I Fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. (Matt. 18:12-13)
Drunkenness and swearing are sin in rags, but self-righteousness is sin in a respectable black coat. [ Charles Haddon Spurgeon]
Self-Righteousness is an aristocratic sin. Israel worshipped idols and practiced great idolatry in most parts of the Old Testament. But when Jesus came He met another kind of sin among the people that was even as deadly as idol worship: Self-Righteousness. Like idol worship this sin completely takes God out of the focus. It steals God’s adoration. When a Pharisee travers, he will take ways at the edge of the pavement, so that he will not brush against the garments of a passer-by. God expressed His indignation through the mouth of Isaiah against this sin. He was bold to denounce the hypocrites to their faces.
“Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am, holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.”—cf. Isaiah.65:5
But unfortunately, self-righteousness did not end with Israel. It crept into the Church. It is rampant in our own day.
There be many who come to the Lord’s house and mingle amongst the followers of Christ who still say, “Stand by, for I am holier than thou.” The righteousness which a man makes out of his own doings, his own feelings, his own alms, prayers, or sacraments, — all such righteousness is to be utterly despised. [ Charles Haddon Spurgeon]
The sin of self-righteousness flourishes among religious people. It is not always the sin of the outside world. Many outsiders can be nonchalant about serving God and don’t pretend to be righteous at all. Among those who profess to be religious, self-righteousness very frequently comes in, because they have not truly received Jesus Christ and have the revelation of Him. A sinner washed in the blood and clothed in the righteousness of God, glories only in the Lord. He has done with that particular form of sin which glories in self; it is detestable in his sight. His cry is “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It can be common in Christendom for religious people to practice the form and having a form of godliness. If righteousness come by the law, then Christ’s death was in vain.
Many who mingle with Christians, and are religious in a certain sense because they practise the forms of religion, want to put the form into the place of the spirit. With them in baptism the washing in water is everything, but the burial with Christ which it sets forth is quite unknown; with them the partaking of the bread and the wine are everything at the Lord’s table, but the spiritual feeding upon the body and blood of Christ is not understood. With them, the place of worship is everything, but the spirit of worship is lacking. The broken heart, the contrite spirit, the soul that trembleth at God’s word, the heart that joys in the Lord, they are strangers to all this, though they can sit as God’s people sit, though they can hear as God’s people hear, and look as if they were all that saints should be. [ Charles Haddon Spurgeon]
Don’t be in a hurry to give judgement to the outside word as some do. It is a religious spirit. Many may come into the fold while you fall-away. When we read the Ten Commandments it is evident that man cannot be saved by keeping the Law. Any man who thinks his works can save him has been deceived. Why boast then? Read what the Lord says here about Israel.
I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, all day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.”
Did Israel did anything to merit her to be God’s chosen people? No. But she carried a stiff neck and God was very angry with His people. While ignorant people may boast and profess their stands for not believing in God, it is stupidity for someone saved by grace to boast of his righteousness. It only justifies the person has not been saved at all. If any man should boast let him boast of Christ Jesus; the author and finisher of our Faith. But the “holier than thou” is boasting in himself.
As self-righteousness grows among sins to our surprise, it is in itself a great sin. It takes the place of God completely and for a man to be self-righteous is in itself a sin of sins. It is stealing. Adoration is meant for God alone therefore, a self-righteous person is stealing God’s honor and glory. It is lying: How? “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, one.”(Rom.3:10). If righteousness come by the law, then Christ’s death was in vain. Self-righteousness goes with the spirit of despising others.
A Pharisee stands on an elevation raised by his own fancy, for the law would pull him down, and never for a moment set him up. His proud notions come not from the law, and certainly not from the gospel, for the gospel knows no man after the flesh as righteous, but it regards all men as sinners, and comes to them with pardon; it treats men as lost and comes to save them. [ Charles Haddon Spurgeon]
As self-righteousness is a fruit of man’s own thoughts, it has no bounds. It keeps on growing in the person’s own imagination as a seed. But the wrong seed. However, in the man’s opinion, it is the absolute. The word of God becomes less important. He starts to make his own theology, and he is either too idle or too proud to be guided by the infallible scriptures. Those who have high thoughts of themselves do not walk according to God’s commandments, but according to their own notions. They have their preconceived ideas that is difficult to change. They come up with strange revelations backed up by their systems without any biblical foundation and consistency. This wrong seed will bear a wrong spirit. The man becomes supreme in his own eyes. He will have a following and his code of conduct is projected as righteous.
