What is the difference in being self-righteous, and having a Godly sense of spiritual self confidence? This question and its answer can show a profound condition in Christian culture that can attract someone to God or drive them away from him. Self-righteousness is an attitude we ought to seriously examine and study. The best way to begin this study is to examine the Pharisee. Christ announced seven woes on self-righteous conduct in Matthew 23:13-27, and actually taught that this type of approach even if extended in worship of him is vain, Matthew 15:7-9. This is serious condemnation of conduct. What then is a Pharisee? It is most simply explained as being self-righteous in thinking and behavior. It is quite necessary to study the difference between the mind of the Christian and the mind of the Pharisee. We need to see how any mixture of the two can prove to be deadly. Remember that since the time when the Pharisee first appeared until now their nature has not changed. The latter-day Pharisee is the same as the modern-day Pharisee, these are spiritual people we are discussing here, and also bear in mind that most self-righteous Christians don't know that they are that way.
The word Pharisee coming from the Greek or Aramaic signifies to separate, owing to a different manner of life from that of the general public. The Hebrew distinction of the word renders "pious ones", a society of men zealous for religion. In their zeal for the law they just about deified it and their attitude became merely external, formal and mechanical. They laid stress, not upon the righteousness of action, but upon its formal correctness. Consequently their opposition to Christ was inevitable. Jesus' whole life and his teachings were essentially a condemnation of theirs; he totally denounced them. The Pharisees had influence, they were rulers of government. They held leadership positions. They came from diverse family, occupational and economic backgrounds and gave themselves to studying the law. They considered themselves holy ones dedicated entirely to God. As we go into the study, keep in mind the comparison between the Pharisee and the self righteous Christian, you will begin to see there really is no difference in the two.
The Pharisees were small in number but their support by the people was so great that all manners of life and ceremony were guided by their interpretations. The Sadduccean magistrates had to profess adherence to their principals in order to hold the formal allegiance of the populace. Theologically they looked for a personal messiah, they accepted the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and they believed in angels and demons, they held to God's decrees and understood human freedom of will. They tried to live a life of simple piety apart from needless wealth and luxury. They were very sincere about religion, as was Nicodemus, and were teachers of Israel-John 3:10. Very dedicated in observation of rules and order. In Luke 18:9, Christ teaches a comparison of two attitudes, one the Pharisee or self-righteous Christian, the other a tax collector. In Jesus' view the Pharisees trusted in themselves, they thought that there was nothing wrong with their character, and also they viewed others with a critical eye. Here is the beginning of the look into the mind of self-righteousness. You trust in your own ability- what you think you can do. Self-righteousness is man's declaration of independence from God. The Pharisee seeks to master himself through strict discipline and daily routine. Instead of spiritual confidence, the self-righteous Christian has developed a keen sense of controlled self-confidence. This type of thinking manufactures its own little spiritual box with its perimeters. Drinking more and more from this cup creates blindness to the fruit of the spirit. Humility, mercy and goodness are distorted, because the way of the Pharisee distorts real righteous concentration. Spiritual blindness means you are not really growing. Notice Luke 18:12, this attitude is very sincere. This person fasts twice a week and pays tithes of all his income and increase. He didn't cheat people, did not commit adultery and he was a just man. How can these exalted attributes pervert sincere-hearted Christians? Well one way is when you view others with contempt. In verse 11, he thanks God that he is not like other worldly people. Sound familiar, haven't we heard Christians say, "worldly people are crazy." I just don't see why they do that. I'm not like that! Whenever a Christian exalts himself over another person, he is led to do that by his own spirit--not the Spirit of God. A quest for perfection should be respected, as long as the quest doesn't condemn others.Rom. 8:1.
