In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.
In the way of righteousness is life, and to keep walking in that way is to keep living, with no death in its path. Righteousness and life cannot be separated, for life belongs to righteousness itself and is not added afterward as a separate payment for good behavior. Life flows without ceasing from God as its fountain, and righteousness is its channel and path, so living in harmony with His character keeps a person joined to the Source of life. God's law and commandments are that righteousness and that law of life, ordained to life and defining the way, so that obedience sustains life and disobedience turns aside to death. Christ was perfectly righteous in Himself and therefore death could not hold Him, but God raised Him in triumph over death, and when sinners forsake sin and believe in Him they are clothed with that same death-proof righteousness and will be raised to endless life.
Meaning of Righteousness and Life
In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death, for life is found only there and is retained by walking in that way. The way of righteousness leads to life and to eternal life, so that living in perfect harmony with God's everlasting law means possessing God's everlasting life. Life in harmony with righteous law continues without end and in its fullness, while death follows sin and departure from God, because righteousness is the law of life and the ground on which life continues.
Righteousness is to endure in God's universe, while death is an enemy God purposes to overcome; because God is righteous, death cannot have the final victory over those who walk in righteousness. Those who endure in what is right have a destiny that does not end in death, and their lasting life and character are greater than worldly power, wealth, fame, learning, or skill, which may shine briefly but pass away, for in God's measure goodness is true greatness. Righteousness means living in harmony with God's law, which expresses His character and is the law of life, with His law in the heart of those who know it. This life is everlasting and eternal because it comes from God, so that even when the righteous face self-denial, opposition, reproach, or the grave, death cannot finally hold them, and whoever identifies with righteousness identifies with God, eternal life, and immortality, with a path ending in immortality in God's kingdom.
Righteousness and life are inseparable and cannot be separated, for life flows in harmony with God's righteous character and law and continues without perversion or death. Righteousness is the channel through which life and the power of existence come from God, as conformity to His straight and right standard, with death outside that way and no death for continued faithfulness to His right way. Life is inherent in the way of righteousness itself, for God gives His righteousness and life is found in that righteousness, not bestowed as a separate reward for human merit; choosing righteousness is choosing life forevermore just as choosing sin is choosing death. If all people had always been righteous none would have died, and those who receive immortal life will remain forever in conformity with righteousness, while faithful obedience to God's commandments would have sustained human life and sin brings death; when a person becomes righteous eternal life begins, as righteousness tends to life and delivers from death.
Life flows constantly from God as its fountain through righteousness as its channel, current, and path, which is the way of God's righteousness through which His everlasting life flows to man. Continued life, both spiritual and physical, exists only in righteousness, with physical life depending on spiritual righteousness, and living in harmony with His righteous character keeps a person connected to the Source of life. A righteous universe would never grow old, for God's life, love, and unselfishness would keep it continually and perpetually young. God's salvation lasts forever because it rests on His righteousness, and man's keeping of life depends on God's holy, perfect, unchangeable law of character that forbids all sin and holds all righteousness, offered as eternal life on condition of obedience of faith, so that leaving that way brings death as disobedience brings certain death, while keeping the commandments enters life. Sin is deviation from the right course, missing the mark, falling short of God's glory, and turning away from the goal of God's calling, and any perversion of the right way makes it a wrong way as any change in a straight line makes it crooked; righteousness perverted becomes sin, straightness perverted becomes crookedness, truth perverted becomes error, and life perverted becomes death, so that when sin is full-grown it brings death, and choosing self instead of God in unbelief and disobedience cuts off the channel and brings death with woe and misery and sin, marring the harmony and laws of existence of God's perfect universe.
The path of righteousness is the way of life, peace, and rest, the narrow way that leads to life even though it may pass through hardship and suffering. That life is full and brings happiness, and the righteous path includes self-denial, bearing burdens, and helping others.
God's Law as the Way
God's law, commandments, statutes and testimonies are righteousness itself and the law of life, ordained to life and defining the way where life is found and where no death exists. That law is in harmony with righteousness and gives its principles, so life and happiness are found only in righteousness and life flows constantly through the law. It expresses God's own righteous character and is the law of life for intelligent beings, and law perfectly kept is righteousness which is life with no death in its path. If it had always been obeyed, death and every curse would never have marred the universe, for living in harmony with it would have meant unending life with no suffering, sorrow, pain or death, God's life continuing to flow throughout creation through its appointed channels. Christ always kept that law and therefore has in Himself a life absolutely free from sin, a life in which the power of the Spirit flows free.
