For one thing, it depends on how you define these terms. In
a just-published study entitled Are
Christians More Like Jesus or More Like the Pharisees, Barna.org
investigated this very question. However, their measures of what it means to be
“like Jesus” and what it means to be “like the Pharisees” are somewhat
questionable. Here are some of their statements that are intended to equate
with “Actions like Jesus”:
- I listen to others to learn their story before telling them about my faith.
- I regularly choose to have meals with people with very different faith or morals from me.
- I am personally spending time with non-believers to help them follow Jesus.
According to the first statement, it would be un-Christ-like
to do street preaching or to hand out Christian tracts without first listening.
Therefore, we are no better than self-righteous hypocrites when we do these
things and claim to be following Jesus! Consequently, I fail to see how these statements
touch upon the question of pharisaism or even of being Christ-like.
Perhaps I’m just overreacting to the barrage of criticism
systematically aimed at the church and Christians. We are routinely accused of
being “Pharisees” because we make assessments about others’ behavior –
especially in regards to sexual sins. Meanwhile, the “Progressive” church
claims that they are more Christ-like, because they accept everyone, just as
Jesus did. (Needless to observe, they are not very accepting of Evangelicals!)
Although
Jesus did accept everyone, it was always with the proviso that they repent of
their sins – the very thing that the Progressives refuse to require. In fact,
Jesus insisted that we all had to
repent:
·
But unless you repent, you too will all perish.
Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them--do you think
they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you
repent, you too will all perish." (Luke
13:3-5)
While the Progressives accuse us of
“pharisaism” because we judge, Jesus did as much judging as anyone in the
Bible. Here’s just a small sample of His denunciations:
·
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You
yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” (Matthew 23:13)
·
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but
inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” (Matthew 23:25)
·
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful
on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything
unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but
on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27-28)
In
light of this, it is surprising that Barna would list the following statements
as reflective of Jesus’ attitudes:
·
I see God working in people’s lives, even when
they are not following him.
·
It is more important to help people know God is
for them than to make sure they know they are sinners.
Rather than reflecting the Jesus of
Scripture, these statements are more reflective of popular, unbiblical notions
about a soft, mellow, and user-friendly Jesus. Instead, the Jesus of Scripture
talked more about sin, condemnation and hell than anyone else in the Bible.
However, today a holy and righteous Jesus offends modern sensibilities. He
explained: “The world…hates me because I testify that what it does is
evil” (John 7:7). Should it be any
surprise that the world also hates us
terrible “fundamentalist Christians” who also talk about sin (John 15:18-20)?
According to Barna’s understanding of Jesus,
we are not very Christ-like. We judge and we make offensive distinctions
between the saved and the unsaved, righteousness and unrighteousness. However,
these are the very distinctions that Jesus made!
I’m not saying that we Christians should be
immune from criticism. I criticize myself and also the church. We both deserve
it and need it. Besides, it’s healthy to confess our sins. Humility and
transparency are to be esteemed.
However, I do object to the one-sided disparagement of the church.
It has descended from constructive criticism into destructive condemnation and
has become a source of widespread contempt towards the church and has
tragically caused many of our youth to turn against the church.
Well
then, what does it mean to be self-righteous and pharisaic? Here are the statements
that Barna associates with “self-righteousness”:
- I find it hard to be friends with people who seem to constantly do the wrong things.
- It’s not my responsibility to help people who won’t help themselves.
- I feel grateful to be a Christian when I see other people’s failures and flaws.
- I believe we should stand against those who are opposed to Christian values.
- People who follow God’s rules are better than those who do not.
However, these statements have little to do with
self-righteousness or pharisaism. What then is it? Jesus told many parables to
expose the sin of pharisaism – a trust in one’s righteousness and merit before
God. In the parable of the Prodigal Son,
he exposed the self-righteousness of the prodigal’s older brother who rejected
him, because he regarded himself as more
worthy than the prodigal (Luke 15:11-31). He was convinced that he was the
deserving son, but the prodigal was being hosted to a celebration by simply returning and confessing his sin
to his father. Convinced that he deserved better, it was the self-righteous
brother who willingly excluded himself from the blessings.