Self-righteousness needs the fuel of discrediting others, putting others down so that self is lifted up. The reaction of the tax collector is totally opposite, he was not even willing to lift his eyes up toward the sky, self is not lifted up but actually humbled. The man was throwing his hands to his face, beating the ground and himself, praying that God would be merciful to him, admitting his sin. Now in verse 14, Christ viewed the man who put himself down as justified. What kind of spiritual confidence is this? It was the Pharisee who displayed supreme confidence but Jesus saw a need to be humbled. What Christ is concerned with is that part of human nature that can easily fall in love with itself. Self-righteous people love themselves, which is not wrong, but it can become perverted when extended beyond the perimeters of humility. The Pharisee will go to the point of attributing portions of salvation to himself. His behavior can be credited because of effort. He equips himself for every good work. If you think about who in God's kingdom will be able to acclaim- "I did it my way!" Christ sees a danger when dependence on him is watered down. The person begins to think--I'm right, I'm right, I'm right, and I'm right all the time! I love myself being right. The self-righteous Christian loves himself above all else. He loves that which belongs to him or is connected to him in some way.
Love, by nature is an outgoing concern for others. It is one of the most powerful spirits that emanates from God. In 1 John 4:1, we are told not to believe every spirit, but to actually test them to see if they come from God. Verse 7, "love one another, love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows that." It is very hard for self-righteous people to love, because they travel toward the ever-narrowing world of self, away from God, although they are blind to this fact. They struggle with good manners because good manners are an expression of love. Self-righteous Christians are very hard to love. They will always try to do things to demonstrate that they are worthy to be loved. They want adoration. They desire the vanity of position inwardly. They use external signs to let people know who they are. Matthew 12:38. Plaques on walls, awards, badges, anything visible to show righteousness. They are vain in their knowledge-always using it to put others down, they are vain even in their abilities. Vanity is a result of a need to be loved. Pharisees want you to tell them that you need them. For this reason you must not challenge them. To help the Pharisee you must love and add love. It will be very difficult to help a self-righteous Christian because they want to be in authority over you, they love spiritual authority. You cannot help them using your own ability, the Holy Spirit must be enlisted. It takes something larger than you to deal with someone who thinks larger than themselves. That's why they like authority because it makes something bigger, makes things better, especially those things that think little of themselves. This type of authority is puffed up growth.
It takes humility to know how to handle authority. A leader lacking humility is puffed up, similar to a blowfish, having the ability to appear larger than they really are. When you are self righteous it's hard to be convinced of your error. People must approach you on your own terms. You are prone to being right in your own mind, unteachable, hard to be led.
If you meditate about it, we are all like baby birds-helpless-opening their mouths. God feeds us, sustains us, nourishes us and leads us, he does not follow us. We are to follow hard after him. The Pharisee nourishes himself, he tries to qualify for God's kingdom. With the spirit of God there is a desire to be corrected, you want to know if and how you are wrong. Look at 2Tim.3:16, the whole bible is influenced by God to prompt creative repentive thoughts and actions in you, to stir and generate or arouse you to teach and train yourself to accept his correction. Notice David in Psalms 51:7, "purge me with hyssop, wash me-purify me because I am dirty and in need of cleansing". Verse17, "God will not despise a heart that is dirty." When we want for God to fix us, that is a sacrifice to him. The self righteous Christian wants to do the correcting himself. They want to fix their own life as well as others. They are the builders of their own self, self-made men and women. This behavior tries to mix selfishness with holiness. Mixing spirituality with excessive individuality. This add-mix is artificial substance--nuclear nonsense, very powerful, explosive deception. In 2 Pet. 2:10, most modern day Pharisees believe themselves to be teachers. Listen to this chilling description; they disrespect those in authority, they are daring-full of courage, self willed and not afraid. This is a powerful person here. Verse 12 calls them unreasoning animals, you can't reason with this mentality. It states that they revile where they have no knowledge, which means they will argue about things they really aren't sure of. They are stains and blemishes that have trouble turning from sin, and look-they have hearts trained in greed. Christians taught to be greedy, by whom? Who else but the father of greed--Satan the devil. The biggest example of modern Christian greed is the perversion of the prosperity ministry. Verse 17 calls them wells without water, artificial substance. 18-21, shows how they pervert Christian liberty. Any ministry that puts you in bill bondage is greedy. Pharisees know the way of righteousness but would rather keep themselves and others in bondage. The spirit of Satan causes you to come on to people in a way that hassles and intimidates them in any area, especially money.
