Articles
Self-Justified, or REALLY Justified?
It seems that most people would like to believe they are doing what is right — even those people who argue that there is no such thing as ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ I say this because if they do anything that would be condemned by others, some of them would vehemently argue in their own defense, and would attempt to justify their actions or words. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, any argument in defense of their words or actions that have been condemned is an argument that those same words or actions are right.
Self-Justification. Attempts at self-justification are not anything new. Within the New Testament, we find a man of the law who came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 10:25), and Jesus then asked him what his reading of the law was. The man then replied, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself’” (Luke 10:26, 27). When Jesus told him to keep those commands, the text tells us, “But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” (Luke 10:29). Jesus went on to tell the story of the Good Samaritan, and when Jesus asked the man who was the neighbor to the one who had been beaten and left for dead, he couldn’t even bring himself to say, “The Samaritan,” but only “He who showed mercy on him” (Luke 10:30-37). His attempt at justifying himself by pleading ignorance of who his neighbor was failed. It failed because he was no better than the priest and the Levite of the story, who would not lift a hand to help the man in need.
On another occasion, after Jesus made it clear one cannot serve both God and materialism (cf. Luke 16:13), the “Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him” (Luke 16:14). But Jesus then noted, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15). Their attempt at self-justification also failed, and it failed because they were using the wrong standard! As Jesus put it, “what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”
And then there is the story of the praying Pharisee and a praying tax collector. In the story, the Pharisee stands and boasts about his good deeds and thanks God he is not like other men, but the tax collector “would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’” (Luke 18:9-14). The Pharisee was attempting to justify himself in the sight of God by ‘reminding’ Him of just how great he was and what great deeds he had done, but he failed to justify himself; he failed because God doesn’t measure the ‘rightness’ of a man by our self-appraisal, but by what is in our hearts. Jesus concluded the story by noting it was the humble tax collector who went away justified, rather than the Pharisee, “for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Let us also note that Jesus told this story in the first place because He had seen “some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others” (Luke 18:9). They, obviously, were wrong.
Well, so far, three out of three who attempted to justify themselves failed. Not a good record! Shouldn’t this tell us something? Well, yes, it should.
Before we get to the lessons we should learn from this, let us stop and consider just exactly what justification really is and, therefore, what self-justification is attempting to do. And, by definition, justification is “the act of showing something or someone to be just or right.” [Random House Dictionary]. The word translated as justify in the New Testament is the Greek word dikaioo (dik-ah-yo'-o), and simply means “to render (that is, show or regard as) just or innocent.” [Strong’s] So, it is no surprise that self-justification is defined as “the act or fact of justifying oneself, especially of offering excessive reasons, explanations, excuses, etc., for an act, thought, or the like.” Did you notice is what is missing in the self-justification? Facts. Evidence. Actual proof. What is offered is excessive reasons, explanations, and excuses.
If you recall, that is exactly what happened in the three illustrations given in the New Testament. The man of the law excused himself from the commandment to love his neighbor by pleading ignorance of who exactly his neighbor was; the Pharisees [lovers of money] tried to deflect attention away from their greediness and covetousness by simply deriding Jesus; and the praying Pharisee offered excessive explanations [to God, no less] about how ‘righteous’ he was.
True Justification. In reality, no man can justify himself, at least not in the sight of God. All of us have sinned (cf. Rom. 3:23) and all of us were helpless to remove that stain of sin (cf. Rom. 5:6), so we remained in a state of condemnation while outside of Christ. And there is the answer to how one is truly justified. Listen to these passages and what they say about how a man is justified:
“For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 3:22-24).
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:1)
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” (Rom. 5:9)
In these passages, we see that what justifies a man is God’s grace, by the blood of Jesus Christ, and by one’s faith in Jesus Christ as the world’s only Savior and the Son of God. God’s grace is what established the plan for man’s salvation in the first place, and it brought salvation to him (Rom. 6:23); the blood of Jesus is what cleansed us and paid the price for our sins, thus rendering us clean and declared innocent of wrong by God Himself, and that is only to those who have faith in the message of the gospel — that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and was then raised on the third day (cf. 1 Cor. 15:1-8). As the writer of Hebrews said it, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6).
Without God’s grace, no man would even have a hope of being declared righteous and just, for there would be no remedy for sin; without the blood of Jesus, there is no power to remove that sin, no price paid for that sin, and no propitiation to offer to God to remove His anger towards the guilty; and without faith in what the word of God teaches us (cf. Rom. 10:17), there would be no means to access that wonderful grace (Acts 5:2).
But let’s not fool ourselves here; the faith that justifies is a faith that, of necessity, continues to believe in the word of God and all it demands of us. Jesus said plainly, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). We cannot claim faith if we read those words and twist them to mean what they do not say; we cannot claim faith if we ignore the parts that condemn us and our words or deeds; we cannot claim to have faith if we change definitions of words to suit our desires.
Brethren, let’s be honest with Scripture and with ourselves. Self-justification is no justification at all. — Steven Harper
