Bible glossary

What Does ‘Righteousness’ Mean in the Bible?

Righteousness means being right with God and doing what is just and good, a rightness we receive from God rather than manufacture.

In the Bible, righteousness is a rightness of relationship and of life: standing before God without guilt, and living in a way that reflects His justice and love. The deep problem Scripture names is that no one is righteous on their own; we all fall short of that standard.

So the Bible announces a different kind of righteousness, one that comes as a gift. God credits, or counts, His own righteousness to those who trust Him, so that they are accepted not because their record is clean but because Christ's is. From that gift a changed life grows.

Key verses

“Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference.”
Romans 3:22

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Corinthians 5:21

“And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.”
Genesis 15:6