The repenting publican has his eyes opened to his real state, and he goes up to the temple and he prays, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” He does not dare to look up, he is so broken-hearted; but yonder Pharisee is bold to thank God for his own surpassing virtues. See how he gathers up his skirts for fear the fringe of his raiment should touch the ground whereon the publican has set his polluting foot. Why, sirs, that publican was one of God’s jewels, and this abominable Pharisee was a mere dunghill, reeking with offensive self-conceit. He did not know it, but his self-righteousness made him despise the very man of whom God hath said, “To this man will I look, and with him will I dwell; even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word.” [ Charles Haddon Spurgeon]
Self-righteousness is idolatry: A person who believes he is righteous because of works worships himself. Self-righteousness is a type of pride. You can just keep naming the sins of self-righteousness and you will finally arrive to unbelief. The sin that Apostle Paul was referring to in Hebrews. 10:26 and Hebrews. 6:4-6. He warned the children of Israel who have believed Christ not to turn back to the traditions of their fathers which was polluted with self-righteousness. We are going to be dealing with verses later.
I am reminded of the woman caught in adultery and how the scribes and Pharisees brought her to Jesus to tempt him saying “Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Oh my, the Law versus grace!
No one knows what Jesus was writing on the ground but we know God wrote the Ten Commandments on the tables with his own hand. “And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brakest, and thou shalt put them in the ark.” (Deut.10:2) He gave the law to Moses for the people of Israel to keep but no one could keep the law. The Lord Jesus who came to fulfill the law is the high priest of the new covenant. In the new covenant, God promised to write His law in the hearts of men. “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jer.31:33) We know that this scripture also pertains to the gentiles who are no longer aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. God was not writing on tablets of stones this time but on the ground. There have been many speculations about what He was writing. However, I can say it reminded me of the promised treasure in earthen vessels to replace the old covenant. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus set the woman free from the law of sin and death. It is that treasure man needs not the outward adorning of righteousness.
According to the law in Israel at the time adultery was punishable by stoning to death. But it became a different story in applying it to this woman when the kingdom of God was in their midst. It was like having two governments and two laws in one country. But there was a price to pay to make the first law obsolete and Jesus paid the price. It is common to see people react when they hear about fornication and adultery being committed. What about the secret sins of pride, jealousy, anger, lust, gossip, and most of all self-righteousness in many Christians today? They can hide it from one another but not from Christ Jesus. He could see through the hearts of the so-called keepers of the law and they were no better than the woman caught in adultery like many of us.
A minister stood as the judge to condemn a fellow Christian by telling him he has sinned willfully and will never enter the Kingdom of God. He was quoting Hebrew 10:26: For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. No normal Christian wants anything to do with sin and it comes many times because the flesh is weak. While it should be condemned but judging someone unto salvation is an authority that has not been given to anyone but Christ alone. The unfortunate thing is that the minister doesn’t even understand the text. If we are to take that word sin as he did, it will mean that every Christians who has ever told a lie, stolen, cheated for example has crossed the red line. He cannot any longer be saved since he has sinned willfully because he has done what he knows was wrong. This way of interpreting the text will put the self-righteous man himself in a dangerous position.
The occasion for writing the Epistle to the Hebrews seems to be a need to exhort those who had professed faith in Jesus as the Messiah to hold fast, stop wavering, and go on to maturity. It seems that many of them might have been on the borderline of turning back to Judaism, for we see in the earlier verses of chapter 10 that he has been reminding the people of the superiority of the one sacrifice of the new covenant, (which was the Lord Jesus Christ himself) in contrast to the continual sacrifices of the old covenant. (Rev. Raymond Jackson)
There was an occasion for Paul to use those strong words but they were actually having reference to what? First, he was not the kind of man to cajole anyone departing from the faith but to tell him the truth of the consequences. Secondly, he was not referring to symptoms or attributes of sin committed in the flesh. Sin is unbelief and the verses in Heb. 4:4-6; 10-26 is implying to departing from the faith. It seems like many of the Jews who had believed were in the border line of turning to Judaism and he was warning them of that sin of unbelief that will cut them off from obtaining salvation. Remember, there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism. (Eph.4:5) When one departs from this one faith which is in Jesus Christ that person is a dead man already, for we are saved by grace through faith. (cf.Eph.2:8) If a Christian who steals or commits fornication after knowing the truth has crossed the red line it means the man in 1Cor.5:5 who committed incest with his father’s wife wouldn’t have had any possibility of his soul being saved. The act and the body were highly condemned by Paul but he did not condemn the man’s soul as it is mentioned in scripture to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. (cf.1Cor.5:5) The sin the Apostle Paul was talking about in those verses in Hebrews 4:4-6; 10-26 is not stealing, lying, fornication, which are all but the attributes of sin.