Obedience to that law — the way of righteousness — sustains spiritual and physical life, while sin, transgression of the law and its opposite, leads to death, and selfishness is the alternative chosen against it. Angels and human beings were given freedom to choose the way of righteousness and live or selfishness and die, and life from God is retained only on condition of keeping His commandments and retaining His words. Righteousness is life because God's word is God's thought expressed, which is life itself, spirit and life, so continual life depends on receiving the expressed thought of God in His word and remaining connected to the Source of life. Righteousness means obedience to God's law, and life's continuance depends on obedience; God's words and commandments convey life to those who believe and obey, while sin when fully grown breaks that connection and brings death. Sin takes people outside this path, forfeiting claim to endless life, whereas obedience brings them into the way of eternal life, whose wage in contrast to sin's second, everlasting death is eternal life. Because He had no sin the grave could not hold Jesus, and though saints still die they live in God with grave rest as unconscious sleep from which they awake, while the person finally found in sin sleeps perpetually.
Keeping the commandments does not earn life but enters and remains in its channel, for the commandments define the way of righteousness and life is found by entering that way through faith in Jesus Christ who gives the life by which they can be kept. Obedience to God's law in faith, as active uprightness of religious life expressed in conformity to God's moral law, is the condition for continuing in life and attaining everlasting life. Christ's spiritual life reaches the heart through righteousness as its channel, and the person who receives it by faith lives by the indwelling Spirit dwelling in the believer. A person's spiritual nature cannot be sustained by physical food but receives God's life through His words received by living faith, so the spirit is life because of righteousness and God's life in a person shapes and governs the rest of life. God's law is the way through which His life flows to people, expressing His loving character and ordained to life; though the carnal mind cannot obey by its own power, receiving God's thought through the law transforms the mind and enables obedience through Christ, so those who look by faith to Christ and walk by the Spirit find life and the law's righteousness fulfilled in them.
Sin as transgression perverts the law's working and turns what was ordained to life into condemnation and death, bringing spiritual disease, physical disease and death. Righteousness is harmony with God's law, and breaking that law violates the normal, healthful rule of life just as transgressing the law of physical life brings disease and death. The commandment was ordained to life and accords with God's character and law, but when humanity sinned, sin perverted the law's working within people so that what was ordained to life became for the sinner a cause of death. The same law that imparts God's life and power to those who submit to it and has no death in its path of obedience becomes death to the transgressor, not because the law is defective but because sin opposes and perverts what is good. Sin and disobedience pervert God's way of righteousness, and sin brought to completion produces death, working out eternal death apart from divine grace.
The standard of righteousness is God's precepts in Christ Jesus, not a humanly devised standard, because God's law is the standard and His commandments are righteous. Those who conform to that righteous standard remain on the path where there is life and no death, and the law and its standard stand forever because righteousness is God's own character, so that abolishing the law would mean abolishing righteousness. Christ delighted to obey that law and so was in the way of righteousness and life, showing that conforming to God's law is righteousness. Opposing God's law places a person at enmity with God and brings death instead of life, while righteousness is loyalty to God's everlasting kingdom, attained through Christ who is righteous, with loyalty to and dependence on Him unto eternal life.
Christ's Righteousness and Resurrection
In the way of righteousness is life, and death cannot hold the righteous, which is why the sinless Christ was raised from the dead. Though He identified Himself with sin in order to die for others, He was not sinful in Himself, so the grave had no rightful claim upon Him. His resurrection demonstrates God's power triumphing over death, even as that same power had already triumphed over sin in His life. After His perfect offering for sin, His own righteousness broke death's power and brought Him out of the tomb, for sin could not chain righteousness forever. Righteous life is itself the power that conquers death, so His rising stands for power over sin and establishes the resurrection of the dead, since freedom from sin brings resurrection.
Jesus lived that righteous life without sin by keeping God's commandments and abiding in His love, so that law perfectly kept was righteousness and righteousness was life with no death in its path. Eternal life was His by right because He had no sin of His own, and the power of the Spirit flowed free in a life absolutely free from sin. He died to release humanity from the claims of death and to break its power forever, and He lives to give life forevermore. Though His body was still mortal flesh, He had to be raised after death with a body free of corruption and every seed of death, because the grave could not hold One who had no sins of His own.
The same righteousness over which death has no power clothes all who forsake sin and believe in Jesus. When a sinner receives God's perfect righteousness through faith in Christ, life comes with it, for righteousness is life and the law of endless existence. Those so clothed possess life with Him, in contrast to a merely outward life corrupted by sin that leads toward death. They are counted in God's purpose as risen with Him when He arose, and will be brought with Christ from the dead at the sounding of the last trump.
All who were raised before He was raised were raised by virtue of what He did and was doing in His offering. The grave holds people because of the sin upon them, and when sin is taken away they can rise from the grave as Christ did when God calls.
The promise that the pathway of righteousness has no death does not mean the grave will never cover the righteous for a time, for it covered even Christ the Author of freedom. He went through the grave and opened the way through it for all who follow Him and proved eternal life and immortality beyond it. God's royal way of righteousness, His law, commandments, statutes and testimonies kept by Christ, holds every royal bounty of blessing, peace, joy, life, strength and righteousness against man's own ways that end in disappointment and death. Even if God's soldier lays down in the midst of the struggle to sleep awhile, God has mercifully changed death into unconscious sleep in Christ, and the Master will awake him in the glad morning of the resurrection, while the person finally found in sin sleeps perpetually.
