James, yes, the revelation of the righteousness of God is universal – it extends not only to Israel but to all the nations. But that still leaves the questions of what exactly is revealed and how it is revealed.

You mentioned Isaiah 2, so I’ll begin there. The passage speaks of a day when the nations will come to Zion to learn the ways of YHWH, when God will judge between the nations (Is. 2:2-4). There is no mention of the righteousness of God in this chapter, but it nevertheless forms part of a narrative regarding judgment on Israel (eg. 3:13-14). When eventually the issue of God’s righteousness arises, it is directly connected to the theme of exile: the Jews go into exile, their leaders die of hunger, the people die of thirst, and the proud are humbled in this catastrophic event of divine judgment, but ‘the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and the holy God shows himself holy in righteousness’ (5:13-16). The righteousness of God is revealed in his actions towards his people, which is exactly Wright’s argument.

Even Isaiah 45:22-25, with its appeal to the ends of the earth to be saved because only in the Lord are ‘righteousness and strength’ is tied to the deliverance of Israel from captivity. The statement ‘my righteousness draws near’ in Isaiah 51:5 refers to the restoration of Israel: this is the act of divine judgment or deliverance with respect to his people that will be a ‘light to the peoples’ (51:4). When YHWH puts on ‘righteousness as a breastplate’, it is in order to judge his enemies and deliver ‘those in Jacob who turn from transgression’ (59:17-20). When he comes ‘speaking in righteousness, mighty to save’, it is to defeat Israel’s enemies, so the prophet praises God for his steadfast love towards his people – the righteousness of YHWH is revealed when he acts with regard to the covenant (63:1-9).

In Isaiah, at least, the sense of the righteousness of God is quite consistent: it is not a general attribute, like goodness or holiness, that might in principle be imputed to someone else; it signifies the faithfulness of God to his covenant with Israel and is manifested to Israel and to the world in historical acts of judgment, deliverance, and the defeat of his enemies. It is God’s salvation of his people that is revealed to the nations (Is. 40:5; 52:10).

So it seems quite right, to me, to suppose that Paul saw his mission as one of proclaiming to the nations that the righteousness of YHWH had been revealed to the world in the raising of Jesus from the dead, in this event by which Israel is saved. But this is not a righteousness that can be imputed or transferred to others. When the nations see what God has done for his people, they may choose to respond in praise or in contributing to the restoration of the Jews to Zion or in bringing tribute to Israel’s God – or, in Paul’s case, in worshipping the father of the Lord Jesus Christ in spirit and in truth. So I agree that the righteousness of God has universal implications beyond the condemnation of the Gentiles – but this is always by way of the narrative about Israel.

You mention the theme of the blessing of the nations through Abraham, but this has nothing to do with the ‘righteousness of God’. There are two quite distinct issues here. Abraham is judged to be righteous because he has trusts in the God who promised him descendants, but as far as I can see, none of the statements about the righteousness of God relate to this particular narrative. Neither in Romans nor in Galatians does Paul connect the argument about Abraham with the ‘righteousness of God’. When God acts righteously out of faithfulness to the covenant, all sorts of blessings may ensue, both for his people and for the nations. But it is a mistake then to import all those blessings back into the idea of the ‘righteousness of God’ and then make it the basis for our soteriology.

Finally, I said in a previous comment that Psalm 72:1-3 ‘speaks of the righteousness of God towards his people’. That was a careless reading. The psalmist prays that God will give justice and righteousness to the king so that he may ‘judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice’. The prayer includes the petition that Israel’s king will get the better of his enemies (72:8-11), but there is nothing here about a ‘universal rule’ of God.