In our highly politicized culture today, there has been a lot of talk about how each of us “self-identifies.” At times, it reaches the level of absurdity. No one really believes any of it at root. However we do not tend to live at “the bottom of things,” but at the surface. Some think this is all about identity politics. That is certainly its central use on the street and in the classroom.
In truth, the whole thing is a charade to avoid the trauma of hearing from the Scriptwriter, and from the titanic weight of the glorious role he has assigned to each. So we hide in some dark corner of the stage, pretending to be something that we are not.
Actually this didn’t just start yesterday. We sinners have always been self-identifying ever since the first couple fell into sin and tried to cover their nakedness with pathetic little fig leaves. But God in his mercy covers them with a sacrifice and an identity of his own.
In Luke 18:9-14, in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, Jesus casts two different characters in those same age-old roles. Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector (10). This could be called “two ways to pray,” but to me, the fact that they are praying by themselves tells us that the parable is putting their heart of hearts on display. Neither man is faking it. This really is how each “self-identifies” before God. And that being the case, we have to understand this as a story of the only two ways to come to God for acceptance and eternal life.
Doctrine. (i) Pride self-identifies as “the Righteous.” (ii) Humility self-identifies as “the Sinner.” (iii) Mercy justifies the sinner.
I. Pride Self-Identifies as ‘the Righteous’
The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get’ (11-12).
1. This is about any person who would stand on their own before God. Do you see those words? They are not accidental. The notion of standing in God's temple, on his own two feet, is nothing less than a symbol of his pride. The whole ground beneath him was as deep and solid as his morality. He had no doubts that his feet could never be moved on earth or in heaven.
2. The Pharisee had found two items in the law that he could go over and above on: fasting and tithing. ‘I fast twice a week’ - The Jew was only obligated to fast once a year, on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 23:26-32). Then ‘I give tithes of all that I get’ - All? The Jew was also only obligated to tithe certain crops (Deut. 14:22). The Pharisees added all kinds of spices, or “every herb” (Lk. 11:42).
3. Now if this man gave credit to God, what’s the problem? Grace initiates, but his works predominate. He had not read the parable in the previous chapter: “when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants’” (Lk. 17:10).
4. One commentator says of the Pharisee, “He glances at God, but contemplates himself.”1 We might even say that the words “Thank you God that I” actually come to mean, “Congratulations God, for me!” This man was a religious statue in search of a pedestal.
5. Let’s allow this scripture to search our own hearts! Do we pay lip service to grace?
6. When Paul needed to cut the Corinthians down to size, he pointed them outside of themselves altogether: “For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Cor. 4:7)
7. There is a much-used meme on the internet. “Thank you God that I am not self-righteous like those smug Pharisees.” This prayer is not far away from any one of us. “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12). In fact we all have a Pharisee in our heart in need of crucifixion. But what is behind it?
8. Self-righteousness makes other sinners the standard. And typically we aim low. One commentator says, “Tax collectors were the scum of Jewish society … their pay being whatever extra they could extort from their fellow Jews … [they] were considered monsters … traitors to Hebrew society - utterly despicable … outcasts, untouchables.”2
Well, if the religion of the proud self-identifies as ‘the Righteous,’ then what about this other man?
II. Humility Self-Identifies as ‘the Sinner’
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ (13) Four things to notice on the surface: notice where he stood, what he wouldn’t do, what he did do, and what he said.
1. First, he was ‘standing far off’ - like those “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12). These were the “far off” (2:13). So this man had, for all intents and purposes, gone from Jew to one who was “far off” because, as a tax collector he had betrayed his people. And so, you might say, he knew his place: far off. He certainly didn’t belong in church!
2. Second, he would not even lift up his eyes to heaven. Lifting one’s eyes during prayer was not the problem. We see Jesus do that in the Gospels (cf. Jn. 11:41, 17:1). But this is like when our children cannot even look us in the eye because of some act of disobedience. Likewise, in the heart that is softened by God and readied for repentance, there is a growing awareness of the sinfulness of sin.
3. Third, he beat his breast. This was an expression of deep anguish and regret. Is this just for notorious sinners? Not at all. Consider the confession of William Carey. If you don’t know, Carey is often called the father of modern missions. He brought the gospel to India. He coined the maxim for Baptist foreign mission: “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” That was Carey as history knows him. But how did he self-identify before his God? In a letter on his seventieth birthday, he said this:
I am this day seventy years old, a monument of Divine mercy and goodness, though on a review of my life I find much, very much, for which I ought to be humbled in the dust; my direct and positive sins are innumerable, my negligence in the Lord’s work has been great, I have not promoted his cause, nor sought his glory and honor as I ought, notwithstanding all this, I am spared till now, and am still retained in his Work, and I trust I am received into the divine favor through him.3
That kind of a statement may strike us as false humility. But the reason for humbling before God is not how we appear to the world; but rather how we appear before the awesome judgment seat of God.