Righteousness Received by Faith
Faith in Christ brings the sinner both righteousness and life, for the way of righteousness is the way of life with no death in its path. Believing the gospel and accepting Christ as Savior begins that way of life, because Christ bore the penalty of sin and eternal life is found in no other way. Faith joins the believer to Christ's life and separates him from death, purifying his nature and giving him Christ's righteousness, so that Christ then lives and reigns in him displacing sin and death.
The righteousness that meets God's law and the eternal life of the eternal inheritance cannot be obtained by human works or efforts, for both are God's gifts received by faith. Christ works that righteousness in and for those who have Him in their hearts by believing, and only those who meet this standard enter the eternal kingdom. Those outside Christ cannot meet that standard and face condemnation and eternal death, since life without death is found only in the way of righteousness. Continuance of life means continuance in righteousness, which comes through faith in Christ alone; those who die possessing this righteousness receive immortality at Christ's coming, and those still living in it then are changed to immortality at the last trumpet.
Christ's spiritual life reaches the heart through righteousness as its channel, with Christ dwelling in the believer by the Spirit and received by faith. God's life in a person shapes the rest of life and gives power over sin.
When a person becomes righteous eternal life begins, and righteous life itself is the power that conquers death. Righteousness delivers from death, so the gospel is the power of God because the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ is revealed in it, and that life carries power by which alone men are made priests and ministers of God.
God sets before each person the choice between God's way and sin's way, life and death, salvation and destruction. Choosing righteousness is choosing life forevermore and choosing sin is choosing death, because righteousness alone is fit to live forever while sin is death. No man has that righteousness in himself, so Christ brings it to him in the gospel, which is the power of God to save because it supplies righteousness, giving righteousness in order to give life and giving life so that people may live righteously. Whoever in grace perfects a character that is unchangeable and invincible against the enemy has immortal character worthy to exist forever, and when Christ comes He will clothe that immortal character with His own immortality in an immortal body. Those who refuse to live by refusing righteousness receive the eternal death they chose in sin, and God is not arbitrary in this but gives full and free choice. Life is a gift from God given to be used for His glory, which is always for man's highest good, and if man refuses to use the gift that way God removes it and is just in doing so, leaving His creature no reasonable ground for complaint. God's way of righteousness is the way of life with no death, while choosing one's own desires and the world's ways leads to death, for God sees the way from beginning to end and His path brings peace rather than disappointment, sorrow, or death.
Sin, Death and Immortality
Life is made dependent upon righteousness, and death follows sin, for life is found in the way of righteousness while sin brings death. Sin is transgression of the law and righteousness is its opposite, and the wage of that transgression is the second, everlasting death. Righteousness is the way to life without death, and death has no place on that path, so the contrast stands between the death brought by sin and the life found in righteousness. Those who receive Christ and share His righteous character welcome Him at His coming and receive immortality and incorruptibility, while those who choose sin perish forever.
God, who is absolute and perfect righteousness, cannot die, whereas humanity dies because it is sinful and has fallen short of God's goodness. The longing for life and the fear of death confirm that people are subject to death through sin. The hope for endless life lies in the way of righteousness, where there is life and no death, not in possessing by nature an immortal soul that cannot die. Human beings were not created immortal but mortal, as candidates for immortality whose character had to be tested and become incorruptible before their bodies could be made incorruptible. God is the source of life and His life is inseparable from righteousness, so if humanity had lived in His righteousness people would have received His eternal life and never died.
Humanity was created able to choose righteousness or unrighteousness, and life or death, and choosing sin brought mortality and death. Eternal life is obtained through faith in Jesus Christ, and immortality is given to the faithful at Christ's coming, not before. Righteousness depends on faith, in choosing, believing, receiving, and submitting to God unto life, while rejecting God and choosing sin leads to death. No one possesses life in himself or remains alive forever regardless of whether righteous or sinful, for life and continued existence are found only in righteousness and in living connection with God. When righteousness is perfected it brings forth life, so human immortality depends on righteousness and immortality belongs to the righteous.
Those made righteous by faith in Christ receive immortality at His coming as the eternal seal of their righteous character, both those who die possessing righteousness and those still living in it who are changed to immortality at the last trumpet. Even small choices shape character, for choosing temporal gain over service to God and others puts a person on the way of selfishness and death, while righteousness leads to life. God's law is life-filled, so living in perfect harmony with its precepts would mean no death, decay, misery, mourning, hatred, or hell. The disease, decay, and death now fallen on the human family need never have happened, since man was given dominion over all earthly things but sinned and left righteousness for selfish life and selfish gain and pleasure, and therefore all people die as victims of sin in unbroken succession.
