The Great Reversal: Justification for the Unjust Text: Luke 18:9-14
Introduction: The Religion of Me
There are fundamentally only two religions in the world. There is the religion of divine accomplishment, and there is the religion of human achievement. There is the religion of grace, and there is the religion of merit. There is the religion that says, "Christ did it all," and there is the religion that says, "God helps those who help themselves." This second religion, the religion of human achievement, has many names. We can call it Pelagianism, or Arminianism, or moralism. But its most ancient and persistent name is Pharisaism. And it is the default setting of the fallen human heart.
Jesus tells this parable, and Luke gives us the explicit diagnosis of the target audience. He told it "to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt." This is a spiritual condition that is particularly dangerous for the religiously observant. It is a constant temptation for those who take their faith seriously, who read their Bibles, who catechize their children, who attend church faithfully. The devil is perfectly happy for you to do all the right things, so long as you do them for the wrong reason. He is content for you to build a tower of righteous deeds, so long as that tower is built on the foundation of self and its pinnacle is aimed at your own glory.
This self-trust always, and without exception, gives birth to its ugly twin: contempt for others. If your righteousness is your own achievement, then you must constantly measure it. And how do you measure it? By comparing yourself to others. You need a foil. You need a "them" to despise in order to feel good about "us." This is the rotten fruit that reveals the diseased root. Whenever you find yourself looking down your nose at another person, another group, another church, you are standing in the temple, right next to the Pharisee. Your list of virtues may be updated for the 21st century, but the stench of the prayer is the same.
This parable is a spiritual MRI. It is designed to reveal the true condition of the heart. It is not a story about a good man and a bad man. It is a story about two bad men, one of whom knew it, and one of whom did not. And in that difference lies the chasm between heaven and hell.
The Text
And He also 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, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying these things to himself: '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; I pay tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!' I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
(Luke 18:9-14 LSB)
The Spiritual Accountant (v. 9-12)
The scene is set with two men going to the place of worship. Both are outwardly religious. The battleground of this story is not between the church and the world, but within the church itself.
"And He also 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, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.'" (Luke 18:9-10 LSB)
The Pharisee was the epitome of religious devotion in his day. He was the man everyone looked up to. The tax collector was the epitome of corruption and treason, a Jewish man who had sold out to the Roman oppressors to get rich by extorting his own people. Jesus picks the two most extreme examples He can find to make His point inescapable. He is setting up our expectations, and then He is going to demolish them.
The Pharisee's prayer is a masterpiece of self-congratulation disguised as piety.
"The Pharisee stood and was praying these things to himself: '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; I pay tithes of all that I get.'" (Luke 18:11-12 LSB)
Notice first the audience of his prayer: he "was praying these things to himself." God is merely the invited dignitary at a ceremony honoring the Pharisee. The prayer begins with "I thank You," but it is a sham. He is not thankful for grace; he is thankful for his own superior performance. His gratitude is a backhanded way of praising himself.
His righteousness is built entirely on comparison. "I am not like other people." This is the fundamental grammar of pride. He needs a rogue's gallery of sinners, swindlers, the unjust, adulterers, to serve as a dark backdrop against which his own virtue can shine. And then he makes it personal: "or even like this tax collector." He sees the broken man in the corner and uses him as a sermon illustration for his own glory. He despises the very man who is, at that moment, receiving the grace of God.
Then he moves from the negative to the positive. He presents his spiritual resume. "I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get." These are not bad things. In fact, he is going above and beyond the requirements of the law. The law required one fast day a year, on the Day of Atonement. He fasts 104 times a year. He is an extra-miler. But his obedience is not worship; it is a wage. He is not serving God; he is putting God in his debt. He is presenting his spiritual balance sheet, and in his accounting, God owes him. This is the religion of merit. It is justification by works, and it is a damnable heresy, whether it is practiced by a first-century Pharisee or a twenty-first-century evangelical.