4. Finally, there is what this man said. There is how he self-identifies: ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ And the sense of it is actually “THE sinner.” It is that same self-awareness that made Paul say, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost” (1 Tim. 1:15).
5. We can only see the outsides of everyone else, but we see the insides of ourselves.
So, if the religion of the proud self-identifies as ‘the Righteous,’ and the religion of the humble self-identifies as ‘the Sinner,’ how does Jesus identify these two?
III. Mercy Justifies THE SINNER
1. Hear the words of Jesus: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other (14a). To be justified means to be considered righteous by God - not only to be forgiven of all of our sins, but to be given the very same status of “righteous” before God that Jesus has.
Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness (Rom. 4:4-5).
Have you never heard a theological liberal say that Jesus never taught “Paul’s doctrine” of justification by faith alone? Well, you just show them this parable. Paul is making the same contrast in Romans 4 that Jesus is making in Luke 18.
2. Many a reader may not care for such doctrinal subtleties. For most, the issue is to actually make it through this trial that the great sinner finds himself in. You may say, “But you don’t know what I’ve done! I’m worse than this man.” But then you are a perfect candidate for this justification which is “by grace” (Rom. 3:24). Are you indeed ungodly? But the verse we just read in Romans 4 flatly says that God only justifies the ungodly! You are exactly the right type then.
3. Now I am using that phrase THE SINNER with a little bit of license, but it’s a license we get directly from Jesus in other places:
And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mat. 9:11-13)
4. There is an analogy about the gospel: We cannot take the medicine if we do not first accept the diagnosis. Well, when it comes to this matter of justification, how we “self-identify” becomes all-important. Because it turns out that The Great Physician only makes the house call (or, said another way, the Righteous Judge only comes down from the bench in mercy and places his robe around) the one who self-identifies as “THE SINNER.”
5. But lest anyone get the idea that a doctrine like justification is something that is far removed from the heart attitude and love and humility, there is a punchline here: For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted (14b). The doctrines of salvation by grace alone, and justification by faith alone, are for humility. These truths simply will not fit in the haughty heart. And if you show me a man who claims to believe in these doctrines of grace who is not humbled by them, and I will show you a man who is a stranger to these truths. Such a person is as deluded as the Pharisee here, taking sweet sounds of divine mercy on the rotting lips of human confidence.
6. There is a huge application in the introduction: He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt (9). Two lessons come from this: one ethical, the other gospel.
Use 1. Or, the ethical lesson: Someone who exalts himself before God will think nothing of exalting himself over other human beings. Jesus is rooting how we treat others in how we think we stand before God. Calvin explains: “There are two faults at which Christ glances, and which he intended to condemn,—wicked confidence in ourselves, and the pride of despising brethren, the one of which springs out of the other. It is impossible that he who deceives himself with vain confidence should not lift himself up above his brethren. Nor is it wonderful that it should be so; for how should that man not despise his equals, who vaunts against God himself?”4 William Wilberforce was persuaded that the English citizen who professed Christ, yet excused the slave trade, did so precisely because their church had lost its grip on the truth of justification by faith alone. You may have heard of that. Now, hopefully, you can see the connection.
Use 2. Or, the gospel lesson: Now if I ask, “Which one are you?” everyone will immediately identify with that tax collector. But really, that only works if One who really is righteous identifies with the sinner. Although this parable does not tell us how, the One who justifies the ungodly does so by identifying with the sinners. Paul tells us how,
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21).
The Son of God self-identified with the Sinner: “he was numbered with the transgressors” (Isa. 53:12). Our Lord stooped down to stand in the middle of the ultimate police investigation lineup. And therefore he is able to forgive even Pharisees, let alone the rest of us traitors. If mercy is so magnified in lowliness, then we need to cry out to the God who justifies the self-identified sinner.
(#selfrighteousness #legalism #grace #chiefofallsinners #Jesus #gospel #humility #pride #justification)
1. Plummer quoted in Leon Morris, Luke (Leicester, UK: InterVarsity, 1990), 290.
2. R. Kent Hughes, Luke: Volume Two (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998), 192.
3. William Carey quoted in Jerry Bridges, The Discipline of Grace (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006), 29.
4. John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists: Volume I (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 202.
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