There are two types of sins a person can commit: There is the sin of unbelief and the sins of the flesh. The sin of unbelief is also a sin against the Spirit. We cannot separate the Spirit from the word. We know that Eve first had to disbelieve God’s word before she physically ate the fruit. Eve did not have the sin nature in her but it was still impossible for her to resist the devil. Today man is in deep trouble; sin is within and without but thank God for Jesus Christ who can help us overcome. Now that does not mean someone who has not believe the gospel has committed unpardonable sin. They grace is still there for him. He has the opportunity to belief the gospel and come to Christ. But for someone who believed and come to unbelief, it is a different issue. Let me put it this way. For someone who accepts or believe the gospel and later rejects it, it is death.
The sins of the flesh are things that we do, say, and allow, because of our weakness, but there is only one UNPARDONABLE SIN. That is UNBELIEF. Jesus called it blaspheming the Holy Ghost. It is a sin against the Holy Spirit. The works of the flesh proceed forth from that sinful nature, and the root of that sinful nature is unbelief. You will find a lot of people out here in this world of religion that will say, “I don’t believe in the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or I don’t believe in divine healing.” Some will even say, “there hasn’t been anything like that since the apostles died.” You who would say such things had better be careful. You are dealing with the sin of unbelief. A person with an attitude of constantly rejecting or finding faults with God’s word will eventually turn completely from God. That person will be in much worse shape than the man of 1 Cor.5:1-5
(Raymond Jackson)
Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. (2 Cor.12:10) I keep thinking of these two terms fall and fall away as applied in some scriptural texts. I see there is a difference in meaning between to fall and to fall away. For the just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief – Proverbs 24:16. This scripture does not give room for sin but only expresses the weakness of man. The man here is a just man which means he believes in God for He is the only one who can justify us, however, he had to fall not ones but seven times. If a man who is justified by faith falls there is hope for him to rise again but if a wicked man falls he falls away. In most cases, people who fall away have departed from the faith. (cf. Heb. 6:6; 2 Thess.2:3) If you have been justified and have faith in the Lord Jesus, then you have not fallen away. You have not departed from the faith. Don’t believe what the devil is trying to tell you, rise up and continue your walk with Christ Jesus.
The man of sin can also be called the man of unbelief. He will be a self-righteous man and will deceive the world with his righteousness. The world is full of natural minded (FRUIT INSPECTORS). They will pass judgment on some person with a weakness in his fleshly make up, and pass right over the self-righteous person who puts up a good front, even though he rejects much of the word of God. Like in this Laodicean Church Age, made up of grand royal ladies, they cannot see their true condition because self-righteousness is such a subtle sin. They cannot see how much there are rejecting the word and drifting in to unbelief.
Jesus said, “By their fruits, ye shall know them,” This is a scripture many people use to judge people of sins they commit in the flesh or righteousness they displayed from without. But God is not deceived by this kind of righteousness. Did He find any of the Pharisees with all their outward display of works righteous? He said to multitudes who came to listen to Him that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt.5:20)
Unfortunately, many of the inspectors today only look from the outside. But the fruit may look very good from the outside but rotten inside. However, God cannot be deceived. He doesn’t judge from appearance. No wonder some will be saying, I have prophesied in your name, speak in tongues and done a lot of charity work but the Lord will tell them I never knew you. I know a young preacher who was talking to two men after a meeting. The two men spoke in tongues and he wanted to talk to these two men to asked about the gift they had because it was wonderful. He went and was talking to one of the men who spoke in tongues in the meeting, and the man asked the young preacher, “Have you spoken in tongues’’. The young preacher replied that he is a Christian but he hasn’t got what they have. When he replied to the man that he has never spoken in tongues, the man said to him it means he hasn’t got the Holy Spirit. The young preacher will turn out to be a vindicated prophet of God, and the man a hypocrite with two wives. It is unfortunate how Gifts have made many people who reject the word of God to become self-righteous, and I am not just talking about speaking in tongues but other gifts God has given unto men: Wisdom, Knowledge, Prophecy, and you can keep naming them.
