At the root of the word “righteousness” we find the word “right”.
As people often driven by pride and a thirst for personal glory, we all like to be right as much as possible, and we want others to take notice when we are.
But as is the nature of all things originating from God’s Kingdom, the kind of “right” spoken of in God’s notion of “righteousness” is upside down, and opposite this human notion.
In 2 Corinthians 5, the Apostle Paul calls his readers to a rightness in their relationship with God, truly becoming new creations as we become more like Christ and less like our old selves.