The Pharisee and the Tax Collector

Beloved, sinful people don't rush into the presence of the holy.

They flee from the presence of the holy. It's vital that we understand how unholy people can be reconciled to a holy God, because if we get that wrong, it's the difference between eternal life and eternal death. Hi, I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and thank you for joining us for this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. Today we return to another parable of Jesus as R.C. Sproul continues through the Gospel of Luke. However, he qualifies this sermon by saying that perhaps it's the most important message he ever preached at St. Andrew's Chapel, because eternal destinies are on the line. Here's Dr. Sproul.

Sproul. This morning we're going to continue our study of the gospel according to St. Luke, and we're in the 18th chapter, and I will be reading from verse 9 through verse 17. I would ask the congregation please to stand for the reading of the Word of God. Also, He spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus within himself, God I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess. And the tax collector standing afar off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Again, we get a brief parable from the lips of Jesus, one that is filled with information that concerns our eternal destinies.

We would be ill-advised to take this parable lightly. I can't think of any parable that Jesus ever gave that was more important for us to hear than this one. So, I pray that you will receive it with all of the authority that comes with the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Please be seated. Let us pray. Again, our Father, as we gather here on this your day to celebrate the birth and the work of your dear Son, again we plead for your help that you would send the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth and of holiness, that we may hear the words of Christ in this parable, and not only hear them with our ears, but that we may hear them with our souls, and that the truth of these words may pierce us to the very core of our being. For we ask it in the name of Jesus. Amen.

It's been almost seventeen and a half years since the founding of St. Andrew's Chapel. And in that time, I reckon that I have preached over a thousand sermons. And I'm sure that by the grace of God, some of those sermons were more dramatic, more moving, more inspirational, and more interesting than the one you're going to hear this morning. But I cannot imagine that in those thousand plus sermons you've ever heard any more important than this one, because I'm sure you've heard more important than this one, because this sermon focuses on the issue of our eternal destiny, that some will hear and heed and spend eternity in heaven with Christ. And those who reject the message that our Lord gives in this parable will be among the doomed from everlasting to everlasting. And since our eternal destinies are on the line here, I can't think of anything more important than for us to hear what Jesus says in this parable.

And we remember the parable of the persistent widow or the unjust judge ended with the question, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? Now He says this parable. He spoke the parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. So, Luke tells us that Jesus directed this little parable to a specific group of people, to people who put their trust and their confidence in their own righteousness.

Let me say it again. This parable was directed to people who trusted in themselves and in their own righteousness, and who consequently despised others whom they regarded to be less righteous than they were themselves. Now you just can't have a group of people in a church on a Sunday morning this large without having some among us who at this very second are trusting in their own righteousness to get them to heaven.

Back in 1969, I worked in a church in Ohio, and I was the minister of theology, and my main responsibility was teaching, but I also was the minister of evangelism, and I trained over two hundred people in the evangelism explosion program for outreach. And I would take two hundred people out into the community on a Tuesday night, and we would visit people in their homes and present the gospel to them, but we used the famous diagnostic questions to begin the conversation. The first one being, have you come to the place in your thinking where you know for sure that when you die you will go to heaven? By the way, the overwhelming majority of people that we asked that question were not sure that they were going to heaven. But then the big question, the second one, suppose you were to die tonight and stand before God, and God looked at you and said, why should I die tonight? And why should I let you into my heaven?

Let me pause for a second and ask you that question. If you die tonight, and you stood before God, and God said, tell me why I should let you into my heaven, what would you say to Him? Well, we tabulated the results of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people whom we asked that question, and ninety percent of them answered the question with what we called a works righteousness answer.

Ninety percent of the people we asked the question, if God said to you, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say? They answered by saying, well, I tried to live a good life. I went to church every Sunday. I tied my income. I did this, and I did that.

I did this good work and performed that good work. Ninety percent of the people answered that they were trusting in their own righteousness. Now, if that was the percentage then, what would the percentage be here today? I think I would die in this pulpit if I discovered that ninety percent of you would answer that question with some kind of works righteousness. But I don't believe that, but yet at the same time, I'm certain there are people here today who would give that kind of an answer to God. Probably the worst answer ever given to that question I ever heard was from my own son. I said to him when he was a young boy, son, if you were to die tonight and stood before God, and God said, why should I let you into my heaven? I said, what would you say?

He said, well, I'm dead. My own son believes in justification by death, that all you have to do to go to heaven is to die. And yet really in many ways that is the popular view. People are sinners until they die, and then overnight they become saints when you go to their funerals and hear the stories that are told. But Jesus is addressing this parable to those among us who are trusting in our own righteousness. He talks about two men. They both have the same mission initially. They both go to the temple, and the reason for their going to the temple is in order to pray. But there, for the most part, the similarity ends as the two men who are being described here are revealed in stark contrast one to another. One is a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.

How different could they possibly be? The Pharisees were that group of people who separated themselves from the ordinary Amhorets, the people of the earth, and singularly devoted themselves to righteousness, to obeying the law, meticulous, scrupulous in their daily devotion to spiritual duties. It was required of the people to fast twice a year. These guys fasted twice a week.