There is nothing we have done for God that God has not done for us. Therefore, there is nothing any Christian can boast of but Christ. Self-righteous comes as an attitude and the attitude can manifest itself in different actions. The person starts to estimate himself as more superior or righteous than others. Let us check ourselves if we have these symptoms: Holier-than-thou, pomposity, superiority complex, Pharisaical spirit, moralizing, pride, sanctimonious and there are certainly more. If you are experiencing one of those, Sick treatment with the word ASAP. As I said the sin is subtle and doesn’t want to be categorized as such. However, there are those who think they have arrived and cannot be a victim. But the Lord knows how terrible it is, and like an air born disease can hit anyone. The sin doesn’t discriminate, and can hit even true servants of God. The Lord was watching over Apostle Paul so that he doesn’t get puffed up with pride which is a type and symptom of self-righteousness. “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.” (2 Cor.12:7) The overall theme of Paul’s messages is Faith in Jesus Christ. The ones self-righteous man came to know how true righteousness is obtained. When a man of God starts to get puffed up, self-righteousness is not far but usually the man doesn’t feel guilty of the sin because the sin is very subtle.
There are fruit inspectors who will ask you if you have the eyes to see. There are many groups and where is the man who has been given the inspector’s job? Let him first removed the log in his own eyes, so that he can be able to see properly to be a good inspector. However, think twice before you take that position for it belongs to Christ. There is only one true church and it is the mystical body of Jesus Christ. Members of God’s true church are rarely guilty of overt self-righteousness because they feed on the word and allow the Lord to lead. However, it doesn’t cancel the fact that certain times some of these people too cannot become proud, and start to trust in themselves that they are righteous and despise others. Therefore, we should constantly feed on the word and give God the preeminence. God wants us to be righteous but not according to any man’s standards. The righteousness of man is as filthy rags (cf.Isa.64:4) Good deeds should be a light, and a light makes no noise unless something is wrong with it. Show me a man who gives and doesn’t announce to the world, and I will show you a cheerful giver. In some churches you hear how the amount people contribute to the Church is read aloud for people to applaud and exalt the person who gave the most. Terrible!
When the sin of Self-righteousness is full blown is can be very deadly. Think about it, who are the people who crucified Jesus? They were not ordinary sinners on the streets but self-righteous religious people. It did not even end there. They had to pursue His followers also. There was a man from the tribe of Benjamin. He was a student of Gamaliel who was a well-respected man and a doctor of the law in Israel. He had taken time to study and became strict and zealous for the traditions of his fathers. This man thought he was blameless and a Pharisee of the Pharisees. His Self-righteousness became full-blown and caused him to persecute the saints, moving from place to place to hunt them down. This man witnessed the stoning of Stephen while the witnesses laid down their clothes at his feet. He made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women and committed them to prison. Get the scriptures here.
“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.”(Acts.9:1-3)
We know about the conversion of Saul and what happened to him on his way to Damascus. You can read again the whole of Acts chapter 9. His name was changed from Saul to Paul and there is no one who preached much about faith than Paul. He has been deep in to religious traditions and came to realized how terrible it is when his eyes were opened to the word. You see how self-righteousness can play out and yet the person is sincere? After his conversion, he tried to make the Jews to see how he grew up strictly following the traditions of the fathers and zealous towards God and shared the testimony of his conversion. “And profited in the Jews religion above many my equals in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers.” Gal.1:14) However, it was difficult for many of the Jews to see and leave their traditions and follow Christ.
We know the law by itself was pure but not profitable because no man could keep it. When the people injected tradition into it, the Religion of the Jews became leavened. This made the commandments of God “none effect” and self-righteousness to flourish. We can trace the beginning of tradition in the Church in Rev.2:15. “In this same way you have people among you who follow the teachings of the Nicolaitans. The word comes from the two Greek words. (Nikao) means “to conquer” and (Laos) means the laity. Yes, many people in the church were conquered when grievous wolves came in not sparing the flock beginning from the middle of the fiftieth century. Strange doctrines were injected in to the gospel and that was the beginning of Church traditions. The church that was born at Pentecost will also become transformed in to a Religious system in typology to the Jewish Religion. They crucified the Lord Jesus as the men in Religious system will crucify the word with their self-righteousness. However, there have always been a few in both eras who have held on to the truth and there have been a great number of martyrs too as a result. This is what happens when self-righteousness gets to its peak. “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”(Gal.6:3) It is true that self-righteousness prevails in religious people.
