PTM WEEKLY UPDATE -- MARCH 17, 2008
Will our own compassion get us saved?
Q. In the March/April 2008 Plain Truth magazine, Steve Brown quotes Jesus as saying, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Steve point out that the Pharisees were very righteous. How then can we outdo them? He concludes that only through the righteousness imputed by Jesus can we be more righteous. While there is some truth in that, I'm not sure that was what Jesus meant. It seems to me that as Jesus understood righteousness the Pharisees weren't very righteous at all. They were only religious. They were all about keeping the Sabbath laws, purity laws, and all kinds of other ritual observances. Jesus, on the other hand was moved by compassion and love for the broken people around him. And that was how he defined true righteousness.
Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees made long, pious prayers and then went out and foreclosed on widows' houses. They were religious, but they had no compassion. He said they tithed meticulously, but failed to take care of their own parents. They obeyed the law and forgot the more important issues of true righteousness -- mercy, justice and compassion. The Pharisees passion wasn't about showing great mercy, compassion and forgiveness. In the eyes of Jesus that would have been true righteousness. If we miss this point, we can go right on living without true compassion, counting on Jesus' righteousness to save us, and still have a righteousness no better than the Pharisees.
A. Thanks, but we respectfully suggest that you may be missing the point. You seem to be saying that, while God will not accept mere obedience to the letter of the law, he will accept compassion, mercy and forgiveness, because those behaviors and attitudes are truly righteous. The problem with this construct is that doing something very good (such as showing compassion and mercy) cannot undo the bad that all of us have done. James says if we offend in one point we are guilty of all (James 2:10). No amount of good behavior, compassion or love on our part could make up for the ways in which each one of us has fallen short of God's perfect righteousness.
Even if we were to live sinlessly for the next million years, performing daily acts of genuine compassion and mercy, we would still stand condemned for our sin. Our only hope is to accept Jesus' sacrifice -- and when we do so, a couple of things happen 1) God applies the righteousness of Jesus to us and grants us the gift of eternal life. 2) Jesus comes to live in us -- and it is his righteousness in us that produces the fruit of our righteous behavior and attitudes (mercy, compassion and love). In fact, while all human beings may have an innate awareness that mercy and compassion are good things, the purity of those divinely given gifts are unattainable for a human being apart from God. Humans are not capable of genuine, pure mercy, compassion and love -- those qualities can come only from God living in us -- the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This is what Steve is teaching -- and what Plain Truth Ministries teaches. Accordingly -- while some teachers encourage people to try to behave more mercifully and compassionately (and most world religions teach this, in some form), we believe that the Christian approach (the gospel) is to bring people to Christ -- who will transform them internally -- and eternally. The gospel is not about behavior -- but about internal transformation by Jesus -- which will yield the fruit of righteous behavior.
Here, of course, is where you point out that even the "best" Christians do not always behave mercifully and compassionately -- and therefore they must be in need of constant encouragement to exercise mercy and compassion. It's true -- every Christian is not always surrendering himself or herself to Jesus, and so God's grace sometimes doesn't flow out of us like it should. But the real solution to this problem does not come from preachers nagging their congregations to try harder and to behave better. That's just another external behavior -- and that's what the Pharisees were all about -- external behaviors. The real solution is for Christians to encourage each other to yield and surrender to Jesus. God does not accept us -- nor is he any happier with us -- because of anything we do, including compassion and mercy. He accepts us because we accept his Son.
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