A person who had never sinned and lived in complete harmony with God's laws would suffer no pain or death in himself, though he might suffer in sympathy with others. If sin had never entered, life flowing from God would have kept the earth and its inhabitants young forever, and human life would have paralleled the earth's enduring life. Sin perverted God's law and righteousness into sin, turning life into death, so perverted truth becomes error and perverted life becomes death. What appears to live while turned from righteousness is already dying, and humanity became dying with the earth a dying planet. When sin is blotted out, death, pain, sorrow, and suffering will cease.
Adam, Kingdoms and the Universe
In the way of righteousness is life, and where that way governs there is no death, for in their normal working God's laws preserve life. Had that law always been obeyed, death and every curse would never have marred the universe. Beyond this sinful world other worlds still live under that reign of righteousness, with God's life flowing through its appointed channels.
Adam was created righteous and potentially righteous under the everlasting covenant, with righteousness built into his nature as a natural endowment. Every act revealed the holy character within him, while the harmonious development of creation around him expressed the Creator's wisdom and holiness. Humanity was set before the possibility of living without death by remaining in harmony with God's life and law, in the channel of God's life, able to live forever by continuing in the royal way of faith and forming the character God intended. Had Adam remained obedient and faithful, spiritual life would have continued to dominate his physical life and he would never have died, and apart from sin he could have developed character without dying. By choosing self-will and letting the lower nature rule he was turned from that way, his nature was corrupted, life was perverted, and sin that perverts God's right ways brought evil ending in death to all in unbroken succession, with the loss of eternal life.
Lasting life without death belongs only to the way of righteousness, and only to those righteous by choice, so only Love Incarnate is fitted to reign eternally. The divine government is founded on righteousness and is therefore perpetual, with neither death nor uncertainty in its path, and those prepared for Christ's everlasting kingdom, in harmony with the law of life found in Christ, will endure when earthly kingdoms pass away. Earthly governments are temporary because sin leads to death, which limits all that is marked by sin. A kingdom corrupted by idolatry, selfishness and sin must pass away, as Babylon alloyed and cankered by those evils had to pass away despite walls, water, kings, palaces, temples and armies. Its continuance depended on its people as individuals accepting God's righteousness, for it is the work of the gospel to restore man to righteousness, preached to Nebuchadnezzar and through him to all generations, and rejection of that gospel meant Babylon would be superseded by another kingdom.
The three Hebrews in Babylon had entered complete relationship with God in righteousness, and God as the Fountain of life poured out His life for them and filled them with a glory greater than the glory of fire, so the fierce fire had no power over them. The same protection will shield God's children in the last great burning day. In the principles of God's kingdom right makes might, with life in righteousness and confusion and death in rejection of His plan. Since the first adversary charged God's plan with unwisdom and injustice, putting God on trial before His universe, God in wisdom permits the travail of sin to continue so creatures learn by experience what they would not learn by faith, letting rebellious creatures devise and try every plan of their own devising and all their combined plans until all are seen to work out confusion and every evil work and all see that God's way is best.
Walking in the Way
Walking with God is walking in His perfect way rather than asking Him to follow ours, doing right and showing mercy in humble walk. That way is made visible in Jesus Christ, whose life perfectly displays God's law in human life, and to walk it is to imitate God as beloved children. Following Christ in that way means self-denial, service, faith, suffering and witness, with willingness to sacrifice worldly honor and possessions, to obey God by faith and to accept hardship as His disciple. Godly companionship helps lead toward this better way and toward Christ who is the way, the truth and the life, and for children obedience itself is a way of righteousness that brings life.
The safe course is to remain on the path of right conduct without compromise, since it contains no step toward death. Small, gradual departures from it shape character and lead to destruction, while ways that may seem right to human wisdom end in death. God's keeping power is not a reason to walk on forbidden ground, for His paths are marked by Christ's faithful, often bleeding footsteps which never faltered or failed, and those who walk in them may be kept from falling.
Conforming physical life to the laws of health and hygiene can greatly prolong mortal life, while vice and transgression shorten it. One who never sinned would suffer no pain or death in himself, for righteousness is opposed to sin whose wages are death. Yet eternal life comes only through God transforming character from sin to righteousness by the power of His love in Christ, leading to eternal life through the resurrection of the dead, as righteousness and life are gifts He bestows on those who come to Him by faith. When sin is blotted out, pain, sorrow and suffering will cease.
The way of righteousness is the way of God's commandments, because all His commandments are righteousness, and it was kept by Jesus. Following that way leads to life and to the city of God where there is no death, for the law comes from God's throne as a river of life bearing life and blessing to the keeper. God's spiritual law has life in it when written in the heart by the Spirit, while controversy about the law and following a multitude to do evil have no life in them. Harmony with God is love and righteousness, and He desires all to turn from evil and live, for life is found only in connection with Jesus Christ by walking in His way. In this is the only way out of death into life, since in that way is life and in its pathway there is no death.
