If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone that does righteousness is born of him.
Read Chapter 2
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
The righteousness which at present is ours is of faith. Perfect righteousness is not, save only in the angels: and scarce in angels, if they be compared with God: yet if there be any perfect righteousness of souls and spirits which God has created, it is in the angels, holy, just, good, by no lapse turned aside, by no pride falling, but remaining ever in the contemplation of the Word of God, and having nothing else sweet unto them save Him by whom they were created; in them is perfect righteousness: but in us it has begun to be, of faith, by the Spirit. You heard when the Psalm was read, Begin ye to the Lord in confession. Begin, says it; the beginning of our righteousness is the confession of sins. You have begun not to defend your sin; now have you made a beginning of righteousness: but it shall be perfected in you when to do nothing else shall delight you, when death shall be swallowed up in victory, 1 Corinthians 15:24 when there shall be no itching of lust, when there shall be no struggling with flesh and blood, when there shall be the palm of victory, the triumph over the enemy; then shall there be perfect righteousness. At present we are still fighting: if we fight we are in the lists; we smite and are smitten; but who shall conquer, remains to be seen. And that man conquers, who even when he smites presumes not on his own strength, but relies upon God that cheers him on. The devil is alone when he fights against us. If we are with God, we overcome the devil: for if you fight alone with the devil, you will be overcome. He is a skillful enemy: how may palms has he won! Consider to what he has cast us down! That we are born mortal, comes of this, that he in the first place cast down from Paradise our very original. What then is to be done, seeing he is so well practised? Let the Almighty be invoked to your aid against the devices of the devil. Let Him dwell in you, who cannot be overcome, and you shall securely overcome him who is wont to overcome. But to overcome whom? Those in whom God dwells not. For, that you may know it, brethren; Adam being in Paradise despised the commandment of God, and lifted up the neck, as if he desired to be his own master, and were loath to be subject to the will of God: so he fell from that immortality, from that blessedness. But there was a certain man, a man now well skilled, though a mortal born, who even as he sat on the dunghill, putrifying with worms, overcame the devil: yea, Adam himself then overcame: even he, in Job; because Job was of his race. So then, Adam, overcome in Paradise, overcame on the dunghill. Being in Paradise, he gave ear to the persuasion of the woman which the devil had put into her: but being on the dunghill he said to Eve, You have spoken as one of the foolish women. Job 2:10 There he lent an ear, here he gave an answer: when he was glad, he listened, when he was scourged, he overcame. Therefore, see what follows, my brethren, in the Epistle: because this is what it would have us lay to heart, that we may overcome the devil indeed, but not of ourselves. If you know that He is righteous, says it, know ye that every one that does righteousness is born of Him: of God, of Christ. And in that he has said, Is born of Him, he cheers us on. Already therefore, in that we are born of Him, we are perfect.
