“As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” (Ps. 17:15 – Lesson citation #1)
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked that ye were servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.” (Romans 6: 16-18 – Lesson citation #7)
RIGHTOUSNESS: Purity of heart; conformity of heart and life to the divine law; holiness; justice, honesty, virtue, holy affections; true religion; perfection; exact rectitude; faithfulness; active and passive obedience of Christ. (1828 Dictionary)
Rectitude: In morality, rightness of principle or practice; uprightness of mind; exact conformity to truth, or to the rules prescribed for moral conduct; perfect rectitude belongs only to the Supreme Being. (1828 Dictionary)
“. . . the word righteousness is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, riht, right, and wis, wise or way, so that the meaning of righteousness in the original English was right-wise-ness, or right-way-ness. To be righteous, then, is to be rightly wise, to follow the right way, or to be rightly informed – to possess accurate knowledge.” (“Righteousness,” CSJ, Nov. 1917, Warwick A. Tyler)
“Righteousness is necessarily rightness with God, and rightness with God means rightness with all of God’s ideas. This right attitude of thought, like charity, ‘begins at home,’ with one’s own self. Its primary step is the sifting out of consciousness those conditions which would bind and limit, which would obscure the realities and retard progress. This process in thought is necessarily individual. No one can do this for another, neither can any one prevent another’s doing it for himself. . . . Getting right with God means also getting right with one’s self. A right concept of God and man is ‘right wiseness’ or righteousness.” (“Effect of righteousness,” CSS, 5/31/1913, John L. Rendall)
“Let us now briefly consider what is required of us if we would walk honestly and unswervingly in the ‘Paths of righteousness.’ It means this: that we must cease forever to think or talk of man as though he were mortal and material, since the only real man, the only man we are entitled to be conscious of, is the image and likeness of God. . .” (“Paths for righteousness,” CSS, 9/23/1916, Charles A. Henry)
• The mention during Sunday’s Roundtable of Bicknell Young’s article, “Oneness,” prompted me to re-read it. The citation above from Charles Henry’s article so closely aligns with this one from “Oneness”: “We should never think of ourselves as man, with God afar off. . . . Jesus never spoke of himself as man, but as one with the Father. WE MUST LEARN TO DO THIS.”
“What is it to think right? Even to think in accordance with Truth. . . to think truthfully is to think in a godlike manner. Right thinking places the aspiring Christian in the attitude of unity with God, brings to pass the atonement, – the at-one-ment – and constitutes the silent communion which fulfils the demands, ‘Pray without ceasing.’ The psalmist sang: ‘As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.’. . . Only through righteous thinking can men experience the spiritual joy of beholding God’s face; that is, realizing His character, entering into the enjoyment of knowing Him as He truly is, the ever active source of infinite bounty, of all harmony, beauty, happiness and heavenly bliss. . . . Only by right thinking, by the spiritual understanding which is at once Christian and scientific, can mankind hear the voice of the good shepherd calling to his sheep. . . . The world conditions of today will find their final solution tomorrow in the vast, all-embracing, Christian, and scientific realm of righteousness.” (“Righteousness: Its Realm,” CSS, 10/2/1916, William D. McCrackan, M.A.)
RIGHTEOUSNESS — RIGHT THINKING — ONENESS — ATONEMENT — AT-ONE-MENT: The seamless garment (consciousness) of the one Mind that threads through from every Wednesday evening’s readings, to the comments shared during each Bible Study and Roundtable discussion, and to each week’s Lesson, is SO AWESOME to behold! Thank you to every member of the Plainfield Church for your inspiring contributions that bless so many every day!!