The way of the Pharisee is draining because it is so rigorous, it is hard on self, it makes you want to quit. Love is the opposite, there is always hope and it never drains you to empty. The modern day Pharisee is still a judge of people and of the law in the strictest sense. In Matthew 7:1-6, Christ spoke against trying to set up a standard for determining the extent of someone's character. When men judge men it will surely always include criticism, condemnation, censure and ultimately damnation. How can you take a speck from your brother's eye with one in yours. The speck is sin, again men feel they have the power to remove sin. In verse two Christ stated that by your standard of measure it will be measured to you. Compare that with 2Cor.10:12-18. To measure oneself by oneself is to see how you size up spiritually by using yourself as an example of how spiritual a person should be. Christ is not the example--you are. You have removed sin from your eye now that qualifies you to remove it from your brother. You begin to judge your brother that takes you deeper into the vortex of judging. Verse 18, for not he who commends himself is approved (or trust in himself, also praising self) but whom the lord commends. The modern day Pharisee is always praising himself, which's why their reputation is overly righteous. Jesus had a reputation that was often distorted and he never sinned. Reputation is what is believed about a person's character. Christ could have fashioned a wonderful public image of himself but choose not to.Phil.2:7. He emptied himself of all popular privileges that come with greatness, and humbled himself. He put down his self-image-- no Christian that I know does this. Now study what the devil did in Isaiah 14:12-17. Starting in verse 13, "I will do this, I will do that, I will be like the most high." Satan is sold on himself. He is a very selfish being. He only has self-interest, self will, self-exaltation; he is self-powered and self satisfied. Please understand people of God--this is the lure Satan has to fish for men. His offer to mankind is to make your-self-shine, and he use's sparkling lures to attract you. Satan is stalking mankind, he seeks to make a life useless to Christ. Now understand this; Christ considered the Pharisees useless. Even stating in Mark 12:40, that some will receive greater condemnation, I'm not sure what this means but it doesn't sound good. So now it stands to reason that if Satan wants to render a man useless to Christ, then sell the man on himself. That's not hard to do, if you want to get someone's attention just hold a mirror up to him or her. The devil's goal is to teach man to be self satisfied, very pleased with himself. Now remember being happy with yourself is not wrong, but whenever Satan is in the picture so is perversion, so the picture is perverted. He wants what you see in the mirror to be distorted, he will let you learn righteousness--but the wrong concept of it. He will not stop self-righteous Christians from praying and studying or fasting, he will seek to distort the image of Christ in you. Real righteousness comes through faith in Jesus. False righteousness is something called pride. Satisfied of your own achievements, an overbearing opinion of your own worth or importance.
Take time out to pray and ask God to help you understand this. We do not perform our way into salvation. You can't put yourself together. Read Rom.7:14-21, as great as Paul was he could not lead himself. God puts Christians together. Don't be confused, some assembly of ourselves is required, but we don't earn anything by our effort, we are showing the results of God's effort. The way of the Pharisee is hard on self. You put pressure on yourself if you have to do it with your own spirit. This type of Christian behavior tries to labor and do a lot. Underneath that is a weird belief that in a sense you kind of leave God no choice but to put you into his kingdom. Thinking that the more you do the happier God will be with you. You feel that God has to be placated, appeased or sacrificed to, all the time. Nothing less than perfection is accepted. Eventually you have a bigger role in your salvation than Christ has. Your words hold more power than God. The concept of the old covenant was not to make God angry. The people were trying. They became so zealous not to break Gods law - they became self righteous. If sin did not exist, the effort to do right would not become perverted. Men have tried to do right and are still trying. God knows this. The sad reality is that man left to himself cannot progress spiritually. The moment God is left out of the picture, it will begin to fade that same moment. The moment you put him in the picture it will begin to improve that same second. These are automatic laws God put in motion.