Jesus
told a parable about two people entering the Temple to pray. One was a rank sinner who
understood his desperate condition before God, and the other was a
self-righteous Pharisee who didn’t. Jesus introduced the parable this way:
·
To some who were confident of their own
righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you
that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this
tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'” (Luke 18:9-12)
The Pharisee merely congratulated himself. He lacked any
consciousness of his own sin and need for forgiveness. He was in denial. His
problem wasn’t that he had strong convictions. Instead, it was that he had
erroneous convictions about himself –
that he was righteous, deserving, and better than others. His problem wasn’t
that he followed God’s rules and regarded them as more important than any other
rules – the very thing that Barna suggests – but that the Pharisee was
convinced that his adherence to the law made him a superior and deserving
person.
Meanwhile, we are maligned as Pharisees because we follow
the teachings of the Bible and regard them as the ultimate revelation of truth.
However, Jesus never taught against these beliefs. Instead, He reaffirmed them!
Also, Barna indirectly maligns Christians because they might
feel grateful for the freedom they have in Christ (John 8:31-32), when they see
the moral confusion of non-Christians. Such gratefulness for the blessings we
have in Christ has nothing to do with self-righteousness or pharisaism but
everything to do with the goodness of Christ to His children.
Nor
is it pharisaic to observe that we are acting more morally than another. (We
all make such comparative assessments!) However, it is pharisaical to take
credit for it.
Jesus
did a lot of judging. Contrary to Barna, He stood “against those who are
opposed to Christian [Biblical] values.” Arguably, everything He said was in
judgment of a distortion of Biblical truth. And we are supposed to think and
act like Jesus (1 Peter 1:15). Therefore, it is inconceivable that by merely
making moral judgments or by insisting on repentance, we are un-Christ-like, as
the world would tell us!
Barna
wrongly equates self-righteousness with the statement, “It’s not my responsibility
to help people who won’t help themselves.” However, Jesus taught that there are
times that we have to shake the dust off our feet, as a sign of God’s
displeasure, and move on. He also warned against throwing our pearls of wisdom
before swine (Mat. 7:6). Therefore, it is sometimes Christ-like to not extend
ourselves to others. Sometimes, we even harmfully enable people by helping them.
You might think that I am making much out of nothing.
However, the secular world has no reservations about calling us “hypocrites,”
thereby encouraging acts of violence against the church. We are termed
“homophobic” and “Islamophobic,” essentially pasting a target on our backs.
Consequently, many are now seeing the target and have begun firing away. Here’s
one example:
·
The Southern Poverty Law Council's decision to
label ministries that oppose same-sex "marriage" as "hate
groups" led directly to the Family Research Council (FRC) shooting,
according to a chilling new video.
However, the mainstream media refuses to adequately report
the very violence they incur. This merely perpetuates the problem.
Some
Christians believe that when wrongly accused, we should merely rejoice. Yes, we should rejoice, but we should also denounce the injustice. When the
high priest unjustly ordered Paul to be struck, he protested:
·
"God will strike you, you whitewashed wall!
You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the
law by commanding that I be struck!" (Acts 23:3)
Was Paul’s response un-Christ-like? Certainly
not! Jesus responded similarly at His arrest and trial. May the Lord also give
us wisdom to respond in truth and grace when mistreated and maligned.
Returning to the question of
self-righteousness – It is we Christians who have been freed from this
life-consuming preoccupation of trying to prove ourselves and our worth. This abscess
has been absolutely filled by our Savior who has given us the gift of His
righteousness. Therefore, we no longer need to deny the ugly things we carry
within. Instead, we can be transparent and cry out, “Christ has set me free!
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