In “the fall” humanity became alienated from God. We were no longer God’s friends; we became afraid of him. This is shown in the way Adam and Eve hid from God, and even more in the way they made fig leaf clothing so God would not see them as they were. (I take the covering of nakedness in this account to represent the rejection of intimacy.)
In other words, after the fall we no longer had a transparent relationship with God. Things were no longer good between us and him. There were issues. We could no longer be certain that we would be welcome in God’s presence (unlike when he would walk in the garden of Eden and come looking for Adam and Eve; see Genesis 3:8-9).
In other words, we were no longer “right” before God. The wrongness between humanity and God is revealed in the way that we did not have confidence coming before him. Our alienation constituted unrighteousness, since righteousness is simply the ability to stand before someone and look them in the eye with the confidence that they will not be able to reproach us for being there.
From that point on the issue of how to become righteous before God became a primary concern. The entire thrust of what is called “salvation history” consists of God’s grappling with the unrighteousness of humanity so that he could re-enter a relationship of intimacy with us.
Contrasting examples of how this played out can be seen in the cases of Enoch and the flood. Genesis 5:21-24 describe Enoch as “walking with God” as he went through life. This is unique — none of the other people in this chapter, from Adam to Noah, are specifically described as walking with God. And God was apparently so pleased with Enoch that he “took” him in some mysterious fashion, since one day he was simply not there.
By contrast, Genesis 6 describes humanity as descending into such extreme wickedness that “every intention of the thoughts of [their hearts] was only evil continually.” God’s response to this was sorrow: “And Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”
There is a tangible irony here; humanity rebelled against God through eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; shortly thereafter the “good” part of that knowledge seemed to have gotten lost in the shuffle, and only evil remained. And by “evil” just imagine the vilest of Nazi horrors, or the rape and slaughter of conquering armies throughout history, and you start to get a picture of what kind of situation is being described here. Such extreme distortion of the beautiful goodness God had given humanity in the beginning caused God to feel pain to his core.
Notice also that God cared. It mattered to him that he no longer had a relationship with humanity. He was not angry but hurt.
God did not destroy all of humanity; he found someone with whom he could have a relationship: “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” And eventually that relationship turned into a binding agreement — a covenant — where God declared that life on the earth would never again be wiped out by flood.
Nevertheless the very fact that for many years God related to humanity through covenants implied that there was still alienation between us and God. You don’t make a contract (which is what a covenant is) with someone you trust.
Then God did something that once and for all erased the alienation between God and humanity: he became a man.
We can see this as a kind of brute-force approach. God said, in effect, “I’m tired of this arms-length relationship. Someone has to make the first move: it will be me.”
But he did more than even this. Because there was still alienation. Humanity did not take God’s presence lying down.
How far are you willing to go, God? How much do you really want to be with us? Are you willing to experience the true meaning of the human condition? Ha! We know exactly how to get rid of you — or at least prove that there are limits to your love for us.
And humanity did it, showing that we were just as in love with death as we were when Cain killed Abel. But to everyone’s surprise, it didn’t work. First of all, Jesus was neither scared away by the prospect of death, nor did he justify humanity’s fear of God by destroying his enemies. In fact he explicitly rejected the violent approach when he said that he could appeal to his Father for muscle and it would be plentifully supplied to the tune of more than twelve angelic legions (see Matthew 26:52-54), but doing that would ruin the plan as set forth in the scriptures — the plan that would lead to the salvation of all humanity.
Instead Jesus did the unexpected, amazing thing. He not only died but even forgave those who nailed him on the cross. Then God affirmed that this was truly his intent by resurrecting Jesus, and so re-grafting life onto the death-doomed husk of the human condition.
That was the moment when the alienation between God and man was truly ended. When Jesus died it showed that God was completely identified with humanity to the point of experiencing the worst, most degrading and enslaving aspect of it. As one person put it, the cross showed that God was no longer willing to be God without humanity.
But because the cross happened “while we were yet sinners,” there is nothing we have to accomplish to be with God. He did not come to make the good better, or to somehow lift them out of the mess humanity had gotten itself into. He was going for “the whole enchilada.” As Paul puts it, he has consigned all to disobedience so that he can have mercy on all (Romans 11:32). He came to save the world. And “whosoever will” can get a piece of this action.
To revisit our original point, when Jesus died and was resurrected, humanity became righteous because God himself had joined himself to humanity. We are no longer alienated from God. We are invited to take the salvation that Jesus offers. Because he joined us in our alienation, in him we are now “the righteousness of God.” Not because we decided to join God but because he decided to join us.
We are right with God, as right as we can be, because God himself has joined us in our plight and become one of us. And he has pronounced that at some point soon he’s moving in to stay: “… the dwelling place of God” will be “with man” (Revelation 21:3).