What is the difference between holiness and righteousness?

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Holiness is the quality of being holy,a life that is full of godly character.Righteousness is to be upright in God, to be blamless. A righteousness man is also a holy man,both of them works together.

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Holiness is what we strive for and is gradually improved in us by the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. This is not something imputed to us, but something which we are commanded to become:

since it is written, "you shall be holy, for I am holy." 1 Peter 1:16

Righteousness is something imputed to us by the vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ. While we will often talk about striving for righteousness, I believe the best context to understand it is that our

"righteousness is as filthy rags" Isaiah 64:6

and that the only way we are considered righteous is by the imputed righteousness of Christ upon us.

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Righteousness is a gift from God through Jesus Christ (2Cor.5:21) Holiness is a responsibility (2Cor.7:1) as kings in the kingdom of God.

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When the Bible says no one is righteous it means that no one could deserve salvation on their own. No one was right enough without Christ to be in right standing with God. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ."

People confuse righteousness with right living. These are two different things. Righteousness is a position. When you become saved you are considered in right standing with God. The word says, "Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Romans 4:3; Genesis 15:6). No one is considered righteous based on their behavior. Their righteousness is based on their belief in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:20-22). You don't do right things to become righteous. Because you are righteous you do right things.

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Righteousness leads to holiness. If we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we will be filled with the Holy Ghost, which makes us holy. If we do the will of God, we will know of His doctrine by revelation. If we keep the Lord's commandments, He will put His spirit in us.

Righteousness is choosing to have faith, repent and receive baptism, enduring in the word of God. Those who pursue these with full purpose of heart will afterwards receive the Holy Ghost as a gift from God, according to His promise.

Therefore righteousness is a precursor to holiness. Holiness accelerates the growth of righteousness.

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First, to be holy, one must reconcile with God by being Baptized in Christ (cf. Gal 3:23, Romans 6:3-5), that way the person will put on Christ and his Adamic nature will be broken. After that, by receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands (cf. Acts 8:16-17, Acts 19:4-6), the person is qualified to live a holy life.

Righteousness is basically behaving rightly and may not necessarily mean that the person is a Christian, as in the case of Cornelius in Acts 10.

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"Holy" means "set apart", as in set aside for a particular purpose, and implies being "special" and acting accordingly. In particular it means "set aside for God's service".

"Righteous" means "made right" (justified), or "being right", not in the sense of "correct", but as in "not wrong" - being pure, honest, sinless. Perhaps a better way of putting it would be "not guilty" or "blameless".

The two should go hand in hand.

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