Psalm 7:8 "The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me."
Psalm 18:20-24 "The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me. I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight."
When I was younger, I had a dispensational study Bible that basically said that those people who were declared "righteous" in the OT (Noah, Job, etc) were declared so...because they followed and obeyed God's Law. This still gives me a hard time when I read certain parts of the Old Testament...to clearly see that God, not their works, is always the basis of the individual's righteousness.
I need some help understanding the basis of righteousness in the Psalms. Oftentimes, it seems very clear to me that the Lord is the basis of the psalmist's righteousness...but sometimes it almost seems as if the psalmist is declaring himself to be "righteous" because he obeys God's Law and walks in God's ways.
How am I to understand psalms of that nature? Should I assume, since he's speaking in the context of revealed Scripture by the Holy Spirit, that he's silently assuming the Lord is the basis of his righteousness? Is there a way to understand these psalms and answer this question in the context of the specific psalm?
Psalm 18:20-24 "The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me. I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight."
When I was younger, I had a dispensational study Bible that basically said that those people who were declared "righteous" in the OT (Noah, Job, etc) were declared so...because they followed and obeyed God's Law. This still gives me a hard time when I read certain parts of the Old Testament...to clearly see that God, not their works, is always the basis of the individual's righteousness.
I need some help understanding the basis of righteousness in the Psalms. Oftentimes, it seems very clear to me that the Lord is the basis of the psalmist's righteousness...but sometimes it almost seems as if the psalmist is declaring himself to be "righteous" because he obeys God's Law and walks in God's ways.
How am I to understand psalms of that nature? Should I assume, since he's speaking in the context of revealed Scripture by the Holy Spirit, that he's silently assuming the Lord is the basis of his righteousness? Is there a way to understand these psalms and answer this question in the context of the specific psalm?