The Spiritual Bankrupt (v. 13)
The contrast with the tax collector could not be more stark. Everything about him communicates his spiritual state.
"But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'" (Luke 18:13 LSB)
His posture shows his heart. He stands "some distance away," knowing he is unworthy to approach a holy God. He will not "lift up his eyes to heaven," crushed by a true sense of his own sin and God's holiness. He was "beating his chest," an outward sign of profound grief and inward anguish. He has no resume to present. He has no list of virtues. He has nothing to offer, nothing to plead, except for his own wretchedness.
And his prayer is one of the purest expressions of the gospel in all of Scripture. "God, be merciful to me, the sinner!" Let's break it down. "God," he knows who he is speaking to. "Be merciful," the Greek word is hilasthēti. This is not just a general plea for kindness. It is a technical, theological term. It means "be propitious." It is a cry for atonement. He is pleading for a sacrifice to be made that can turn away the righteous wrath of God that he knows he deserves. In the very place of sacrifice, the temple, he is crying out for the reality to which all the sacrifices pointed. He is crying out for the cross.
And who is he? "Me, the sinner." Not "a" sinner among many. In his own estimation, before a holy God, he is the sinner. He is not comparing himself to the Pharisee. He is not comparing himself to anyone. There are only two realities in his world at that moment: a holy God and his own overwhelming sin. He has come to the end of himself. He is spiritually bankrupt. And that is the only prerequisite for receiving the grace of God.
The Divine Verdict (v. 14)
Jesus now steps in as the judge and delivers the verdict. And it is a verdict that turns the whole world upside down.
"I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:14 LSB)
"I tell you," this is the voice of ultimate authority. "This man went down to his house justified." Justified. Declared righteous. This is a legal term. It is a courtroom verdict. The man who declared himself a sinner went home declared righteous by God. The man who declared himself righteous went home still in his sins, under the condemnation of God. The tax collector, who had no righteousness of his own, was clothed in the righteousness of another. The Pharisee, who trusted in his own righteousness, was left with nothing but his own filthy rags.
How can this be? Because justification is by faith alone. The tax collector's prayer was the cry of faith. It was the empty hand of a beggar reaching out to receive a gift he could never earn. The Pharisee's prayer was the demand of a hireling, and his wages were death.
Jesus concludes with a fundamental law of His kingdom: "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." This is the great reversal of the gospel. God opposes the proud. He wages war against the self-righteous. He will bring down every tower of human pride. Why? Because pride seeks to rob God of His glory. But to the humble, to those who have no hope in themselves, to those who fall on their faces and cry out for mercy, He gives grace. He lifts them up. He clothes them in the perfect righteousness of His Son. He humbles them by showing them their sin, and then He exalts them by nailing that sin to the cross of Christ.
Conclusion: Leaving the Temple Justified
We are all in this story. Every time we pray, every time we gather for worship, we approach God as either a Pharisee or a tax collector. There is no third way. We come either with our hands full of our own shoddy achievements, or we come with our hands empty, ready to receive the free gift of grace.
The great danger for us, as people who seek to be faithful, is that we can begin to trust in our faithfulness. We can thank God that we are not like those woke evangelicals, or those compromising mainline Protestants, or those godless pagans down the street. We can begin to trust in our sound doctrine, our good marriages, our well-behaved children. And the moment we do, we have switched places with the Pharisee. Our theology may be impeccable, but our heart is far from God.
The good news of the gospel is not for the righteous. It is for sinners. It is for tax collectors. It is for those who know they are spiritually bankrupt and have nothing to offer God but their sin. The only thing we contribute to our salvation is the sin that makes it necessary.
Therefore, let us come to God, not trusting in ourselves, but trusting in Christ alone. Let us abandon all attempts to justify ourselves and instead receive the justification that is a free gift, purchased by the blood of Christ. Let us humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, confessing that we are "the sinner," so that in His time, He may exalt us. For it is only the man who cries "Be merciful to me, the sinner!" who goes down to his house justified.