Paul describes Christian life as the fullness of righteousness in its traditional understanding. In Yahwism, and later in Judaism, righteousness became firmly connected with...
Paul describes Christian life as the fullness of righteousness in its traditional understanding. In Yahwism, and later in Judaism, righteousness became firmly connected with the image of poverty and of the poor person, which first appeared in the preaching of Isaiah of Jerusalem. And the Savior Himself connects the blessedness of the poor, the destitute, with Himself and with the coming of the Kingdom. This connection is not accidental. The issue, of course, is not material poverty, since the same Isaiah, for example, who considered himself poor, was by no means poor, but poverty as a spiritual state that was inseparable from traditional ideas of righteousness.
Indeed, righteousness is not inherent in a person by nature; it cannot belong to him as an inborn or acquired quality or property of his nature. Righteousness is a state in which a person may abide, but which he may just as easily lose. God brings a person into the state of righteousness, and the person himself can do nothing in order to acquire it. What depends on the person is only readiness to enter this state and remain in it. But such readiness by itself changes nothing in essence: whatever it may be, if God does not intervene, it is useless. A person turns out to be destitute, having nothing and able to do nothing in what concerns his spiritual life, his relationships with God.
He can do much in order to become righteous and not come one iota closer to the goal without God's direct intervention in his life. And everything a person can do and has in this world means and is worth nothing when the main task is being resolved. A person feels himself destitute, poor, while being in this world a rich man and court aristocrat, as that same Isaiah was, for example. This is what Paul speaks about when he mentions wisdom, strength, and noble birth as things having no significance for the spiritual path of a Christian.
The Christian's path is still the same path of righteousness, but the path of righteousness with Christ, who from the point of view of this world was a complete and absolute failure, whose mission ended with the cross, and therefore with complete collapse. But for the apostle the Savior's "failure" is akin to the same "failures" of those seeking righteous life, who refuse to rely on everything the world can offer them in order to let God into their life. So too Christians are ready to let the "failure" Christ into their life and follow Him in spite of all the arguments this world can bring them. Because the "failure" whom they are ready to follow has one argument, but the most weighty one: the Kingdom that He brought into the world.
