After Solomon’s Temple was destroyed and the Jews were hauled off in the Babylonian exile, they could no longer come together at the temple in Jerusalem to worship, so they began to develop these local meeting locations where they could come to gather throughout the Babylonian Empire for prayer, to read scripture, and to receive instructions in God’s ways.
As we move forward in time, by the third and second century BC, synagogues had become widespread throughout Judea, Asia Minor, Egypt and Rome. Then, as we move to the first century, we see that the synagogue system was fully established, and we see that Jesus and the apostles would regularly teach in the synagogues.
However, it was also a rather turbulent time for the Jewish people. Law keeping had become oppressive. There were a lot of questions around who was the authority over scriptural interpretation. Even the high-priesthood’s legitimacy was being questioned. because it was no longer being chosen from the Levitical family’s lineage. It was now being chosen for political loyalty and outright greed.
And during this time, a grass root movement of the Jews emerged known as the Pharisees who were dedicated to being strict followers of God’s law. They emphasized the Torah‘s authority, and even developed protective oral traditions to make a hedge around God’s law to ensure they didn’t transgress God’s law again.
By the time of Jesus Christ, these Pharisees had become the dominant religious teachers and authorities in the synagogue systems. Yet, Christ was often very critical of these Pharisees calling them brood of vipers, hypocrites, and white-washed tombs.
How did the original intent of the Pharisee party fail so profoundly in obedience to God’s law? At some point they rejected God’s law and stopped living the way that God had commanded the nation to do so. Yet they followed a strict religions code. They wanted to obey; to be different than everyone around them. But they began to feel superior to the ordinary population of the Jewish nation. They trusted in themselves. This was their downfall.
Their history leads me to understand our need to look at ourselves in the current era . How are we doing? I would like each of us not to look at other people, but to look inward for where “self rightness” might exist in our individual lives:
“Also He (Christ) spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ 13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:9–14).
When we humanly look at these two individuals, one individual is a dedicated Sabbath keeper, a law keeper, and a keeper of food laws. He tithes; he fasts. The other individual needs to get his life together. He is a tax-collector! Yet in this parable, Christ taught a message that was absolutely easy to understand: The tax-collector was the one who went home “justified”.
In the Greek, this word justified to the first century ear would mean that this individual was “legally acquitted or cleared of all charges” against him. He was formally recognized as being innocent and right. He didn’t justify himself. It was received; It was not self-generated. This parable was about exposing self-righteousness and looking down on others. It is a sin that followers of Christ need to recognize and to avoid its development in us.
The spiritual progression of self-righteousness has five steps:
- Knowledge
The Pharisees had grown into a sect out of a deep desire to know scripture. But knowledge has this tendency to breed pride if not kept in check with enormous helpings of humility.
- Comparing Ourselves
Self-righteousness grows through comparing ourselves to others. “At least I’m not like…” “At least I’m doing better than these other individuals…” “Look at all of these other people and their sad lives. Look at their twisted thinking. Look at how terrible they are acting.” “God, I’m so thankful I’m not like these other individuals.”
- Visibility
Self-righteousness feeds on being seen and known for being right. “Look at me.” “Look at all I can teach you.” However, Christ came and taught don’t do your daily prayers in public where everyone can see you. Don’t fast in ways that people know you are fasting. Don’t do your charitable deeds in ways that others can see it (Matthew 6:2).
- There is a Shift in Trust
Self-righteousness becomes a shift from trusting and looking to God to looking to self (Luke 18:9). Knowledge had grown, discipline had developed in individual lives, actions had been aligned to following God’s word. But all of this brought looking inward at what they were doing and what they knew and what they think. They were doing great things. They were living right. And began to say, “Aren’t I righteous?”
- It Blinds Spiritually
Even if this was not a parable, and this Pharisee was a real individual who was able to hear the teachings of Jesus, the sad reality is the that he very likely would not have heard or heeded His words. Because self-righteousness, when allowed to progress to this point, has a blinding effect.
A person has built his whole identity, what he values, what he knows, what he does, who he is. He says, “I’m good. I do right. That’s where the self-righteousness has this deep paradox involved because those that are most self-righteous usually aren’t worried at all that they’re self-righteous.
And yet, within all of that good, there is a risk of drifting from the place where we know we are sinners. We begin to be self-reliant and self-righteous: We practice right. We are right, we do right, and therefore we are right with God. Our self-righteousness is something we individually, with God’s help, must push against daily to transform our mindset with the humility of Jesus Christ.