In the way of righteousness is life, and to keep walking in that way is to keep living, with no death in its path. Righteousness and life cannot be separated, for life belongs to righteousness itself and is not added afterward as a separate payment for good behavior. Life flows without ceasing from God as its fountain, and righteousness is its channel and path, so living in harmony with His character keeps a person joined to the Source of life. God's law and commandments are that righteousness and that law of life, ordained to life and defining the way, so that obedience sustains life and disobedience turns aside to death. Christ was perfectly righteous in Himself and therefore death could not hold Him, but God raised Him in triumph over death, and when sinners forsake sin and believe in Him they are clothed with that same death-proof righteousness and will be raised to endless life.
Meaning of Righteousness and Life
In the way of righteousness is life, and in its pathway there is no death, for life is found only there and is retained by walking in that way. The way of righteousness leads to life and to eternal life, so that living in perfect harmony with God's everlasting law means possessing God's everlasting life. Life in harmony with righteous law continues without end and in its fullness, while death follows sin and departure from God, because righteousness is the law of life and the ground on which life continues.
Righteousness is to endure in God's universe, while death is an enemy God purposes to overcome; because God is righteous, death cannot have the final victory over those who walk in righteousness. Those who endure in what is right have a destiny that does not end in death, and their lasting life and character are greater than worldly power, wealth, fame, learning, or skill, which may shine briefly but pass away, for in God's measure goodness is true greatness. Righteousness means living in harmony with God's law, which expresses His character and is the law of life, with His law in the heart of those who know it. This life is everlasting and eternal because it comes from God, so that even when the righteous face self-denial, opposition, reproach, or the grave, death cannot finally hold them, and whoever identifies with righteousness identifies with God, eternal life, and immortality, with a path ending in immortality in God's kingdom.
Righteousness and life are inseparable and cannot be separated, for life flows in harmony with God's righteous character and law and continues without perversion or death. Righteousness is the channel through which life and the power of existence come from God, as conformity to His straight and right standard, with death outside that way and no death for continued faithfulness to His right way. Life is inherent in the way of righteousness itself, for God gives His righteousness and life is found in that righteousness, not bestowed as a separate reward for human merit; choosing righteousness is choosing life forevermore just as choosing sin is choosing death. If all people had always been righteous none would have died, and those who receive immortal life will remain forever in conformity with righteousness, while faithful obedience to God's commandments would have sustained human life and sin brings death; when a person becomes righteous eternal life begins, as righteousness tends to life and delivers from death.
Life flows constantly from God as its fountain through righteousness as its channel, current, and path, which is the way of God's righteousness through which His everlasting life flows to man. Continued life, both spiritual and physical, exists only in righteousness, with physical life depending on spiritual righteousness, and living in harmony with His righteous character keeps a person connected to the Source of life. A righteous universe would never grow old, for God's life, love, and unselfishness would keep it continually and perpetually young. God's salvation lasts forever because it rests on His righteousness, and man's keeping of life depends on God's holy, perfect, unchangeable law of character that forbids all sin and holds all righteousness, offered as eternal life on condition of obedience of faith, so that leaving that way brings death as disobedience brings certain death, while keeping the commandments enters life. Sin is deviation from the right course, missing the mark, falling short of God's glory, and turning away from the goal of God's calling, and any perversion of the right way makes it a wrong way as any change in a straight line makes it crooked; righteousness perverted becomes sin, straightness perverted becomes crookedness, truth perverted becomes error, and life perverted becomes death, so that when sin is full-grown it brings death, and choosing self instead of God in unbelief and disobedience cuts off the channel and brings death with woe and misery and sin, marring the harmony and laws of existence of God's perfect universe.
The path of righteousness is the way of life, peace, and rest, the narrow way that leads to life even though it may pass through hardship and suffering. That life is full and brings happiness, and the righteous path includes self-denial, bearing burdens, and helping others.
God's Law as the Way
God's law, commandments, statutes and testimonies are righteousness itself and the law of life, ordained to life and defining the way where life is found and where no death exists. That law is in harmony with righteousness and gives its principles, so life and happiness are found only in righteousness and life flows constantly through the law. It expresses God's own righteous character and is the law of life for intelligent beings, and law perfectly kept is righteousness which is life with no death in its path. If it had always been obeyed, death and every curse would never have marred the universe, for living in harmony with it would have meant unending life with no suffering, sorrow, pain or death, God's life continuing to flow throughout creation through its appointed channels. Christ always kept that law and therefore has in Himself a life absolutely free from sin, a life in which the power of the Spirit flows free.
