Self-righteousness

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS

John 9:24-34

24 A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God," they said. "We know this man is a sinner." 25 He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!" 26 Then they asked him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?" 27 He answered, "I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?" 28 Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow's disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29 We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from." 30 The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. 32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." 34 To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out. 

NIV

How did they know God spoke to Moses? They have the scrolls, a written record which they have to accept on faith. None of them actually ever heard from God, they only believe God spoke to Moses, yet they cannot believe what is really right in front of them. We believe God spoke to Moses because we believe the word of God, the bible is accurate and inerrant. We have this written record, indicating God did speak to Moses, but also that Jesus is the Son of God, one of the persons of the triune God. We have to believe that on faith, for we have not seen Jesus as these Pharisees did. It is interesting how people will choose what they want to believe and what they do not want to believe. Although we have the complete bible, we have decided which portions to accept and act on while leaving other portions alone, not acting in accordance with them. It is easy for us to see how self-righteous the Pharisees were, but we miss our own prideful attitudes which a form of self-righteousness is. The Pharisees accused this man of being steeped in sin from birth, and that he had no right to lecture them, after all, they were without sin, they followed the law. Self-righteousness is sin, yet they could not see it, they were blind. This man knew Jesus was from God. It is simple logic, God does not listen to sinners, and he listens to godly men who do his will. In effect, he was letting the Pharisees know they did not listen to God and they are not doing God’s will, which would be accepting Jesus as the Messiah. We know we have done God’s will, we heard the voice of God, the conviction of the Spirit and accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior. The problem is some get a little off track by getting bogged down in the law. Many have developed so many do’s and don’ts they may have missed the larger picture. Some have developed all these big fancy words that have to be defined in order to understand them. The simple truth is Jesus. If we know is he from God, and we have heard his word in our heart, then we live by faith, believing he is the Christ and he has opened our eyes. We also know that we were steeped in sin from birth as all men are, but God has forgiven our sin, wiped the slate clean, and keeps it clean because our sin has been washed in the blood of the Lamb. Sure, we make every effort to live a holy life, but the one who can live a perfect sinless life is Jesus. We will see again in the next exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees that blind and seeing concept again. But in this conversation between the man and the Pharisees, it is all about self-righteousness. How foolish people can become looking at themselves, believing in their own righteousness.