Recognizing the Righteousness of God

Continuing to report on what happened when John the Baptist sent some of his disciples to Jesus to inquire about His identity, Luke turns in today’s passage to tell us the reaction of the crowd when Jesus answered John’s question. We have seen that Jesus provided evidence of His messianic office by appealing to His miracles and that He praised John as the greatest of all the old covenant saints (Luke 7:1–28). Today’s passage tells us that the people who witnessed this exchange responded in two different ways.

First, those who had been baptized by John, including the tax collectors, “declared God just” (Luke 7:29). The phrase can also be rendered “justified God,” as the Greek verb dikaio appears here in the text. Dikaio is the verb Paul uses to talk about our justification in texts such as Romans 4, and it has the sense “to recognize.” When God justifies us, He recognizes that we are righteous, not that we possess a righteousness in ourselves but that we have had the perfect righteousness of Christ credited to us by faith alone (2 Cor. 5:21). In our justification, God makes a declaration that legally speaking, we are righteous in His sight; He recognizes that His law has been obeyed because He is considering the work of Christ on our behalf. Something similar happened when the people declared God just after hearing about the greatness of John, although they were not thinking of God’s being credited with righteousness that He did not possess inherently. Instead, the good words about John led them to recognize that God had in fact sent John and that He had provided forgiveness to all who responded to John’s ministry of repentance. They recognized that the Lord had set His seal of approval on John and had offered a way of salvation based on faith and repentance, not their own law-keeping. They declared God to be in the right for doing so, and they did so gladly. Matthew Henry comments, “They who know that their faith hath saved them may go in peace, may go on their way rejoicing.”

On the other hand, those who had not been baptized by John, those who relied on their own law-keeping rather than humbly submitting themselves to God in faith and repentance, rejected the Lord’s purpose for His people (Luke 7:30). They did not recognize our Creator’s righteousness in providing a way of salvation that did not conform to their legalistic expectations. This was a dangerous place to be, for God’s curse remains on all those who try to save themselves by their law-keeping, for no one can perfectly keep the law (Gal. 3:10–14).