Throughout history, smart and philosophical people have asked big existential questions. Why am I here? What happens after death? But there is a much bigger question we must ask: How can a sinner be right with God? Romans 3:23 tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This is our ultimate dilemma. We are all depraved and lost. We fall short of the standard God requires. How can a sinner have peace with a holy God who must judge sin? The teaching on God justifying the sinner did not come from any philosophy. It came straight from the Bible.

First, Justification is a Divine Accomplishment, Not a Human Achievement. God justifying a sinner is a forensic courtroom term. It means God, the righteous judge, declares a guilty sinner to be right before Him because of the work of Jesus Christ. It does not mean we suddenly become morally perfect. It means we receive the imputation of Jesus Christ and His sinlessness. Second Corinthians 5:21 says God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. In God’s eyes, because He justified us through the Lord Jesus Christ, we are declared not guilty.

This makes Christianity completely distinctive. There are hundreds of religions in this world, but they all boil down to human achievement. People try to be right with God by accumulating good deeds, taking pilgrimages, or believing that sincere effort is enough. But anyone who says you can get to God by being good is believing a damnable lie (Matthew 5:48, Matthew 5:20). Every man-made religion points people to what they must accomplish. Christianity points to what Christ has already accomplished.

Are you relying on your own good deeds, or are you resting entirely on the divine accomplishment of Jesus Christ? Martin Luther went through this exact struggle. He tried everything to remove his guilt. He climbed holy stairs on his knees, fasted severely, and slept on a bed of nails. Though he lived as a monk without reproach, he still felt like a sinner before God with a disturbed conscience. He finally realized through Romans 1:17 that the righteous will live by faith. The righteousness God requires is the righteousness God gives to those who trust in Jesus. We must abandon our own efforts and trust solely in Christ’s finished work.

Second, trusting in yourself produces self-righteousness and contempt. Jesus told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt. Two men went up into the temple to pray. The Pharisee stood and prayed to himself. He said, God, I thank you that I am not like other people, swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes of all that I get. The first button went into the wrong hole. He trusted in himself. His god was self. Self-righteousness is the attitude of trusting in your own goodness or religious performance as the basis for your acceptance before God. And what is the inevitable fruit of self-righteousness? Contempt. Despising others. The self-righteous consider themselves a model for everyone, and if someone is not there yet, they view them as inferior.

We must examine our own hearts. Do you say to yourself, I go to church every week, so God must be pleased with me? Do you look at others and think, I am a better Christian than they are because I do things they are not doing? That is a spiritual entitlement. A self-righteous person might be a moral person who never goes to jail, but they will never enter the kingdom of God. True spirituality does not compare itself to other people. True spirituality compares itself to God. When the prophet Isaiah saw God in the temple, he did not boast about his holiness. He said, Woe is me, for I am ruined (Isaiah 6:5). Unless we practice this kind of awareness of God’s holiness, we will end up just like the Pharisee, full of self-confidence but bound for judgment.

Third, true justification requires pleading for mercy. The tax collector was despised by society, seen as a traitor and a swindler. But look at his posture. He stood some distance away. He was unwilling to even lift his eyes to heaven because he was full of shame in his sin. He was beating his chest, saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. He did not say he was a sinner among many. He said he was the sinner. He considered himself the only one rebelling against God. He did not look at other people’s sins; he only cared about his own. And Jesus said this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

This is a stunning and shocking statement. The man everyone thought was perfect was rejected, and the man everyone thought had no chance was accepted against all odds. We must come to God exactly like this tax collector. We must identify ourselves entirely by our desperate need for grace. If you want to be right with God, you must abandon all self-righteousness and cry out for mercy.

John Newton said there will be two surprises in heaven. First, we will see many people in heaven whom we did not expect to be there, just like this tax collector. Second, we will not see many people in heaven whom we expected to be there, like the Pharisee. In man’s eyes, the Pharisee looked perfect and glorious, but in God’s eyes, his self-righteousness was filthy rags.

Jesus summed up the greatest human problem in one simple verse. Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14). Anyone who thinks they are good enough to please God because of their moral religiosity cannot be justified. Let us examine our own justification today. Is it resting on faith alone in Christ, or are you bringing your own good deeds to the table? If you have even a bit of something that you think pleases God because of your own action, you have not truly understood biblical justification. We must be like the tax collector, bringing nothing but our sin, and receiving everything through the mercy of Jesus Christ.