If you're using the biblical definition of righteousness the answer is there is none.
Thank you for admitting that the answer you gave me is without Biblical support.
Yes it does. It states a specific action to achieve a specified outcome.
1 John 3:7
Little children, let no one deceive you: [action] he who works righteousness, [outcome] is righteous, even as He is righteous.
Care to try again?
Sorry, but my copy of the Bible (and I've got about 20 different translations in English, 2 in French, and 2 versions of the Greek) does NOT have the words
"action" and
"outcome" in that verse.
You have ASSUMED those labels and ADDED them to the text.
What 1 John 3:7 says, is that it is describing a type of person, and giving two observations:
- they work righteous;
- they are righteous.
Unfortunately, the English language is linear, and so you can't make two assertions at the exact same time, you have to make one assertion, and then make the second assertion. Therefore, you cannot ASSUME "cause-and-effect", simply on the order they appear in the sentence. You have to have words (in the TEXT, not added later) that say "because", or "since", or "causes", or something that explicitly identifies the cause.
So, can you give me any Biblical support WITHOUT you bastardizing the text by adding things like "
[action]" and "
[outcome]"?
(Yeah, I didn't think so.)