Luke 18:9-14 - Being right with God

18:9-14

Luke makes it very clear what this parable is about, it is concerned with those who look down on others, convinced of their own righteousness. A keenly emphasised theme in Luke is that Jesus came to save sinners, ie came to save the unrighteous (which includes all of us). It is worth noting that human nature hasn’t changed much in 2000 years. The “bad guy” is portrayed as a Pharisee. There seems to be something of a move these days to “rehabilitate” the Pharisees. Now they weren’t all bad, but they certainly do get a bad press in the gospels! So I think we have to assume that self-righteousness was a major problem of theirs.

The Pharisee stood in the temple thanking God that he was not like other people, robbers, evildoers and adulterers being mentioned as examples, as was a tax collector who is the other actor in the play. As well as not being overtly sinful he fasted twice a week and gave a tenth of all he earned. All this was probably true.

The tax collector humbled himself and asked God to have mercy on him, seeing himself as a sinner. And Jesus declares that it was the tax collector who went home right with God.

So what does this tell us? We must not put any trust in any imagined righteousness of our own. We are justified purely on the basis of who Jesus is and what He has done. He is our righteousness. As I have done so before, I will again warn us that this is not the whole teaching. It does not mean we spend all our lives dwelling on the fact that we are miserable sinners. Elsewhere we have had parables about the Father’s joy over sinners who repent, but we most certainly must take on board the message of this parable.