So, I want to cover five symptoms that self-righteousness has begun to establish in our lives:
- Feeling spiritually superior to others because of knowledge or doctrinal accuracy.
1 Corinthians 8:1 … Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.
Proverbs 2:1–6 “My son, if you receive my words, And treasure my commands within you, So that you incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding, If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures; Then you will understand the fear of the LORD, And find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding;
Note verse six states that wisdom, knowledge and understanding come from God. We didn’t create the better way to live. We were provided the better way to live.
- A desire to correct others
We have to balance this because we know that God does provide specific instructions on how to correct someone that is living a life of sin. But sadly, often, when someone thinks they’re doing better than other people they begin to look around and want to police everyone else, versus trusting that God is going to continue to work with that individual and help them and correct them where they need it.
“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3). This scripture tells us that we need to first and foremost look inward. Only when our motives are right, and we’re looking out for someone because we love them can we really be in a place where we can help someone else. If we are always focused on seeing and policing and correcting the problems of others, we might have a self-righteousness problem:
- Desiring to be seen or thought of as righteous
We must constantly be checking the motives of our service, of our words, of why we are talking so much and listening so little. How many of our stories are meant to paint us in some positive light?
Ideas can be used to elevate ourself. Sometimes they lead to false doctrines which can arise out of a desire for special knowledge like the slippery slope of Gnosticism. Some of these things can start from a place of sincerely searching the scriptures and a desire to please God. But then pride and self-righteousness are always there lurking.
- Losing Mercy While Defending the Truth
The Pharisees were so focused on doing, on the perfect keeping of the law to establish their righteousness that they no longer had room left for compassion or mercy. They lacked the patients to work alongside people who were desiring to grow and change; they lost the ability to love, and to serve and help them (Matthew 23:23).
- Attributing personal blessings to one’s personal obedience and goodness
We sometimes call this the health and wealth gospel. We talk about health and wealth and the lack of trials. And within this idea it says, “I’m blessed because I’m right with God, because I live my life in accordance to God’s laws”.
There are blessings that come from living God’s way but are blessings a proof that you are right before God? And on the flip side, is someone’s trials, someone’s lack of blessings in a certain area of their life, proof of sin or a lack of obedience to God? That becomes a very pharisaical way of looking at blessings and trails (Luke 13:2-5, John 9:3, James1:17).
We understand that blessings come from God. But as soon as we start to think we deserve God’s goodness, and that our health or the digits in our bank account or anything else is a by-product of our righteousness or proof that we’re living a life that is pleasing to God, then we have a problem.
So what mindset can help us avoid self-righteousness? There has to be a true humility to our calling, not false one. Paul talks about the attitude that we must maintain:
“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin!” (Romans 7:18,24-25).
Righteousness is not a human condition. Apart from God, humanity constantly trends away from God. Paul shows that there is a universal sinfulness within humanity, and he explains the inability for us ever to be justified based on what we personally do. We cannot be personally righteous by our law-keeping.
The law exposes our guilt and since none of us can keep the law perfectly, it dooms us all. So, Paul is proving that all of humanity is guilty of law breaking and sin. And therefore justification and salvation comes outside of us:
“Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, ….19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, …21 For He made Him who knew no sin (Christ) to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:18-19, 21).
Building on this from Titus:
“But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4–7).
“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” (Ephesians 2:8–10).
Notice, we are created in Christ Jesus for good works. We should walk in them. So this is where this whole concept does come full circle because it does matter what we do, but the focus of it matters. And that’s the key difference.
When we slip into self-righteousness it says I know, I obey, therefore I’m righteous. What should we do? True followers of Christ must have a deep desire to please God, to grow in His knowledge to become like Jesus Christ:
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:1–3).
As humans we like to track progress. It helps us to feel like we’re accomplishing something, that we can see that we’re making progress. In our endeavor become like Christ, we can begin to trust in our own efforts for our success, forgetting the source of our lives and how we became redeemed and justified. We can confuse our growth in self-discipline with our own righteousness and justification. And then we can begin to look down and compare ourselves with others.
The Pharisees’ error was believing obedience was the source of righteousness rather than the fruit of turning one’s life over to God. Our standing before God is a gift. It is not a trophy of our own doing.
True conversion keeps our eyes upward in thankfulness, inward in self-examination, and outward in abundant mercy. The Spirit of God works in His people to will and to do. Salvation comes through God and Jesus Christ. Our reasonable service is to yield, obey and walk humbly – remembering we are His workmanship, shaped by His mercy, sustained by God’s favor, and led by His power, not our own. God is the One who justifies, transforms, and completes His good work in us.
Troy Phelps