“9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9-14)
At first, this seems like a very simple parable: A prideful Pharisee boasts to God about how good he is. A humble tax collector admits how bad he is. And Jesus says that the tax collector goes home justified. So, the point of the parable seems to be: “Be humble”.
But Jesus’ parables are never as simple as they seem. What the Pharisee prayers here is in fact very close to Psalm 26 and Deuteronomy 26:
“Vindicate me, Lord, for I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the Lord and have not faltered… I do not sit with the deceitful, nor do I associate with hypocrites. I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked” (Psalm 26:1, 4-5)
“Then say to the Lord your God: “I have removed from my house the sacred portion and have given it to the Levite, the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, according to all you commanded. I have not turned aside from your commands nor have I forgotten any of them.” (Deuteronomy 26:13)
The Pharisee is diligently keeping the commandments. The tax collector is not. The law says in Numbers 5:7 that the one who sins “… must confess the sin they have committed. They must make full restitution for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the person they have wronged.” The tax collector comes nowhere close to that in his “repentance”.
The Pharisee is not the bad guy in the parable. The tax collector is! The Pharisees were like the “Charlie Kirks” of Jesus’ day. They loved God. They loved their country. They were not afraid to stand up for their values. They were not cowards. They devoted their lives to teaching people to honor God so God would bless their nation and grant revival. They were very respected in Jesus’ time.
And the tax collector is the kind of guy everybody hates. He couldn’t care less about his nation. He’ll do whatever the Romans ask, as long as it benefits him personally. He doesn’t know the Bible. He only knows that he is a bad person by any standard. But apparently now his life is so messed up that he goes to God and begs for help. But it’s just a prayer of desperation, not spiritual conviction. Why would God justify that guy?
But in fact this parable is not a parable about humble behavior or about how humans deal with God. It is a parable about how God deals with humans. In this parable, Jesus reveals a massive shift in how God deals with human beings. What is the shift?
We have to go back to John the Baptist to find out.
John the Baptist is often wrongly thought to simply be the final prophet who was calling Israel to repentance. Until that point, God’s relationship with Israel had followed this pattern:
- God made a covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai
- Whenever they violated the covenant, the prophets called upon Israel to return to the covenant.
- Whenever they returned to the covenant, God restored them.
This is exactly what the Pharisees were teaching at the time of John the Baptist: “Return to the covenant and God will restore us.”
But John the Baptist was proclaiming something entirely different. John proclaimed that the judgment on the nation of Israel prophesied by the Old Testament prophets had finally come.
“John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”” (Luke 3:7-9)
The Pharisees were preaching repentance. And John was preaching repentance. But John’s repentance was not “repent and return to the covenant so God will have mercy on Israel”. John said that one greater than him would come to cast fire on the earth. The temple, the law, the priests, and the relationship to Abraham could not protect Israel from the wrath to come. This is why it was so symbolic that John the Baptist preached in the wilderness, around the Jordan River where Israel had first come into the land. It was a sign that salvation could not be found in Israel in the places and according to the means it had been found in the past.
This is why the religious leaders hated John. John said that the only thing that could save Israel from the fire was water: baptism for the forgiveness of their sins. John sent the baptized people back to their homes to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. It was like they were entering the promised land all over again. John said that those who received baptism would not burn when the fire came. Instead, they would receive the Holy Spirit.
This is why, when people asked John what they should do, John didn’t tell them to do things like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable did: fast more, tithe more, pray and offer more sacrifices at the temple. Instead, he told people to share their food and clothing, stop extorting others, and be content with their pay.
When Jesus—the One greater than John—came, he took up the message John had proclaimed, and he fulfilled it. Jesus said, “The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing their way into it” (Luke 16:16).
What does this mean?
Do you remember when God banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden? After God drove them out, he placed an angel with a flaming sword at the entrance to block their return. John the Baptist is like that angel. He blocks Israel’s return to the law and the prophets as a way of salvation. From John the Baptist onward, Israel can no longer appeal to God based on its identity (as Abraham’s descendants) or its actions (as according to the covenant). Beginning with John, the law and the prophets only had one role: Pointing forward, to the preaching of the kingdom of God.
