This isn't following the preceding part of the post. John says, "He who does righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous." A righteous person is one who respects God and his fellow humans, to use your language. Righteousness is indeed a quality possessed by the individual, and it is manifest in the manner you have described. It's not something we have inherently (all our righteousness are as filthy rags), but it is given to us as free gift received by faith, happening when we are born again.

13Am I saying that something good caused my death? Certainly not! It was sin that killed me by using something good. Now we can see how terrible and evil sin really is. 14We know that the Law is spiritual. But I am merely a human, and I have been sold as a slave to sin. 15In fact, I don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't do what I know is right. I do the things I hate. 16Although I don't do what I know is right, I agree that the Law is good. 17So I am not the one doing these evil things. The sin that lives in me is what does them.

18I know that my selfish desires won't let me do anything that is good. Even when I want to do right, I cannot. 19Instead of doing what I know is right, I do wrong. 20And so, if I don't do what I know is right, I am no longer the one doing these evil things. The sin that lives in me is what does them.

21The Law has shown me that something in me keeps me from doing what I know is right. 22With my whole heart I agree with the Law of God. 23But in every part of me I discover something fighting against my mind, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do. 24What a miserable person I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is doomed to die? 25Thank God! Jesus Christ will rescue me.

So with my mind I serve the Law of God, although my selfish desires make me serve the law of sin.

1If you belong to Christ Jesus, you won't be punished. 2The Holy Spirit will give you life that comes from Christ Jesus and will set you free from sin and death. 3The Law of Moses cannot do this, because our selfish desires make the Law weak. But God set you free when he sent his own Son to be like us sinners and to be a sacrifice for our sin. God used Christ's body to condemn sin. 4He did this, so that we would do what the Law commands by obeying the Spirit instead of our own desires. 5People who are ruled by their desires think only of themselves. Everyone who is ruled by the Holy Spirit thinks about spiritual things. 6If our minds are ruled by our desires, we will die. But if our minds are ruled by the Spirit, we will have life and peace. 7Our desires fight against God, because they do not and cannot obey God's laws. 8If we follow our desires, we cannot please God.

9You are no longer ruled by your desires, but by God's Spirit, who lives in you. People who don't have the Spirit of Christ in them don't belong to him. 10But Christ lives in you. So you are alive because God has accepted you, even though your bodies must die because of your sins. 11Yet God raised Jesus to life! God's Spirit now lives in you, and he will raise you to life by his Spirit.

12My dear friends, we must not live to satisfy our desires. 13If you do, you will die. But you will live, if by the help of God's Spirit you say "No" to your desires. 14Only those people who are led by God's Spirit are his children. 15God's Spirit doesn't make us slaves who are afraid of him. Instead, we become his children and call him our Father. 16God's Spirit makes us sure that we are his children. 17His Spirit lets us know that together with Christ we will be given what God has promised. We will also share in the glory of Christ, because we have suffered with him.

Can anyone do righteousness and be righteous thereby? The evidence suggest a negative answer.

I agree. Doing righteousness is not the cause of being righteous. However, being righteous always causes doing righteousness. IOW, God's bestowal of righteousness results in the person possessing righteousness.

Would you say that being rigtheous always causes doing righteousness all of the time? Because saying that would decrease the number of the righteous to, well, one individual in the history of mankind.

Would you say that being rigteous always causes doing righteousness all of the time? Because saying that would decrease the number of the righteous to, well, one individual in the history of mankind.

Just to be clear, our salvation does not depend upon our living righteously, but our living righteously (which, as John describes, is fulfilled in love) testifies of the salvation we receive as a free gift from Christ by faith.

But if we're talking about doing righteousness to the best of our knowledge and ability, every true believer fits that description, all the time. As long as he continues in faith, he is righteous. But if he indulges in unbelief, then he is unrighteous.

Furthermore, when we fall short on those things which are beyond our knowledge or ability, Jesus makes up for those unavoidable deficiencies, and we are judged righteous because He is righteous.

T:Just to be clear, our salvation does not depend upon our living righteously, but our living righteously (which, as John describes, is fulfilled in love) testifies of the salvation we receive as a free gift from Christ by faith.

A:I agree, even if it has a little smell of Calvinism.

I think what determines our fate is our character. I don't think unavoidable deficiencies enter into the question. If we are judged righteous simply because Christ is righteous, God could judge everybody righteous, couldn't He? But then there would be the problem of there being people in heaven who hate God, hate the principles of His government, and hate those who love these principles.