Creating our own standard of righteousness

Verse 3 stood out to me today.

…they are ignorant of the righteousness of God and attempted to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. (Romans 10:3)

Paul here is talking about Jews who had rejected Jesus as Messiah and his atoning work on the cross which makes us righteous in God’s eyes. Instead, they tried to be justified by their own works.

Many people are like that today. They reject Jesus and try to find their own path to God.

But there is another sense in which people try to establish their own form of righteousness.

We see it in the book of Judges.

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever seemed right to him. (Judges 21:25)

How many people are like that today? They reject God is king and simply do whatever seems is right to them.

Some of them are merely ignorant of God’s righteousness. But as Paul noted in Romans 1, many people actively suppress it. (Romans 1:18)

They call what God calls evil, “good.”

Look at the list in Romans 1:22-31. I’m sure you agree that most of the things in that list is evil.

But are there any in there that make you think, “That’s not so bad?”

Or even, “That’s not sin at all”?

If there is anything in those lists you say, “That’s not so bad” or “That’s not sin at all,” you are suppressing God’s righteousness and establishing your own.

You may have “a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” (Romans 10:2)

So let us not conform to the pattern of this world, but instead be transformed by the renewing of our mind through the Word of God.” (Romans 12:2)