And what is that preaching? It is God’s final offer of mercy through Jesus, in the last hour, before fire is cast on the whole earth.
This is totally different from the way God had previously dealt with Israel because God deals with them apart from the law.
“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23)
Israel had broken the covenant beyond repair, so God gave righteousness apart from the law. Israel had become, like all the nations, an object of God’s wrath. But, amazingly, this was all part of God’s plan. It was his way of offering mercy to all people through Christ.
“For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” (Romans 11:32)
Note that word: Mercy. It’s what brings us back to today’s parable.
The Pharisee appeals to God according to God’s covenant with Israel. But ever since the coming of John the Baptist, that way to God was closed, and there was no way back. The tax collector is justified because he appeals to God only on the basis of God’s mercy. Since the time of John the Baptist, that’s the only way for anyone to be justified by God.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law asked why Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners. Today’s parable is his reply: It is because the only way to eat with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of God is to accept God’s final offer of mercy through Jesus Christ. That offer of mercy is made apart from the law or any standard of behavior. It is not a call to repent and return to a covenant based on actions. It is a new and final offer, a new covenant for the new and final Kingdom.
Israel would die in the wilderness as John the Baptist had shown. But, in Christ, God would raise up Israel from the dead. The New Israel would be built entirely on the mercy of God.
That is why Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners and why the tax collector went home justified, but the Pharisee did not. Citizenship in the Kingdom of God is only available through faith in Jesus Christ.
Most of us know we are saved just like the tax collector was saved in Jesus’ parable: by the mercy of God alone. But once we are saved, we often shift to an Old Covenant mindset where we relate to God and to others the way the Pharisee does in the parable; namely, according to people’s identities, values, and actions.
And the worst part is: we think that’s what God does, too. We wrongly think that God deals with salvation as according to the New Testament but that God deals with day-to-day conduct of people and nations as according to the Old Testament.
Think about the language we use and the sermons we hear about our personal discipleship and about our nation. It’s not language of God’s mercy in Christ. It’s language about Christian identity, Christian values, Christian action. And that language and way of thinking comes from the Old Covenant. It’s the language of fighting battles. Blessings and curses. Falling away and repenting. Enemies attacking us. Every election these days is described as a spiritual battle. New Covenant salvation becomes for us a gateway to Old Covenant-style thinking about our relationships with others, our nation, and God.
We think of the kingdom of God as something Christ began but which he expects us to complete. We think of Christ as a kind of heavenly arms supplier sending us spiritual weapons from heaven when we pray. We think Christ is calling us to fight battles to gain ground for his kingdom, against the enemies of our soul and of our nation. We believe God is sending blessings and curses on nations and people based on their actions.
This kind of thinking makes us react differently according to identity and values and behaviors of people and nations. We treat some people and nations as allies and some as threats. We treat some as good and some as evil. We have great confidence in what values and behaviors and laws God wants. We show that confidence every time we go demonstrate at events and post on social media about so-called Christian values.
But that is what is referred to here in this parable as “confidence in our own righteousness.” And Jesus says it is a fatal behavior. It violates the Constitution of the new Israel which is built on God’s mercy in Christ’s blood alone. When we think like the Pharisee in the parable, we will be sent home unjustified like the Pharisee in the parable. We will be cut down at the root, just as John the Baptist prophesied.
God does not save us according to the New Testament and then send us and our nation back to the Old Testament for day-to-day living. He closed that way to Israel, and he certainly didn’t re-open it for Gentiles, who were given entrance to the kingdom solely based on mercy! John the Baptist still stands with his flaming sword at the border of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. He permits no one to return to the law and the prophets and the blessings and the curses and promises as a way of relating to God or to each other. And no one is permitted to lead their nation there either. From John on, the law and the prophets only point forward to Christ and his kingdom of mercy.
When we are saved into the kingdom of God, we are to live according to the law of the kingdom and the ways of the kingdom, without exception. The law of that kingdom is legislated from the cross. The ways of that kingdom—the values we stand up for and demonstrate for—are mercy, forgiving seven times a day, loving our enemies, blessing those who curse us, being the servant of all, looking to the interest of others, giving our possessions to the poor, receiving Christ’s family as our only family, and taking up our cross.
As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:16, “From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view”.
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