Luke 18:9-14 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
At our small group Bible Study this week, we looked at the parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee to see the reality of our “up-side-down” thinking on human reasoning of justification. We tend to rationalize our righteousness before God and call ourselves: “Good”. Almost nobody wants to believe that they are bad people and do good things, but we do not realize just how sinful sin really is, how great the Fall of Man actually was, or how everything which we think, say and do is tainted. As the Old Testament Prophet declared in Isaiah 64:4-7, “Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to our sins.” With such a declaration, you can throw the “grading on a curve” and the “good outweighing the bad” theory to get into Heaven out the window.
Such a claim by the prophet of God may seem over exaggerated about doing right and being good, but the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ in His earthly visitation echoed the same truth to the rich young Ruler in Luke 18:19 stating, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.” This is not negativity, but the real condition of mankind which we need to come to grips with. This truth may make us feel only an inch high, but even that it too high. The Apostle Paul confirms in Romans 3:12 that we “have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” No sinner is fit for Heaven, because as Romans 6:23 informs us, “the wages of sin is death.” The parable by Jesus edifies, the religious elite Pharisee was not justified before God by his outward acts, but the hated tax collector was justified by his unpretentious confession of sin, genuine remorse, heartfelt repentance and authentic saving faith.
The Truth is that we cannot save ourselves from sin and deserve Hell as the rightful judgment of God; we are unworthy. In all actuality, everyone on earth needs a righteous Savior. In reality, we come to God with empty hands and nothing to offer. That is why, by the pure grace of God, He sent Jesus to save us; worthy is the Lamb of God. By Christ’s sinless life, He is the only One qualified to pay for the sins of the world as the blessed Redeemer of Mankind to all who contritely repent, believe and cleave; the born-again Believer. Their sins are nailed to the Cross and Christ’s righteous is imputed to them. They are then justified, sanctified, regenerated and transformed in salvation. Ephesians 2:8-10 concurs, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
Romans 3:9-26 concludes, “Are we better than [anyone else]? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks [that is everyone] that they are all under sin.
As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” “Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “The poison of asps is under their lips”; “Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; Destruction and misery are in their ways; And the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
This is why Good Friday is truly “good”, and Resurrection Sunday is pure glory!
In Christ alone, Brian
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