Obedience to that law — the way of righteousness — sustains spiritual and physical life, while sin, transgression of the law and its opposite, leads to death, and selfishness is the alternative chosen against it. Angels and human beings were given freedom to choose the way of righteousness and live or selfishness and die, and life from God is retained only on condition of keeping His commandments and retaining His words. Righteousness is life because God's word is God's thought expressed, which is life itself, spirit and life, so continual life depends on receiving the expressed thought of God in His word and remaining connected to the Source of life. Righteousness means obedience to God's law, and life's continuance depends on obedience; God's words and commandments convey life to those who believe and obey, while sin when fully grown breaks that connection and brings death. Sin takes people outside this path, forfeiting claim to endless life, whereas obedience brings them into the way of eternal life, whose wage in contrast to sin's second, everlasting death is eternal life. Because He had no sin the grave could not hold Jesus, and though saints still die they live in God with grave rest as unconscious sleep from which they awake, while the person finally found in sin sleeps perpetually.
Keeping the commandments does not earn life but enters and remains in its channel, for the commandments define the way of righteousness and life is found by entering that way through faith in Jesus Christ who gives the life by which they can be kept. Obedience to God's law in faith, as active uprightness of religious life expressed in conformity to God's moral law, is the condition for continuing in life and attaining everlasting life. Christ's spiritual life reaches the heart through righteousness as its channel, and the person who receives it by faith lives by the indwelling Spirit dwelling in the believer. A person's spiritual nature cannot be sustained by physical food but receives God's life through His words received by living faith, so the spirit is life because of righteousness and God's life in a person shapes and governs the rest of life. God's law is the way through which His life flows to people, expressing His loving character and ordained to life; though the carnal mind cannot obey by its own power, receiving God's thought through the law transforms the mind and enables obedience through Christ, so those who look by faith to Christ and walk by the Spirit find life and the law's righteousness fulfilled in them.
Sin as transgression perverts the law's working and turns what was ordained to life into condemnation and death, bringing spiritual disease, physical disease and death. Righteousness is harmony with God's law, and breaking that law violates the normal, healthful rule of life just as transgressing the law of physical life brings disease and death. The commandment was ordained to life and accords with God's character and law, but when humanity sinned, sin perverted the law's working within people so that what was ordained to life became for the sinner a cause of death. The same law that imparts God's life and power to those who submit to it and has no death in its path of obedience becomes death to the transgressor, not because the law is defective but because sin opposes and perverts what is good. Sin and disobedience pervert God's way of righteousness, and sin brought to completion produces death, working out eternal death apart from divine grace.
The standard of righteousness is God's precepts in Christ Jesus, not a humanly devised standard, because God's law is the standard and His commandments are righteous. Those who conform to that righteous standard remain on the path where there is life and no death, and the law and its standard stand forever because righteousness is God's own character, so that abolishing the law would mean abolishing righteousness. Christ delighted to obey that law and so was in the way of righteousness and life, showing that conforming to God's law is righteousness. Opposing God's law places a person at enmity with God and brings death instead of life, while righteousness is loyalty to God's everlasting kingdom, attained through Christ who is righteous, with loyalty to and dependence on Him unto eternal life.
Christ's Righteousness and Resurrection
In the way of righteousness is life, and death cannot hold the righteous, which is why the sinless Christ was raised from the dead. Though He identified Himself with sin in order to die for others, He was not sinful in Himself, so the grave had no rightful claim upon Him. His resurrection demonstrates God's power triumphing over death, even as that same power had already triumphed over sin in His life. After His perfect offering for sin, His own righteousness broke death's power and brought Him out of the tomb, for sin could not chain righteousness forever. Righteous life is itself the power that conquers death, so His rising stands for power over sin and establishes the resurrection of the dead, since freedom from sin brings resurrection.
Jesus lived that righteous life without sin by keeping God's commandments and abiding in His love, so that law perfectly kept was righteousness and righteousness was life with no death in its path. Eternal life was His by right because He had no sin of His own, and the power of the Spirit flowed free in a life absolutely free from sin. He died to release humanity from the claims of death and to break its power forever, and He lives to give life forevermore. Though His body was still mortal flesh, He had to be raised after death with a body free of corruption and every seed of death, because the grave could not hold One who had no sins of His own.
The same righteousness over which death has no power clothes all who forsake sin and believe in Jesus. When a sinner receives God's perfect righteousness through faith in Christ, life comes with it, for righteousness is life and the law of endless existence. Those so clothed possess life with Him, in contrast to a merely outward life corrupted by sin that leads toward death. They are counted in God's purpose as risen with Him when He arose, and will be brought with Christ from the dead at the sounding of the last trump.
All who were raised before He was raised were raised by virtue of what He did and was doing in His offering. The grave holds people because of the sin upon them, and when sin is taken away they can rise from the grave as Christ did when God calls.
The promise that the pathway of righteousness has no death does not mean the grave will never cover the righteous for a time, for it covered even Christ the Author of freedom. He went through the grave and opened the way through it for all who follow Him and proved eternal life and immortality beyond it. God's royal way of righteousness, His law, commandments, statutes and testimonies kept by Christ, holds every royal bounty of blessing, peace, joy, life, strength and righteousness against man's own ways that end in disappointment and death. Even if God's soldier lays down in the midst of the struggle to sleep awhile, God has mercifully changed death into unconscious sleep in Christ, and the Master will awake him in the glad morning of the resurrection, while the person finally found in sin sleeps perpetually.
