Part I
The parable Jesus spoke to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous while viewing others with contempt is so vital to our understanding of God’s mercy and forgiveness. It is the story of the Pharisee and the Publican recorded in Luke 18:9-14.
This Pharisee trusted in himself that he was righteous. The Bible is pretty clear that when it comes to trusting someone on matters of being righteous before God that that trust needs to be in God, the righteous One, and Him alone. Only through God can one be made righteous and continue to be righteous in His sight. The Apostle Paul alludes to this fact in Ephesians 2:1-10 when he states that, “God being rich in His mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) … For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works that no one should boast…”
What kind of works is Paul referring to when he states, “salvation by works that one should boast?” It is important to note that in this parable, the Pharisee is already a child of God while the Publican is not. He is an outcast. The Pharisee was proud to be a child of God but only at the expense of those who were not. He felt that as long as he was a child of God, no one could be as special as he was. He was chosen of God. They were not. In essence, he believed God would only be interested in his righteousness. Instead of thanking God for choosing him to be his child, he thanked God that, in his opinion he was more righteous than others because of the many righteous deeds he did. However, the other righteousness Jesus saw that day was that of the heart of the Publican. Today, like then, people are saved by God’s mercy and not by their righteousness or self- righteousness.
According to His mercy, how does God save us? God has always had a plan to redeem mankind. And I think it would be safe to say that those with faiths under Christendom would agree that Jesus is the biggest part of that plan. Unfortunately, Satan is aware of his defeat at the cross and, being full of wrath, has gone after all who follow Jesus (Revelation.12:10-17). One of the best ways he can accomplish this is not so much to destroy all professing Christians but rather confuse them into thinking that they are a Christian when, in fact scripturally, they are not. Jesus describes Satan as the deceiver. His nature from the Garden of Eden until now has not changed. The way to hurt Jesus and get back at God is to deceive people into believing they are God’s people when scripturally they are not. Many professing Christians are very good at quoting scripture to defend their point of view but they do so to the neglect of other scriptures. Is that the right way to treat the word of God which is holy? Should one not look at every scripture from God that pertains to any particular subject?
Any Biblical subject is like a scriptural puzzle. For those who like to sit for hours to complete a puzzle piece by piece, you know what I’m saying. Until every piece of the puzzle is joined to the next only then does one have the intended picture clearly before them. Take for example, the Salvation puzzle with each piece of the puzzle being a verse that pertains to the subject of salvation. Until they are all joined together one does not have the complete and intended picture from God before them.
Looking at the Salvation Puzzle. There are numerous verses in the New Testament pertaining to salvation. For example here are just a few:
- John 3:16 “…whosoever believeth shall be saved…”
- Romans 10:9-10 “…if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved…”
- Romans 10:13 “…whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
- Mark 16:16 “He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned.”
When it comes to a spiritual buffet which of the verses above would satisfy your spiritual palate the most? Which would you choose and which would you ignore? Or do you suppose that God wants us to join all these facts/truths together to see the picture about salvation that He’s trying to show to us? Wouldn’t it be easier to just confess that Jesus is Lord then to be baptized? Yet, why has God included all these scriptures as to how one can be saved if there is only one that is required?
When it comes to studying the scriptures. In Acts 17:10-12 the Jews in Berea were described as being noble-minded because they received God’s word with great eagerness and examined all the Scriptures given to them on a daily basis to see (verify) if the things spoken were true or not. To do this they would have to study every subject thoroughly before they would come to any conclusion on what any one verse was saying. Thus, they were called noble-minded. Too many people today come to quick conclusions on what God is saying on a particular subject without fully getting all the pieces of the scriptural puzzle together. One such subject is what God says about how an individual is saved.
The Salvation puzzle in the book of Acts. Throughout the book of Acts one finds numerous situations in which people were converted to Christ. Initially, we see Jews being converted and then later, the Gentiles. If one was to make a chart of these conversions one would find what one might describe as discrepancies as to what is required in order for one to be saved.
Questions to consider concerning salvation. If all I have to do is to call upon the Lord, am I saved? Is it enough to just believe in the Lord and be saved? What if I just confess that Jesus is Lord, won’t that save me? If any of these three questions are true then why on earth would anyone want to be baptized to be saved? That involves getting wet and why go to all that effort if any one of the other three are suitable for one’s salvation? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that all four are necessary in the plan of salvation. It’s not either or but all four. When people in
Acts were converted they believed Jesus to be the Son of God; they confessed Him to be Lord and they called upon God to forgive them of their sins and then they were baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. Then they went on their way rejoicing because they were in a saved state and would continue to be so if they remained faithful to God.
Isn’t baptism for the forgiveness of sins a work of righteousness? There’s a big difference between being justified before God by law-keeping and being justified before God by faith. The former trusts in being saved not by God so much as in themselves keeping laws of God while the later trusts in being saved by a faith that is willing to obey whatever God has commanded them to obey in order to be saved. In other words, there is a big difference between works of merit and works of obedience. The former is trying to earn one’s salvation through acts of self-righteousness; the latter is accepting God’s mercy and grace through obedience to His will.
Israel’s bondage to slavery in Egypt. For 430 years the Israelites were slaves to the Egyptians. Their predicament as slaves under bondage was hopeless. There was no way of getting out of their bondage until God intervened. And what an intervention that was! However, their deliverance from bondage was not complete when they left Egypt but only when they saw all that which represented their bondage as being dead and done away with; when they were safely on the other side of the Red Sea and saw that all their adversaries were dead. Now here’s the point. Their deliverance from bondage occurred when they were baptized into Moses (I Corinthians 10:1-4). Not one of them would say they were delivered from bondage before they were baptized into Moses, would they? Not one of them would say they had earned their deliverance by being baptized into Moses, right? They wouldn’t have been boasting that they had delivered themselves from the Israelites by doing what God told them to do. They simply had, in faith, obeyed what Moses told them to do – cross the Red Sea and be saved from your Egyptian bondage.
To Be Continued