Zephaniah 2.3b-Faithful Jewish Believers are Commanded to Continue to Diligently Seek After Righteousness (Doctrinal Bible Church in Huntsville, Alabama)
Doctrinal Bible Church
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Sunday August 30, 2026
Zephaniah Series: Zephaniah 2:3b-Faithful Jewish Believers are Commanded to Continue to Diligently Seek After Righteousness
Lesson # 32
Zephaniah 2:3 Continue making it your habit of diligently seeking after the Lord’s will each and every one of you humble people of the land who are fulfilling His law. Each and every one of you continue making it your habit of seeking after righteousness. (Pastor’s translation)
The second command in Zephaniah 2:3 demanded that each and every one of the faithful Jews living in the sixth century B.C. and those living during the seventieth week of Daniel continue making it their habit of seeking after righteousness which refers of course to the righteousness of God.
Righteousness refers to God’s perfect integrity in that His character is perfectly sound, perfectly adhering to His own perfect holy standards and what He promises to men and is all that God is, all that He commands, all that He demands, all that He approves, and all that He provides through Christ.
It describes God as always fulfilling His covenantal obligations with regards to Israel which stands in stark contrast with Israel’s failure to meet her covenantal obligations with regards to Him.
The righteousness of God refers to the Trinity’s perfect integrity in that their character is upright, honest, perfectly whole, undiminished, sound, unimpaired and in perfect condition.
It signifies the Trinity’s perfect virtue in that their character is perfect moral excellence, goodness, and their conduct is conformed perfectly to their own perfect holy standards and what they have promised to men or group of people like Israel and the church.
So the righteousness of God refers to an inherent attribute of God which causes Him to always do what His perfect holy standards require.
These faithful Jewish believers were to seek after God’s righteousness in the sense in the sense of making every effort to exemplify God’s righteousness in their lives through obedience to the Word of God.
They were to diligently seek after fulfilling their obligation to love God with their entire being and their neighbor as themselves.
They were to diligently seek after fulfilling their obligations to their fellow human beings to love them as themselves.
The Word of God for faithful Jewish believers in the sixth century B.C. would be the Mosaic Law but for those living during the seventieth week, it would be the gospel of Jesus Christ which appears in the Greek New Testament.
God wants His righteousness exemplified in the church age believer’s life.
In fact, in every dispensation, God wants all those who have been declared justified by Him through faith to exemplify His righteousness.
So in the New Testament epistles, we see the New Testament writers exhorting church age believers to experience and exemplify the righteousness of Jesus Christ after their conversion by appropriating the teaching of the Word of God that they have been crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with Christ (See Romans 6).
The New Testament Scriptures teach that the righteousness of God will be manifested in the believer’s life when they fulfill their obligations to love both God and men, or in other words by doing right to both God and men.
God wants His righteousness manifested in the lives of His people and it is produced in the life of the church age believer when they exercise faith in the Spirit inspired commands and prohibitions communicated in the gospel.
This results in obedience to these commands and prohibitions.
When a believer is living in the righteousness of God or manifesting it, they are fulfilling their obligation to God to love Him with their entire being and strength and fulfilling their obligation to their fellow human being to love them as themselves.
The church age believer experiences the righteousness of God in their life by appropriating by faith their union and identification with Christ in His crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection and session, which results in obedience to the various prohibitions and commands that appear in the gospel.
This obedience constitutes loving God with one’s entire being and strength and one’s neighbor as oneself.
Therefore, when the Christian is doing this, they are exemplifying God’s integrity and virtue and are in turn exemplifying Christ-like character which is perfectly sound and are also perfectly adhering to God’s perfect standards, which appear in the gospel.
They are thus doing all that God commands them in the gospel and all that He demands of them in the gospel as His child and all that He approves, and all that He provides for them through Christ.
The work of transforming the believer into the image of Christ involves the manifestation of the righteousness of God in the believer, which like the believer’s sanctification and deliverance is accomplished in three stages:
(1) Positionally, at the moment they exercise faith in the gospel message and trusts in Jesus Christ as his Savior.
At the moment of spiritual birth, God imputed His righteousness to the believer so that they are “positionally” the righteousness of God meaning God has given His righteousness as a gift to the believer and He views the believer as righteous as Him.
This in turn sets up the potential for the believer to experience this righteousness in time.
Therefore, the moment a person believes in Jesus Christ as Savior, God the Father imputes the righteousness of Christ so that He becomes the believer’s righteousness.
1 Corinthians 1:30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption. (NASB95)
(2) Experientially, after conversion when the believer exercises faith in the gospel message that they have been crucified, died, buried, raised and seated with Christ.
After conversion, the believer is commanded to present the members of their physical body as instruments of righteousness, which is accomplished by appropriating by faith the imputed righteousness they received at conversion (See Romans 6).
This faith is demonstrated by the believer through his obedience to the teaching that they have died with Christ and has been raised with Him (See Romans 6:11-13).
(3) Perfectively, when they receive their resurrection body at the rapture of the church.
Galatians 5:5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. (NASB95)
The believer will be rewarded with a “crown of righteousness” by the Lord Jesus at the Bema Seat for executing the Father’s will and growing to spiritual maturity according to 2 Timothy 4:8.
