To Fulfill All Righteousness

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.

Matthew 3:13f (Spoke 18, Cycle 2)

The first words of the Lord Jesus Christ recorded in the Book of Matthew on Spoke 18 of the Bible Wheel perfectly manifest the fundamental meaning the eighteenth letter Tzaddi as revealed in the KeyWord found in the first Tzaddi verse of the great alphabetic Psalm 119:

TZADDI. Righteous art thou, O LORD, and upright are thy judgments. Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful.

The word translated as "righteous" is the Tzaddi KeyWord צדק. This is discussed at length in the introduction to Spoke 18. It seems more than a mere coincidence that the last two consonants of this fundamental Hebrew root are also the consonants of the fundamental Greek root dikaio, the root of δικαιοϛ (dikaios, righteous). Indeed, I am inclined to agree with the anonymous Rabbi who declared "Coincidence is not a kosher word!" As seen in the numerous articles on the sidebar, righteousness is a fundamental theme that manifests on Spoke 18 of the Bible Wheel and many Inner Cycles. This sets the tone for the Book of Matthew wherein the Gospel of God's Righteousness first breaks forth.

This theme of Righteousness strongly differentiates the Gospel of Matthew from the other three, as seen by searching the Four Gospels of the KJV for all verses that contain the words righteous or righteousness:

This pattern is essentially the same in all seven English versions used for comparison in this study. This correlation validates yet again the principle of First Occurrence. The theme established in the first words of the Lord Jesus manifest with perfect clarity in the content of the Gospel of Matthew and the primary meaning of the Letter Tzaddi! Consider what this means - the geometric structure of Scripture is integrated with the content of the sacred text! The correlation is overwhelming - the theme of righteousness saturates Matthew's Gospel, as seen in these representative verses:

Some of these verses have parallels in the other Gospels. Comparison with them amplifies the mysterious emphasis of righteous in Matthew's Gospel. For example, Matthew 6.33 says:

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Luke skips the reference to righteous, saying only (Luke 12.31):

But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Likewise, Luke 11.50f speaks only of "the blood of all the prophets ... from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias" whereas whereas Matthew twice includes the adjective righteous, speaking of "righteous blood" and "righteous Abel." These are examples of a general pattern that runs through all three synoptic Gospels - the differences are based on Alphabetic KeyWords (see Solution to the Synoptic Problem.

Now it is very important to understand that the theme of righteousness is not constrained to Matthew's Gospel or to Spoke 18. The fact is that righteousness also plays a central role in the themes found on Spokes 1, 19, and 20, as seen in the distribution of the all verses that contain any words relating to the roots of "righteousness" (Hb. Tzadek or Gr. dikaio):

The peak on Spoke 1 reveals the integration of the theme of Righteousness with the fundamental doctrines of Scripture, with significant contributions from each book on Spoke 1: its origin in Genesis 15.3, the prophecy of its fulfillment in Christ Jesus in Isaiah (most notably chapters 40, 52, 53) and the flowering - the full exfoliation - of this doctrine in Romans. A similar threefold contribution from each book is also seen on Spoke 18. The large contribution from Spokes 19 and 20 on Cycle 1 is different because all the hits come from just one or two books. Here we see the the Way of Righteousness as a powerful theme in the Wisdom Books of Job, Psalms, and Proverbs.

The relation between righteousness and the Spokes can be seen more clearly by displaying the geometric mean of the contributions from each Spoke. In general, this mean is calculated by taking the nth root of the product of n numbers, so Spokes without a contribution from all three books will have a geometric mean of zero. This therefore selects only those Spokes with contributions from each book:

This graph reveals that righteousness is emphasized most strongly on all three Cycles of Spokes 1 and 18. The contibutions from Spokes 19 and 20 do not appear because they come entirely from Cycles 1 and 2. Here we see how the great themes of Scripture are woven together. The Bible Wheel is not some trivial mechanical repetition of a small-minded rigid rule. It is the very Work of God and so displays all the artistry of Divine Intelligence.

Examining the distributions between Cycles 2 and 3 reveals a strong correlation, with cc attaining the value of .73:

It is particularly intriguing that two of the correlated peaks correspond to Tzaddi and Dalet, the first two letters of צדק (Tzadek, Righteousness). All three letters corresponding to the largest peaks combine to form the first three letters of the word אצדק (Ets'dak), meaning I will be justified. This word appears in one and only one book of the Bible, the Book of Job on Spoke 18, as discussed in the article Justified by thy Words.

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