you righteous? He waits to do so: He waits till you, by simple faith in His Word, trust only to the death of Christ for your sins. Then He says, I count, I reckon, you are righteous. Remember that this happened 430 years before the law was given. Abraham had never heard of the law when God reckoned him righteous. It was all by grace. It was all by faith. "Justified freely by His grace." Rom. 3:24. "Who was raised again for our justification." Rom. 4:25. "Justified by faith." Rom. 5:1. "Justified by His blood." Rom. 5:9.

As we see, Abel brings a sacrifice, and God by that sacrifice declares that he is a righteous man. That does not mean that Abel was intrinsically righteous. Righteousness has to do with our standing, not with our personal condition, when spoken of in this way. God declares a man to be just even when he is an ungodly person. That is the great truth of justification. It is on the ground of Christ's sacrifice. Sins were borne by the Substitute they are put away and now, as a man by faith accepts the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work, God declares him to be righteous. His faith is reckoned for righteousness. It has put him in the place where righteousness can be put to his account. Abel was justified by the sacrifice which he brought, God bearing witness of his gifts, "and by it, he being dead, yet speaketh."