Is Christianity a Religion? This topic could certainly call for a debate because there are people who believe it is a religion and there are people who believe it is not. The term religion appears four times in the King James bible and in some of its occurrences it is connected with the Jews. “For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it.”(Gal.1:13). Of course we know the religion of the Jews was concern with sacrifices, secular laws and services – various washings and ordinances that could never make him who performed the services perfect in regard to the conscience.(cf. Heb.9:6)
Jesus told the Pharisees that if they knew the prophets they should have known Him. They rejected the one who came to fulfill the law. Many of the Pharisees who stuck to the law could not bridle their tongues and even had to call the Messiah Beelzebub among many other blasphemies. No doubt their religion was worthless. The people claim moral aptitude in other areas but could not control the tongue. James had something to say about that: “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.”(James.1:26)
The religious traditions in the time of Jesus did not even make sense for salvation to be obtained through it. It was a sin to eat without washing the hands. It was sin to heal someone on the Sabbath – it means it was a sin to do good on the Sabbath. The Apostle James had something to tell the people who depended on these practices and thought they were righteous. “This is pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father: To visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to be unspotted from the world.” (cf. James.1:27) While it is a very good practice to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and be free from moral stain, the practices by themselves without Christ do not guarantee salvation. We can see from the salutation of James that his message was targeting the twelve tribes which were scattered abroad and there was a need for the Jewish religion to have a face lift in their practices. In comparison to what the Pharisees upheld, Apostle James had a message for the twelve tribes of what will demonstrate pure religion. It is not to fail to wash your hands before eating and the other nonsense but they should consider things like visiting orphans and widows in their affliction and to be unspotted from the world. These practices give a good judgment of what constitute a pure religion contrary to what they acclaimed. Although the law was concern with various practices, washings and ordinances, the Pharisees injected their own practices that defile the religion and made it lost its purity.
Christianity is faith that upholds all the forms of cleanliness. It is not just subjected to morals only. Let us look in to the various forms of cleanliness. You are familiar with the popular axiom “cleanliness is next to godliness”. Let us examine the four aspects of cleanliness. How effective have religions been in dealing with these issues? Physical cleanliness: There are some people today who think all there is to cleanliness is personal hygiene. It is certainly wonderful to strive to keep the body, home and surroundings clean. However, physical cleanliness in God’s perspective would also preclude the use of tobacco in any form, overindulgence in drinking alcohol, drug abuse, and the use of anything that will befoul and damage the body. Moral cleanliness: The morals of the world today has just continued from the way it was before and after the flood with Prostitution, homosexuality and other vices regarded as a way of life. The entertainment and fashion industries have born pornography and skimpy revealing clothes that have become the norms of the modern society. However, it goes beyond the common sinner’s jurisdiction to the religious domain where people act self-righteously. They have to speak, dress and act a certain way to express holiness. Mental Cleanliness: The natural and carnal man is full of unhealthy thoughts – the mean ones, the jealous ones, the weak ones and that constitutes a whole lot of the world’s population.
I remember reading a sermon book that said the greatest battle ever fought is in the mind. If you always hang around with someone with a mess up thinking, you will one day become mess up too. Well, the world is full with people who are sick mentally. You have people who are spiritually eating doctrines of demons and spirits are controlling their minds. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon”. (Isaiah.55:7) Spiritual cleanliness: You must have heard of spiritual bathes. Families or some peoples’ group splash water on each other as part of a religious ritual of renewal. Some use the blood of animals to sprinkle on the body or bathe with it. There are others too who go into the river in the middle of the night bathing and performing incantations for purification. Members of those cults believe those sacrifices and practices makes them spiritually clean. Some religious Christians get in to sprinkling instead of being water baptized by immersion. They believe their show of good morals and manmade doctrines overrides the true faith in Christ Jesus. However, God has put a standard between true and false worship. “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”(2Cor.6:17-18)
Christianity is faith in the Lord Jesus. It is debatable whether it is a religion. The word Christian was first used in the book of Acts.11:26 to identify the disciples of Christ in Antioch. Now all disciples are believers but not all believers are disciples. You have people like Simon the sorcerer who believed unto salvation but he wanted to buy the Holy Spirit with money. But the disciples must have received the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, the name Christian was also befitting for them because they had the Spirit of Jesus Christ. All religion contains methods, rituals and practices for man to become righteous enough to ascend to God. All religion thus believes in the need for one to become self-righteous. True Christianity is the complete opposite. True Christianity believes in God’s righteousness through faith in Jesus.
