Food For Your Soul
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Virtuous, but Lost – (Luke 18: 9-14)
Can a good man, a virtuous man, be lost? This is a question many hesitate to give a clear and definite answer to. We live in a time when the fundamental truths of Scripture, relative to the salvation of sinners, are either overlooked or downplayed.
The Evangelical doctrine has always taught that salvation is not obtained through works, but through God’s grace that He grants to those who put their trust solely in what Jesus Christ has done on the cross. But today, it would appear that God changed His mind; that He will grant access to heaven to men and women who have worked very hard to earn their salvation.
God would simply be unjust, many of us think, if He refused to let someone who has lived his whole life as a devout, respectable, and charitable man in His heaven; someone who has faithfully fulfilled his religious duties—being baptized, having made his First Communion, having been confirmed, always attending church, reading his Bible, and always having God’s name on his lips. God can’t help but receive in His heaven such a commendable person. Hell is for the criminals, the assassins, the drug-addicts, the prostitutes, the thieves… But what can happen to a good man, except to go to heaven?
My friend, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican takes issue against those who think that their good works can earn them a ticket to heaven. In this parable, the Lord describes two men who went up to the Temple to pray: one a Pharisee—the best of men, the other one a tax collector—the worse of men in the society of Jesus’ time. But their prayers had quite a surprising result: the tax collector went down to his house justified, whereas the Pharisee was condemned. The Pharisee, with all his array of good works, went down to his home as separated from the holy God as an unforgiven sinner can be.
Let’s try to understand why a virtuous man like the Pharisee can miss heaven and not enter it.
- HE IS RIGHTEOUS IN HIS OWN EYES. He is what is called a “self-righteous” man. There’s a bunch of them in the world. These people compare themselves with others, and not with God: “God, I thank You that I am not like other men… or even as this tax collector,” he said in his prideful prayer (Luke 18:11). As long as we compare ourselves with fellow human beings, we might feel morally superior to some of them. But it’s when we place ourselves in the light of God’s perfect righteous that we come to the realization of our total depravation, as Isaiah 64:5 puts it: “We are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.”
- HE IS NOT REPENTANT. The Pharisee thinks he was blameless. He is like this baseball player who admitted that the only sin he can remember having committed was to strike, in a feat of anger, his baseball bat against a wall, and break it. Apart from that, he is a saint. Oh yeah…
Salvation is impossible without repentance, because salvation is granted only to the sinner who repents and believes. His repentance makes him realize his condition and need for forgiveness; his faith makes him accept God’s provision for his salvation: Christ nailed to the cross. - HE COUNTS ON HIS GOOD WORKS. To such a man, his good works will outweigh his bad ones in the scale of God’s justice. This is a pagan way of understanding salvation. It betrays a triple ignorance: ignorance of the degree of our guilt before God, ignorance of God’s perfect holiness, and ignorance of God’s demand to enter heaven.
Not many people realize that one must be perfect to enter heaven. And since this is the case, there are only two possibilities: either you are perfect in and of yourself —but such people do not exist, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23); or you receive by faith Christ’s perfect righteousness. Christ covers you with his robe of righteousness. He credits, as it were, to your “moral account” His infinite riches of righteousness and holiness. Thus, though morally poor before God, you become rich, thanks to this transfer of perfect virtue (righteousness) from Christ’s account to yours.
One is saved by grace and not by works (Ephesians 2:8). And God will make no exception, not even for Mother Teresa!
The central teaching of the parable is that salvation is not a trade. In a trade, you give your money, and they give you your goods. It’s give and take. In salvation the goods are free: “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost” (Isaiah 55:1). Salvation is free. But it’s only for you and me, not for the one at the expense of which it was acquired at the cross. We have nothing to pay, because He has already paid the price.
So, God doesn’t care how bad you are; He will save you if you are willing to receive Jesus Christ as your personal Savior. On the other hand, God doesn’t care how good you are. You will go to hell if you don’t come to the cross in repentance and faith.
God has decided to grant salvation to those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; those who put their trust in His merits only for their eternal salvation. But those who don’t believe in Him, that is, who rely on their good works to enter heaven, will be lost for eternity. I plead with you: accept the grace God is offering you today, through which alone you can be saved.
Hubermann Larose
Associate Pastor
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