According to the bible, righteousness means: being in right standing with God or having a right relationship with God or being in good terms with God. Before we were born again, the bible says we were God`s enemies and we did not have any right relations with him. Immediately when we got born again, we were put right with God by grace. Righteousness is a gift we receive for free when we believe in Jesus Christ. When we accept Jesus, we are put in a right relationship with God by his grace, because of our faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:22-27).
We could never be put right with God because of our good works or by obeying the Law of Moses. The reason is because of the nature that we had. We had a sin nature in our spirits, and our good works could not remove that sin nature. For us to be put right in the eyes of God, we had to receive a new righteous nature from God.
This happened when we received Jesus Christ into our lives. When we believed and confessed Jesus Christ as our Lord and savoir, we were given this nature in our spirits because that was when God gave birth to us, and we were changed to be his children. The sin nature was removed, and we were given a new righteous nature in our spirits. This is the nature that looks exactly like that of God Himself. This nature is as righteous as the nature of God. Now we are in a right relationship with God because the sin nature that made us enemies has been removed and we have the same nature as His own and we are His very sons and daughters. We are justified in His eyes. Justified means the same thing as righteous, and in God`s eyes, its just as though you have never sinned before. Justification and righteousness mean the same thing.
Righteousness also speaks of our rights in Christ.
God gave birth to us when we got born again, and we became part of his family. Because we were born in the family of God, we are sons and daughters of God, with rights of children in the family. We received these rights immediately when we got born again. We were given right standing (or a good relationship) with God because of our second birth, which came by believing and confessing that Jesus is our Lord and savoir. Our first birth linked us to Adam and his judgment and it consequences; which was being enemies with God and all that is bad, e.g. death, sickness, poverty etc. But our second birth links us to the second Adam (1Corinthians 15:45), who is Jesus Christ. It links us to Christ, his resurrection and its fruits, which are: right standing with God, being Sons of God, eternal life, success in all we do because of the God kind of life that is in us, joy, peace, power and strength, etc. (Romans 5:15-20)
Our rights include receiving answers to our prayers, living in the presence of God, health and Gods blessing in all we do, to reign on earth, success and Gods guidance, to be filled with the Holy Spirit and operating with his gifts. And all that God has given to us in Christ. Actually, we have a right to all that is our Fathers. All that is the Father`s and Christ’s is ours as well (John 16:15, 17:22, 1Corinthians 3:21, 22, 23). We only need to accept them and live in them by faith because they are our inheritance.
We received the same relationship that Jesus has with the Father through our second birth. We have similar rights to those of Jesus Christ in Gods kingdom. We got these rights because of being in a good Father-son relationship with God. Our rights with God are those of a Father and a Son.