In Gal.3:10-13, if you're under the works of the law, trying to work for your salvation, work it out yourself, you curse your own self. Why? Because salvation is not obtained by works. How can you make yourself holy? Look at Matthew 6:27. How can you make yourself live longer, how can you make yourself taller. Can you add to your stature? You can't do anything to increase God's spirit in you. Now back to Rom.10:1-4. In verse 2, they had a zeal for God, an earnest fervor for him. What's wrong with that; nothing! They were just not in harmony with humility.
God loves those who rely on him. Really God loves those who don't rely on him also, but he just doesn't trust them. Can't say I blame God, I don't trust selfish people either. They are not in harmony with God's righteousness, his virtues, his concepts of good morals, his satisfaction, because they have set up their own concepts, their own self-satisfaction. Their own views are firmly established and they do not subject themselves to the fair judgment of God. Self-righteous evangelism does not present the power of God to help people to trust in him. It is really human power of self-preservation.
The modern day Pharisee has a misdirected zeal. He has religion. Religion is man's effort to reach God. Religion is what we do; holiness is what Christ has done. Successful religion or ministry gets you to depend on God, and focus on a relationship with Jesus our lord. If you don't feel close to Christ it's because you pay too much attention to the ministry or mundaness of men, or the ministry and mundaness of yourself.
To feel close to Christ the emotions must transfer to the spirit realm of relationship, where your personal treasure is built up in heaven untouched and having nothing to do with men. As this treasure grows you are enriched, you begin to fall in love with your Lord. Because you are in love you begin to do for him--do what? You obey his voice. People have been taught the religious way of relationship that is first strictly obey God-which is to do. Then learn to love him later, which is to be--be his child. That means you have to do in order to be. To be a Christian you must obey the law. That's backwards, we are Christian because of what Christ has done. He gave us his spirit, freely, backed by his promise. His human life paid for our eternal life -in full. When the human heart is open to the eternal ramifications of that fact, the spirit teaches you to love your holy righteous Father--which leads you to want to obey him and empowers you to follow him, and he graciously gives us all the time we need to mature. There is no such thing as a true child of God whose bill for sin has not been paid.
To be humbled is to know that you cannot straighten yourself out. Man is basically helpless, just look at the world around you. The world is full of empty people who cannot take away their sins. People are weak because they have digested too much poison. The poison is separation from their true father God.We really, really, need God in our lives. We need to be dicipled, we need to be justified, and we need to be vindicated from evil. Man cannot justify himself. Why do we try so hard to make ourselves right? Christianity is not a self-improvement program. The pride of life--our own life--is our biggest problem. It keeps us from being responsible for all the problem's self causes. When you try to graft the spiritual laws of God into self-righteous physical interpretation, that's an exercise in futility. We all need to be purged with some strong hyssop, the kind that sanctifies and justifies. In Phil.1:6, Paul, who was a Pharisee, is inspired to write that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus our lord. God alone is the author and finisher of our faith. I don't care how powerful or spiritual men seem to get, they do not factor into that equation. Do not let men, or respects of men influence your relationship with God; that is the job of the Holy Spirit plus nobody.
One of the causes of selfishness is obeying men instead of God. You may ask "well what's wrong with following men as they follow God." Well what's wrong with you taking everything out of the picture between you and God and then see how much more you will enjoy your relationship with man. A direct line with God will keep man from distorting you. If you think man can't distort you, you're distorted already. If you really can't be deceived then praise God he is the builder of your house.
We can learn to trust in God and be freed from the bondage of ourselves. The best thing you can do with self, is to build it up, through faith in Christ (Jude 20-24), praying, guided by the Holy Spirit, keep the self in the love of God, have mercy on others while you help them. Selfishness is going too far away from God (2 John1:9). Stay close to him, jealously guard your relationship with him. Grab hold of him and no matter what is to come--don't let go.