Righteousness Received by Faith
Faith in Christ brings the sinner both righteousness and life, for the way of righteousness is the way of life with no death in its path. Believing the gospel and accepting Christ as Savior begins that way of life, because Christ bore the penalty of sin and eternal life is found in no other way. Faith joins the believer to Christ's life and separates him from death, purifying his nature and giving him Christ's righteousness, so that Christ then lives and reigns in him displacing sin and death.
The righteousness that meets God's law and the eternal life of the eternal inheritance cannot be obtained by human works or efforts, for both are God's gifts received by faith. Christ works that righteousness in and for those who have Him in their hearts by believing, and only those who meet this standard enter the eternal kingdom. Those outside Christ cannot meet that standard and face condemnation and eternal death, since life without death is found only in the way of righteousness. Continuance of life means continuance in righteousness, which comes through faith in Christ alone; those who die possessing this righteousness receive immortality at Christ's coming, and those still living in it then are changed to immortality at the last trumpet.
Christ's spiritual life reaches the heart through righteousness as its channel, with Christ dwelling in the believer by the Spirit and received by faith. God's life in a person shapes the rest of life and gives power over sin.
When a person becomes righteous eternal life begins, and righteous life itself is the power that conquers death. Righteousness delivers from death, so the gospel is the power of God because the righteousness of God by faith of Jesus Christ is revealed in it, and that life carries power by which alone men are made priests and ministers of God.
God sets before each person the choice between God's way and sin's way, life and death, salvation and destruction. Choosing righteousness is choosing life forevermore and choosing sin is choosing death, because righteousness alone is fit to live forever while sin is death. No man has that righteousness in himself, so Christ brings it to him in the gospel, which is the power of God to save because it supplies righteousness, giving righteousness in order to give life and giving life so that people may live righteously. Whoever in grace perfects a character that is unchangeable and invincible against the enemy has immortal character worthy to exist forever, and when Christ comes He will clothe that immortal character with His own immortality in an immortal body. Those who refuse to live by refusing righteousness receive the eternal death they chose in sin, and God is not arbitrary in this but gives full and free choice. Life is a gift from God given to be used for His glory, which is always for man's highest good, and if man refuses to use the gift that way God removes it and is just in doing so, leaving His creature no reasonable ground for complaint. God's way of righteousness is the way of life with no death, while choosing one's own desires and the world's ways leads to death, for God sees the way from beginning to end and His path brings peace rather than disappointment, sorrow, or death.
Sin, Death and Immortality
Life is made dependent upon righteousness, and death follows sin, for life is found in the way of righteousness while sin brings death. Sin is transgression of the law and righteousness is its opposite, and the wage of that transgression is the second, everlasting death. Righteousness is the way to life without death, and death has no place on that path, so the contrast stands between the death brought by sin and the life found in righteousness. Those who receive Christ and share His righteous character welcome Him at His coming and receive immortality and incorruptibility, while those who choose sin perish forever.
God, who is absolute and perfect righteousness, cannot die, whereas humanity dies because it is sinful and has fallen short of God's goodness. The longing for life and the fear of death confirm that people are subject to death through sin. The hope for endless life lies in the way of righteousness, where there is life and no death, not in possessing by nature an immortal soul that cannot die. Human beings were not created immortal but mortal, as candidates for immortality whose character had to be tested and become incorruptible before their bodies could be made incorruptible. God is the source of life and His life is inseparable from righteousness, so if humanity had lived in His righteousness people would have received His eternal life and never died.
Humanity was created able to choose righteousness or unrighteousness, and life or death, and choosing sin brought mortality and death. Eternal life is obtained through faith in Jesus Christ, and immortality is given to the faithful at Christ's coming, not before. Righteousness depends on faith, in choosing, believing, receiving, and submitting to God unto life, while rejecting God and choosing sin leads to death. No one possesses life in himself or remains alive forever regardless of whether righteous or sinful, for life and continued existence are found only in righteousness and in living connection with God. When righteousness is perfected it brings forth life, so human immortality depends on righteousness and immortality belongs to the righteous.
Those made righteous by faith in Christ receive immortality at His coming as the eternal seal of their righteous character, both those who die possessing righteousness and those still living in it who are changed to immortality at the last trumpet. Even small choices shape character, for choosing temporal gain over service to God and others puts a person on the way of selfishness and death, while righteousness leads to life. God's law is life-filled, so living in perfect harmony with its precepts would mean no death, decay, misery, mourning, hatred, or hell. The disease, decay, and death now fallen on the human family need never have happened, since man was given dominion over all earthly things but sinned and left righteousness for selfish life and selfish gain and pleasure, and therefore all people die as victims of sin in unbroken succession.