The messages of the messenger to the Gentiles, the Apostle Paul, pinnacled on faith: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Eph.2:6-9) A man not rightly dividing the word of truth may consider that Apostle James contradicted Paul when he said, “faith without works is dead.”(James.2:20) However, the two scriptures are all in harmony because works is faith Expressed. You cannot see a person’s faith but the result of that faith cannot be hidden. Therefore, you don’t start by doing the works to have faith but let your faith do the works.
In most portion of the globe the tradition has become religion of the people. However, there is a God and His desire is for people to know Him. The soul is the nature of the spirit and it is the most important part of man that needs clean up but many people ignore it. The nature of man is sinful and the soul that sin shall die. The serpentine nature is the spirit every man inherits from birth. Man is helpless dealing with the soul without God. The body is just a house the soul dwells in. If the soul is clean the whole body will be clean as the nature of the soul will be expressed through the body. But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart; and they defile the man (cf. Matt.15:18) It is evident that if a person has the right spirit he will behave right. A man is judged by God, according to what is in his spirit. Therefore, seek ye a perfect form of cleanliness through the man Jesus Christ. It doesn’t make you self-righteous but it transforms the inner man and makes him, morally, mentally, physically and spiritually clean. All the forms of cleanliness will manifest naturally.
Keeping God’s word is not being self-righteous, it is obedience. Obedience is better than sacrifice. It is the obedience of faith that will produce the genuine works pleasing to God. Modern day societies have their different conceptions of what is self-righteousness. Trying to tell people what is wrong in God’s eyes is viewed as such. However, believers should avoid superiority complex when telling others, the truth. They should allow the word to speak and not to take the place of it. It is the word that should judge us and not any individual. Yes, we can judge little matters between ourselves instead of going to courts but we should refrain from judging anyone unto salvation. There are people today who are so self-righteous. They claim how they have never done this or that and have lived righteously before God and man. It is good you have lived a life pleasing to God and man but do not boast about it. You should know it has been that way not because you worked for it but because of the grace of God. You shouldn’t lift up yourself, judge and condemn others. If you have never committed murder or fornication before you boast be sure too you have never looked upon a woman and lust after her or hate your brother without a cause. I overhead a man saying to some Christians that, “we are not as bad as the people out there in the world,” and I thought it had the similarity to the Pharisee’s prayer. Someone wrote that Jesus told the disciples not to give that which is holy unto the dogs or cast their pearls before swine, therefore, one needs to first judge to know who the dogs and swine are. But the woman of Canaan also did say to Jesus that even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table and found grace with God. No one has the authority to judge anyone in the line of condemning him but to judge to form an opinion based upon the word. In other words, let the word judge the person. Let the word condemns the person for we are all going to be judged by it. This society has lost its ability to properly distinguish between self-righteousness and true righteous behavior. But that does not rule out the fact that all human beings are prone to self-righteousness.
The truth about the matter is every human being is born in sin and self-righteousness is sin. People generally like to hear others tell them I am sorry but it is difficult for them to use those words on others. They are always right. They will justify they are right when they are plain wrong. These people find no fault in themselves and reject any suggestion by others that they have faults; but find numerous faults in others. These people will claim they are the chiefest of sinners to imitate Paul but try and tell them their fault, you are in trouble. Let us look up to Christ, He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Self-righteous people are not much inclined to searching the Scriptures, they do not read them with an understanding, so as to get the revelation. It is good to stand for the truth. For he who possesses the reality is indignant with the counterfeit. However, let your indignation not turn to self-righteousness. You and I probably do not see this flaw in ourselves and we probably never will. Therefore, let our inner man be transformed by the Spirit of Christ.
I received many friend requests on Face Book. I was tempted to select those who I know and those I believed are Christians judging from their friends on Face book. But I later came and shun the idea. My face book page is to propagate the gospel and the gospel does not discriminate. If we choose to fellowship only with the so-called Christians, how will the unbeliever hear the gospel? We know social media is inundated with all kinds of stuffs, opening your page for the gospel for all to reach can be a blessing to someone at a certain time and place. God can pass through you to touch someone to be transformed. Give everyone a chance. However, if someone is trying to pollute your platform and to corrupt others, cut him off after 1,2,3 admonitions. But flee from self-righteousness in every form. Seek the righteousness of God.
