Self Righteous and Self Justified

 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’” Luke 18:10-13. 

Have you ever finished reading this parable and thought to yourself “thank the Lord that I am not like that Pharisee”? Oh the irony… and what a wake up call! We live in a culture that promotes self righteous attitudes and worldly justification. While the struggle in many other countries seems to be mainly outward (persecution, famine, disease), the primary threats to American Christians seem to be more in the realm of inside jobs (spiritual complacency, materialism, etc). That is to say that maybe we sometimes have a tendency to be self righteous and self satisfied. While this is definitely not true in all cases, it certainly appears to be the case for the overall culture. 

There are many lessons to be taken and many angles from which to approach this story. I would like to make four observations. 

Firstly, the Pharisee thanked God that he was “not like other people”. This shows us that the Pharisee was operating on the standard of comparing his righteousness to the righteousness of others. How easy it can be to fall into this trap! Comparing ourselves to the righteousness of sinful men is a horrible standard to measure ourselves by! To quote Qui Gon Jinn in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: “There’s always a bigger fish.” What I mean by this is that there will always be something or someone that we can compare ourselves to that will make us say “at least I haven’t…” On the other hand, there are certainly people who we can model ourselves after in an effort to better ourselves. Paul said in I Corinthians 11, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” In saying this, Paul certainly did not want the Corinthian Christians to follow after the things that he did that were not in imitation of Christ! No, rather he goes on to say to “keep the traditions (or ordinances) just as I delivered them to you. But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ…” Paul was not commanding these Christians to look to himself, but to look beyond him and to Christ whom he was trying to emulate; He who has “all authority in heaven and on earth.” If we are going to compare ourselves to someone, we should compare ourselves to Christ, “examining ourselves, as to whether we are in the faith” (II Cor. 13:5). The true standard by which we should examine ourselves though, is the standard by which we will be judged. Jesus said in John 12:48, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him- the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” In Romans 2:16 it says “God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.” If it's a standard with which to judge ourselves that we seek, we can read it today in modern english!

Secondly, the Pharisee lists specific sins of which he is not guilty: he is not like the “swindlers, unjust or adulterers.” Only….he kind of is. It is commonly said that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and we know that the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). No matter the sin we are guilty of, we are all guilty of sin. Whether we have committed murder or we have told a lie, the spiritual result is always a separation from God and at some point we have all been there… because all have sinned! Why then, do we so often try to justify ourselves by the things we haven’t done? Our actions have consequences and God is no “respecter of persons” as Peter preaches to Cornelius and his family in Acts 10:34. The case of Cornelius is the perfect place to look for us to understand that being a “good person” by worldly standards is not the way to heaven. We have already established that the standard that will judge us is the gospel of Christ! So then, even if we are like Cornelius before his conversion, “a devout man, and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms to the people and prayed to God always”, there is still something further God requires of us. We must obey His gospel. Cornelius was told to send for Peter so that “he will tell you what you must do” (10:6). Peter recounts this occasion in chapter 11 and further explains that it was by the words that he would speak “that [Cornelius] and all his household would be saved” (11:14).  The words he spoke were the gospel which is “the power of God unto salvation for anyone that believes” (Rom. 1:16). The words that he spoke included that Jesus, anointed by God, came to earth and did many signs and wonders before many witnesses, that He was killed by being hung on a tree, and that He was raised up again by God to be seen again by witnesses (Acts 10:34-43). Cornelius’ family responded to this gospel in belief and obedience by becoming baptized, as is the gospel pattern (Acts 10:47-48; Romans 6:1-11). 

Thirdly, the Pharisee attempted to justify himself by listing things which he did do: fasting twice a week and paying tithes. This is another common trap into which we can fall. It is easy to think that we are in the right just because we are sincere or zealous for God. It is equally as easy to fall into the thinking that we are pleasing in God’s sight when we are just going through the motions. We may attend church services every week, maybe even two or three times a week (what a fanatic!), but if we are relying on our own righteousness to be pleasing to God we will be found sorely lacking. Remember, even the devout Cornelius was lacking after all of his good deeds. In Romans 10:1-3, Paul writes: “Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.” There are many who fall into this category of being “zealous, but not according to knowledge.” Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me you who practice lawlessness.”  We must understand from this that not everyone who claims to be a Christian is going to go to heaven. Many will be sincere and zealous in this life, but not submit to the will, to the righteousness of God. These may appear to be serving Jesus by calling Him their Lord and by doing good works in His name, but they never actually make Him their Lord by obeying Him and submitting to His righteousness. They ignore His authority and instead “practice lawlessness” by operating according to their own standard. As one of my favorite hymns goes: 

“‘I work so hard for Jesus’ I often boast and say,

 ‘I’ve sacrificed a lot of things to walk the narrow way; 

I gave up fame and fortune; I’m worth a lot to Thee,’

 and then I hear Him gently say to me: 

‘I left the throne of glory and counted it but loss,

 My hands were nailed in anger upon a cruel cross;

 but now we’ll make the journey with your hand safe in mine,

 so lift your cross and follow close to Me.’”

This leads us into my last point. We have so far been examining the negative example Jesus supplies for us in this story- that of the Pharisee. We also have a positive example- that of the tax collector. He who “was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’” Here we have an example of a penitent and contrite heart: the exact type of heart that is pleasing to God. David wrote in Psalm 51 that the “sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart”. When we approach God, we must do so humbly and in recognition of His position. Those who were told to depart from Christ in Matthew 7 were separated from Him because while they called Him Lord, they did not actually treat Him like their Lord by submitting to His authority and performing His will. In Matthew 16:24, Jesus tells His disciples “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me.” If we desire to follow Jesus, we must follow in this pattern of self denial and humility. We must take up our cross daily (that is we must die to our own wills and replace them with His) if we are to follow Him. Jesus says again in Luke 14:27, “Whoever does not bear His cross and come after Me cannot be my disciple.” It’s a tall order and Jesus knows that! That’s why He tells His disciples in the following verses that they must each “count the cost” of being His disciple. He compares them first to a man trying to build a tower who counts the cost of construction, lest he be ridiculed for failing to finish his project (a few government road projects spring to mind), and then to a king who counts the cost of victory or defeat before going to war. He concludes by saying “whoever of you who does not forsake all that he has cannot be my disciple.” This is the level of humility and submission that true Christians should have towards Jesus. Paul was in quite good standing among the Jews of the New Testament time before his conversion. He describes himself as a “Hebrew of the Hebrews… Concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” He had a great education at the feet of the wise Gamaliel and seemed to command no small amount of respect from the Pharisees. Yet, he writes: “What things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things as loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I might gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ; the righteousness that is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:7-11). This type of devotion is exemplified in the final verse of the hymn that was before quoted:

“‘O, Jesus if I die upon a foreign field someday

‘Twould be no more than love demands; no less could I repay;

‘No greater love hath mortal man than for a friend to die,’’

These are the words He gently spoke to me:

‘If just a cup of water I place within your hand,

Then just a cup of water is all that I demand.’

‘But if by death to living they can Thy glory see, 

I’ll take my cross and follow close to Thee.’”

May we strive to give more of ourselves to Jesus each day as we take up our crosses and follow Him according to His will. 

Works Cited

Stanphill, Ira F. “Follow Me.” Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs, Sumphonia Productions, 2012. Pg. 654