I was watching an apologetics debate between a Christian scholar and a high-ranking rabbi from New York City. During the discourse, the rabbi said something that startled me. He said, “I’ve never sinned”. He believed that he was absolutely righteous: whereas in truth, he was absolutely self-righteous. This rabbi actually thought that he was worthy of Heaven on his own merit. He thought that he had kept the law perfectly in all its nuance. It makes me wonder if he had actually ever read the Torah; As opposed to studying what other people said about it (in the Talmud).
His overestimation of himself belittles God. He trivializes the Almighty’s righteousness by having the chutzpah to assert that his sorry arse has been self-elevated to the heights of God’s holiness. He doesn’t think too highly of God’s perfection.
“But the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. As it is written: "See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.” (Rom 9:31-33 NIV)
Without the recognition that we are sinners in need of God’s grace, we can never please God. And if we can never please God, then His salvation will never greet us when we take that final dirt nap. Instead of being welcomed into the pearly gates and seeing the streets of pure gold, the unremedied sinner will only find God’s wrath in the hereafter. God’s wrath must be satiated (for His wrath is Just), and it will be satiated either by our acceptance of His salvation through His Son Jesus Christ (before we die), or by the lake of burning sulphur (after we die).
I was witnessing to a neighbour and he couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept that he’s a sinner. He was absolutely convinced that he’s the literal cat’s meow. We tend to compare our exploits to those around us. So if our tomfoolery is nonexistent when compared to the shenanigans of society at large, we consider ourselves comparatively virtuous. The problem is that society’s bar is lower than the Mariana trench. Ironically, society’s bar is lower than hell.
How do you explain to the spiritually nearsighted how magnificent and majestic our Lord truly is; and how subpar we are? They resemble someone whose contacts lay in the dirt, and they’re fingering the soil on hand and knee, desperately searching ... searching, while repeating varients of that sorry old mantra:
“I’m good enough to go to heaven …”
“God would be honoured to have me …”
“I’ve purchased God’s favour with my works …”
“My good outweighs my bad …”
"I'm better than him ..."
So, you think you’re good enough to go to heaven? Allow me to unfurl a metaphor to help dispense of this fallacy.
A medium-sized software company has a job opening. It advertises that it’s looking for someone with a doctorate in Computer sciences and a high proficiency in the C++ computer language. This company has a problem. It has over 60,000 pages of code and somewhere in that encyclopediac set of binaries, a bug’s causing a memory leak, which in turn is causing the software to crash. The company is seeking to hire someone qualified to quickly read the code, isolate the faulty programming, and correct it.
Are you good enough to meet this company’s standards?
It’s interesting how we can immediately see that we don’t qualify for a particular job. We’re not good enough to meet that specific standard. The requirements of this insignificant speck of a boss are beyond our grasp. We don’t cut the mustard. Yet we think we do with God? Ironically, we can recognize we don’t qualify for a variety of measely earth standards, yet we somehow think we qualify for the highest of heavens.
Wouldn’t it be odd for an individual with scant computer experience to think he could merit that position? And that’s where that rabbi is sitting. He thinks he can program at a high level, yet (comparatively) he doesn’t even know what C++ stands for. Could you imagine this overconfident buffoon applying for that job, and telling the employer he’s reached the pinnacle of programming prowess? And this from a man that barely knows how to turn on a computer!
Can he please this boss? Can he meet this boss’s standards? Does he have what this boss requires? Is he good enough?
No, he’s not. He doesn’t even come close to the standards that the boss requires.
It’s like this with God. God’s standards are not like our standards … they’re Divine! They’re perfect. It’s actually belittling to God to suggest that we can merit what only He Himself qualifies for. We are pulling God down to suggest we can reach up that high. How little our view of God would be!! And that spiritual infraction my rabbi friend, is called blasphemy.
“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away”. (Isaiah 64:6: NIV)
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. (Romans 3:23 ESV)
“All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:12 ESV)
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned”. (Romans 5:12 ESV)
“As it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one”. (Romans 3:10 ESV)
So what are we to do? The apostle Paul has some thoughts on that:
“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom 7:21-25 NIV)
Shroud yourself in the Lord Jesus’s righteousness: For while you’re not good enough, He is. When God’s just Eye pulls you into His cosmic cross-hairs, He will see our Savior’s righteousness instead of your iniquity, and His wrath will be curbed and He will welcome you with open arms: the child of wrath (Eph 2:3) will pass-away and you’ll be reborn as a child of God. And that my friend is why it’s called the Gospel, aka the Good News.
“And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, He will certainly save us from God’s condemnation.”. (Rom 5:9 NLT) – that is, we will be saved from God’s wrath through Jesus’s blood.
Thank you Lord Jesus.
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