A person who had never sinned and lived in complete harmony with God's laws would suffer no pain or death in himself, though he might suffer in sympathy with others. If sin had never entered, life flowing from God would have kept the earth and its inhabitants young forever, and human life would have paralleled the earth's enduring life. Sin perverted God's law and righteousness into sin, turning life into death, so perverted truth becomes error and perverted life becomes death. What appears to live while turned from righteousness is already dying, and humanity became dying with the earth a dying planet. When sin is blotted out, death, pain, sorrow, and suffering will cease.
Adam, Kingdoms and the Universe
In the way of righteousness is life, and where that way governs there is no death, for in their normal working God's laws preserve life. Had that law always been obeyed, death and every curse would never have marred the universe. Beyond this sinful world other worlds still live under that reign of righteousness, with God's life flowing through its appointed channels.
Adam was created righteous and potentially righteous under the everlasting covenant, with righteousness built into his nature as a natural endowment. Every act revealed the holy character within him, while the harmonious development of creation around him expressed the Creator's wisdom and holiness. Humanity was set before the possibility of living without death by remaining in harmony with God's life and law, in the channel of God's life, able to live forever by continuing in the royal way of faith and forming the character God intended. Had Adam remained obedient and faithful, spiritual life would have continued to dominate his physical life and he would never have died, and apart from sin he could have developed character without dying. By choosing self-will and letting the lower nature rule he was turned from that way, his nature was corrupted, life was perverted, and sin that perverts God's right ways brought evil ending in death to all in unbroken succession, with the loss of eternal life.
Lasting life without death belongs only to the way of righteousness, and only to those righteous by choice, so only Love Incarnate is fitted to reign eternally. The divine government is founded on righteousness and is therefore perpetual, with neither death nor uncertainty in its path, and those prepared for Christ's everlasting kingdom, in harmony with the law of life found in Christ, will endure when earthly kingdoms pass away. Earthly governments are temporary because sin leads to death, which limits all that is marked by sin. A kingdom corrupted by idolatry, selfishness and sin must pass away, as Babylon alloyed and cankered by those evils had to pass away despite walls, water, kings, palaces, temples and armies. Its continuance depended on its people as individuals accepting God's righteousness, for it is the work of the gospel to restore man to righteousness, preached to Nebuchadnezzar and through him to all generations, and rejection of that gospel meant Babylon would be superseded by another kingdom.
The three Hebrews in Babylon had entered complete relationship with God in righteousness, and God as the Fountain of life poured out His life for them and filled them with a glory greater than the glory of fire, so the fierce fire had no power over them. The same protection will shield God's children in the last great burning day. In the principles of God's kingdom right makes might, with life in righteousness and confusion and death in rejection of His plan. Since the first adversary charged God's plan with unwisdom and injustice, putting God on trial before His universe, God in wisdom permits the travail of sin to continue so creatures learn by experience what they would not learn by faith, letting rebellious creatures devise and try every plan of their own devising and all their combined plans until all are seen to work out confusion and every evil work and all see that God's way is best.
Walking in the Way
Walking with God is walking in His perfect way rather than asking Him to follow ours, doing right and showing mercy in humble walk. That way is made visible in Jesus Christ, whose life perfectly displays God's law in human life, and to walk it is to imitate God as beloved children. Following Christ in that way means self-denial, service, faith, suffering and witness, with willingness to sacrifice worldly honor and possessions, to obey God by faith and to accept hardship as His disciple. Godly companionship helps lead toward this better way and toward Christ who is the way, the truth and the life, and for children obedience itself is a way of righteousness that brings life.
The safe course is to remain on the path of right conduct without compromise, since it contains no step toward death. Small, gradual departures from it shape character and lead to destruction, while ways that may seem right to human wisdom end in death. God's keeping power is not a reason to walk on forbidden ground, for His paths are marked by Christ's faithful, often bleeding footsteps which never faltered or failed, and those who walk in them may be kept from falling.
Conforming physical life to the laws of health and hygiene can greatly prolong mortal life, while vice and transgression shorten it. One who never sinned would suffer no pain or death in himself, for righteousness is opposed to sin whose wages are death. Yet eternal life comes only through God transforming character from sin to righteousness by the power of His love in Christ, leading to eternal life through the resurrection of the dead, as righteousness and life are gifts He bestows on those who come to Him by faith. When sin is blotted out, pain, sorrow and suffering will cease.
The way of righteousness is the way of God's commandments, because all His commandments are righteousness, and it was kept by Jesus. Following that way leads to life and to the city of God where there is no death, for the law comes from God's throne as a river of life bearing life and blessing to the keeper. God's spiritual law has life in it when written in the heart by the Spirit, while controversy about the law and following a multitude to do evil have no life in them. Harmony with God is love and righteousness, and He desires all to turn from evil and live, for life is found only in connection with Jesus Christ by walking in His way. In this is the only way out of death into life, since in that way is life and in its pathway there is no death.