It is important to distinguish between righteousness and holiness, both elements of God’s nature and character in which we have to do with Him. Righteousness, as contrasted with holiness in God, is the judicial estimate of and dealing with what is right or wrong — involves responsibility to someone and obligation in the one judged — and, in its exercise, the authoritative acceptance or rejection of what is presented to its judgment. Holiness, on the other hand, is the abhorrence, in the nature, of what is evil and delight in what is good and pure, and, when we speak of men, God having His own full place in our hearts, as in God it is His separation from all evil and abhorrence of it. J. N. Darby