The man didn't just tithe, but if he found a dime on the sidewalk, he'd make sure that he tithed 10% of that. Zealous for obedience to God, and they were regarded in the community as the spiritual leaders for the whole nation. And yet it was this group of people who were most hostile to Jesus. These were the men who conspired together to kill Him because they were counterfeit, and nothing exposes the counterfeit more quickly than the authentic. They pretended to be righteous.

Jesus really was righteous, but they grew proud of their righteousness and boasted of it and displayed it publicly for all to see and to applaud. That was one of the men that came to the temple. The other one, a tax collector, those hired by the Romans. When the Romans imposed oppressive taxation on people that they conquered, they hired people from their own nation, from the Jews, to go to their fellow Jews and to collect the oppressive taxes that the Romans imposed, and the tax collectors got rich on the commissions they made from serving Rome against their own people.

They were the quislings of the day. And every time that tax collector came into the village, the people's hearts would swell with fury and hatred against them. So here Jesus contrasts, the most respected with the most despised, the Pharisee and the tax collector. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, robbers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

Am I? The first question about this fellow is, where was he standing? I think the Scripture makes it clear if we read between the lines a little bit because later on in this parable, Jesus speaks of the tax collector who was standing afar off, probably as far removed from the Pharisee as could be accomplished in the confines of the temple. And so that would mean that the Pharisee was standing where?

As close to the holy place in the temple that you could go. So here is a man who walks right up to the door of the sacred place of the temple and stands there and raises his head to God, raises his hands in prayer. He looks up into the heavens with thanksgiving, I thank you God that I'm not like other men.

I see other men who are extortioners and adulterers and robbers and liars and all of that. And I say there, but for your grace go I. So thank you, Lord, that I'm a pretty righteous fellow. Now what do you make of that?

I wonder how much honesty was in that prayer of gratitude. You know, one of the things that troubles me in trying to interpret this little parable, and I'm probably the only person in the world that goes to bed at night trying to figure out this conundrum. I'm trying to figure out whether this Pharisee was a full-blown Pelagian or merely a semi-Pelagian. Does that bother you?

I mean which category does he fit? You go back to the fourth century and you see one of the most significant theological debates in all of church history between the great Saint Augustine of Hippo and the British monk who came to Rome by the name of Pelagius. And Pelagius on one occasion heard Augustine give his famous prayer, Lord, grant what Thou dost command, and command with us please Thee.

And Pelagius said, What? Are you asking God to grant you what He commands? You don't need any help from God to do what God commands. If God commands you to do something, doesn't that mean, QED, that you have the moral ability to do it?

God would never command you to do something that you can't do. Augustine said, No, I can't do anything without the grace of God. Pelagius said, Look, grace is a good thing. God has grace. God gives grace.

But you don't need it to be obedient. A person can live a life of perfect righteousness without any help from the grace of God. In fact, Pelagius said not only is it possible for people to live perfect lives without the grace of God, but he said there are multitudes of people who have achieved it.

I'm sure he considered himself as one of those. And by the grace of God, Pelagius was condemned as a heretic. But then very soon thereafter, one came along who wanted to mediate between Augustine and Pelagius and say, Well, no, there's a middle ground. And semi-Pelagianism was born in which it taught that, yes, grace is absolutely necessary for anybody to become righteous.

It's a necessary condition, but it's not a sufficient condition. You can't be righteous without grace. But grace doesn't work monarchistically or by itself.

You have to cooperate with it and ascend to it so that your becoming just and justified is a joint project. You're both working, you out of your sin, choosing to join with the grace of God to become righteous. Where Augustine was saying, No, it's grace alone. The semi-Pelagian was saying, No, it's grace plus you. And again, that heresy was condemned by the church.

Sadly, it is alive and well. And in our day and in the church today is far and away the majority report. Most people still think that they contribute something significant to their own salvation. Now, I'm guessing that this Pharisee was a semi-Pelagian, but you know, you scratch a semi-Pelagian and inside there's nothing but Pelagianism left.

So, it's really a distinction without a difference. This man was Pelagian. He tipped his hat to God for the assistance he got from his favor and from his grace. But in the final analysis, he's standing up there by the Holy Place supremely confident in his own righteousness.

The Holy Place didn't scare him at all. Remember Peter, numbered among those thousands of people that would crowd around Jesus and come as close as they possibly could to Jesus, touch the hem of His garment. Yet when Jesus performed one miracle and Peter got a glimpse of who Jesus really was, he said to Jesus, Depart from me.

Please leave. I'm not comfortable around you because I'm a sinful man. Beloved, sinful people don't rush into the presence of the Holy.

They flee from the presence of the Holy. And unlike the Pharisee who said he'd never stole, yet who stole the glory of God every minute of his life, who was not an atheist, but what he was an idolater through and through, he was an idolater through and through, stands now in contrast to the tax collector. Listen to how Jesus describes the tax collector.

And the tax collector, standing afar off, he was just by the door. He couldn't even be in the temple and still be in the temple and be as far away from the holy place as he was. He was in fear and trembling just being inside the outer court, and he wouldn't even lift his face up to heaven.

