by Jacob Ninan
A long time ago I came across a young pastor of a small church who was boasting that he had never been inside a movie theatre. People in his church stood in awe of him because they were conscious of more serious sins than that! This pastor also made everyone in his church to confess all their sins publicly in front of the others as a necessary way for them to humble themselves. I wonder if this pastor felt good about himself, in comparison to all the sinners in the church, and imagined that God thought of him as a righteous man and not like all the others!
Jesus mentioned about a Pharisee who prayed in the Temple and felt very good about himself in comparison to other people (Lk.18:9-12). He then contrasted this Pharisee with a tax-collector who was so conscious of his sinfulness that he would not even dare to raise his head towards God (vv.13,14). The Pharisee had an attitude of self-righteousness, not realising how God looked at him. Even though he was righteous externally, his pride and his blindness to the state of his heart before God made him despicable before God. On the contrary, the tax-collector went away justified by God because of his honest acknowledgement of his true condition. Jesus pointed out then alll who tried to exalt themselves would be brought low and whoever humbled himself would be exalted from his fallen condition.
Another thing that Jesus pointed out was that it was to call sinners sinners to repentance and life (Mk.2:17). Everyone is a sinner and there is no one who is righteous according the standard of God. But only very few people will admit their sinfulness, and so the majority of people do not find salvation. Jesus came to save us from our sins, but only those who see themselves as sinners who need a Saviour will go to Him and receive salvation.
At one time, David used to think of himself as a righteous man with whom God was very pleased (Psa.18:23,24). But then came his adultery with Bathsheba, and it was then that he saw the sinfulness in himself that he had been having from birth (Psa.51:4,5). Now he saw himself as a sinner before the Lord. But the fact is that he had always been a sinner without being aware about it! If we can learn from this, we would not need a major fall to teach us this truth about ourselves.
As a young, scholarly Pharisee, Saul (who was later known as the apostle Paul) thought of himself as being blameless with respect to the Law (Php.3:6). He was not worshipping idols, or committing murder, adultery, stealing, etc., all according to the Law. But one day he saw Jesus in a vision and was born again. Then the Holy Spirit began to show him what had been there always inside him but about which he had been ignorant earlier. Even though he had not coveted someone else's wife in order to have her for himself, and therefore he had felt blameless, now he began to see the covetousness involved in the deeper desires that came up from the flesh (Rom.7:7-9). Perhaps he remembered the words of Jesus that those who looked at women with desire for them were already committing adultery in their heart (Matt.5:28). This awareness of his sinfulness suddenly opened his eyes to see himself as dead in sin! Suddenly all his assumptions of being blameless under the Law disappeared, and he began to feel himself tremble before God. He saw that even in other aspects of life he was coming short of the life of God. This made him give an exhortation to people to work out their salvation with fear and trembling (Php.2:12).
What we need to ask ourselves is whether we have received this revelation of God exalted in His holiness and felt this trembling in our heart before God. Many Christians nowadays seem to be focussing so much on the love of God for them that they seem to lost the vision about His exalted holiness. There is no trembling there even as they sing songs of thankfulness for His love.
We must understand that we need to deal not only with our sins, but also with our sinfulness. We must confess our sins and receive forgiveness for them. But the sinfulness that we are born with leads us to sin, and we need to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us towards more and more of sanctification – to be set apart for God more and more in a practical sense. Isaiah points out that whatever 'righteous' things we do externally, they are always tainted by our sinful nature (Isa.64:6). For example, we may be serving God, but there may be elements there of seeking things for ourselves such as wealth, honour, power, fame, etc. When we do good to others, is there an expectation that they ought to return that favour towards us too?
Someone has pointed out this process of sanctification is like peeling the layers of an onion. When we have peeled off one layer, another layer appears below! The sinfulness in our flesh has deeper and deeper layers for us to deal with. That is why it calls for a steadfast spirit of faithfulness from us.
Paul wrote the Letter to the Romans around 57-58 AD. By this time he had many long years of experience living as a disciple of Jesus and also as an apostle. This is the background from which he wrote that he was of the flesh, sold into bondage to sin (Rom.7:14). He was not defeated in sin, but what he was saying was that while he was living with a clear conscience, he was well aware of the presence of the flesh with its lusts and desires which tempted him towards sin. "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom.7:25-8:1).
Paul admitted very openly that he had not become perfect and that there was a long way ahead. His approach towards life was to keep pressing on towards what God had prepared for him (Php.3:12-14). Of course, he wanted to reach more people for Christ. But here he was referring to the goal that the Lord had for his own life.
Is this our testimony? Or are we comfortable, being ignorant of the sinfulness that is working in our lives, looking down on others with pride, like the Pharisee in the parable? Let us not wait for a massive failure to wake us up. God will help us when we humble ourselves before Him in honesty (1Pet.5:5,6).