The two kinds of righteousness is explicitly mentioned in Luther's 1518 sermon entitled "Two Kinds of Righteousness", in Luther's Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1535), in his On the Bondage of the Will, Melanchthon's Apology of the Augsburg Confession, and in the third article of the Formula of Concord.
[3] A person is righteous coram deo, that is, he is in a right relationship with God, when he simply receives the imputed obedience of Christ and the forgiveness of sins through faith.
A human person is not righteous in God's eyes because of his choice or commitment, his good works or his piety, his emotions or intellect.
1:3-14) and declares him righteous on account of Jesus’ atoning death and justifying resurrection (Rom.3:21-28, 4:18-25).
[4] Christian righteousness is freely given by the Spirit through the means of grace (i.e. baptism, the proclamation of forgiveness on account of Christ, the Lord's Supper).
The Law condemns such attempts, reveals man's guilt, and crushes his pride.
When a pastor teaches their people that humanity is made righteous in God's eyes through faith alone, they give all glory to the Lord for saving humankind.
Furthermore, Luther and his colleagues believed that preaching passive righteousness gives complete comfort.
It leaves the sinner fully confident that God is their loving Father and that Jesus is their merciful Lord despite their sin.
[3] A person is righteous coram mundo when he is in a right relationship with the rest of creation and this is done through man's actions.
The Law shows humanity how God designed the world to work and warns that there are often temporal consequences to sin.
Ultimately, "the purpose of a righteousness of works is the welfare of this world", and not humanity's relationship with God.
With this righteousness, he has indeed something to boast about before men, but like the rest he falls short of the glory of God".
[6] While man's commitments and actions cannot earn God's eternal favor and salvation, they are God-pleasing in the sense that God cares for the temporal wellbeing of this world and he is pleased to work through the works of man to care for his creatures.
Not only Christians, but also Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and atheists are capable of being faithful spouses, loving parents, and hard-working employees.
Thus, Melanchthon can praise Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as being the best work on civil righteousness ever written.
[9] Because of this, some Lutheran theologians (such as Joel Biermann)[10] have recommended speaking of a third kind of righteousness—the active righteousness of a Christian resulting from the work of the Spirit.
In a certain respect, a Christian's active righteousness is different only because the sin that taints it has been forgiven.
The Lutheran theologian Francis Pieper briefly mentions the two kinds of righteousness paradigm in his Christian Dogmatics: In the terminology of Luther there are ‘two kinds’ of forgiveness of sins, or of justification, the ‘internal’ and the ‘external.’ The internal justification takes place through the gracious promise of the Gospel and through faith which lays hold of this promise.