His gaze was on the floor. Standing afar off, he would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but instead he beat his breast saying, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner. He had nothing in his hand to bring. He brought absolutely nothing to the table except his sin. He had nothing to offer to God except his guilt. He didn't come before God and say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

After all, I was born and raised in a rough neighborhood, and I was abused as a child, and I didn't get the self-esteem I should have had as a human being. Lord, I know I'm a sinner, but you know it's not my fault. No, no, none of that.

His face looking down, beating his chest, not in pride like Mighty Joe Young the gorilla, but like one who's tearing his clothes in sackcloth and ashes. Be merciful. Have mercy. It's only your grace, your grace alone, not your grace and my contribution. Here's a man who understood the doctrine of sola fide, justifications by faith alone, and justifications by grace alone. There are tens of thousands of Christians in America today if you ask them, do you believe in justification by faith alone? And they'll say, yes. But do you believe in justification by grace alone?

And oh, no. You really don't believe in justification by faith alone if you think you're adding something beyond your faith, beyond the righteousness of Christ for you to be justified. Well, what is this justification all about? One little boy was asked, what's the meaning of justification by faith?

He said, it means we can go to the seashore in the summer without having to pay for it. It's just a vacation by faith. You saw in the Bolton earlier when we confessed our sins in the assurance of pardon from 1 Peter 3.18, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God. Our problem before God is very simple. God is holy and we're not. God is just, not barely just or almost just or mostly just, but all just, and we are not. So the ultimate difficulty that any human being will ever encounter is this, how can an unjust person stand in the presence of a just God at the last judgment? The only way we can stand is to be justified, to be declared just. And when we say that justification is by faith alone, what we mean by that is that's just simple shorthand for justification by Christ alone. Faith is the sole instrument by which we grab hold of Christ, and His justice is transferred to us. God imputes or counts the righteousness of Jesus to those who put their trust in Him. But if you trust in yourself, you stand by yourself. The only way you'll ever stand before a just and holy God is if you're clothed in the righteousness of Christ, and you add nothing to it. I like to tell the story of my mentor John Gerstner when he preached the sermon on sin, and after the service he was greeting people at the door of the church, and this proverbial little old lady came up to him and said, Dr. Gerstner, you make me feel this big. And he smiled at her and looked at her and he says, that's too much.

That's much too much. Don't you know that that much self-righteousness will send you to hell forever? Do you think he was saying that to that woman just for shock value? No, he knew that if she had that much self-righteousness in her soul, she was doomed. She was like the Pharisee. I thank you, Lord, that I at least have that much righteousness.

No. The Bible says all of your righteousness, all of my righteousness is filthy rags in the eyes of God. The only one who ever possessed perfect righteousness was Jesus. Mohammed didn't make it. Confucius didn't make it. Buddha didn't make it.

Only one. That's why there's only one way to God, because there's only one who has done what is required to get us to God, who has done what is required to get us to God, to justify us. And then Jesus ends this little parable by saying, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified. That man who couldn't even look up into heaven, who couldn't get near the Holy of Holies, who could only beat on his chest in repentance and plead for the mercy of God, throw himself on the mercy of the court, he walked out of that door and he went home justified. Now you're going to go home sometime today, I presume, or if you're on vacation or to be with your family for Christmas at some point, God willing, you're going to go home. Will you be going home justified? If you're sitting in this building today and you're not justified, don't leave here until you are. Don't leave here until you tell the Lord God omnipotent that you're a sinner and can't stand apart from His mercy and His grace. Because if you throw yourself and your soul on Him and on His mercy and cling to Christ, you will go home justified. The spiritual guy, the Pharisee, the one who came so close to the holy place, Jesus said, that the publican went home justified rather than the other. Oh, the Pharisee went home that day, and the Pharisee went home and continued to tithe, continued to fast, but he remained an unjustified person. If you were to die tonight and stood before God and God said to you, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? I hope you would say something like, because of Jesus, because He's my only hope. I put my trust in Him.

Everything else is sinking sand. And He will look at you and say, please come in. My Son is already here, and He's already prepared a place for you that you may bask in His glory now and forevermore. That is good news on this Sunday edition of Renewing Your Mind. What we just heard was a sermon preached by R.C.

Sproul at St. Andrew's Chapel in Sanford, Florida. And the Lord has used those sermons not only to bless the congregation there at St. Andrew's, but also to bless the church there at St. Andrew's, but also to help Christians around the world. And those sermons form the basis for his expositional commentary series. Today's message was from Luke's Gospel, and so we're making his expositional commentary of Luke available to you for your gift of any amount. And when you give your gift at renewingyourmind.org, you'll receive this digital edition of this expositional commentary so you can go further in your study of Luke's Gospel.

It'll also be easily available for you in the free Ligonier app. So give your gift today by visiting renewingyourmind.org. We're called to have childlike faith, not childish faith. Next week we'll consider what it means to come to Jesus like a child. So join us Sunday here on Renewing Your Mind.