Today I want to look at a parable unique to Luke: the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. This parable is about how we can be right with God. How does God forgive us our sins and give us eternal life? This parable points the way. This parable features two prayers. But these two prayers reveal two very different hearts: a proud, self-righteous heart; and a broken and humble heart.
Both men go up to the temple, the place of prayer. But only one man goes down to his house justified—that is, right with God, God’s friend, and forgiven. Both men pray. But only one man asked, and therefore received.
Luke explains why Jesus told this parable. Jesus speaks this parable to 'some who were convinced of their own righteousness and had contempt for the rest'. Their hope for righteousness is literally based ‘upon themselves’. They are confident that they are good enough for God. And so the Pharisee in the parable stands for those who believe that God should accept them because of the good things that they have done.
Lots of people think they are good enough for good. I’ve not done anything too bad. God should except me because I am good.
And that’s the Pharisee, the religious leader and bible expert. He stands with himself, apart from the rest, because he is better than the rest. And he prays thanking God for the good person he is and the good things he has done. He says, ‘Thank you that I’m not like other men, robbers, evildoers, adulterers, or like that tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get’. The Pharisee tells God how good he is. There is no request, nothing asked, because he needs nothing. He is the complete man, in his own mind.
Jesus says that ‘no-one is good, only God’. There is no one righteous, not even one. I am not righteous, you are not righteous. Each one of us has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
The Pharisee thought he was a good man. But he was having himself on. The Pharisee is the tragic figure. He gets what he asked for. He didn’t ask for forgiveness, so he didn’t get it.
For he is not the one who goes home justified. It is the tax collector, the sinner, the one who has done many things wrong, the rat bag. The tax collector equivalent would be the dodgy used car salesman or the con-artist. He is the sort of person who ends up on A Current Affair or Sixty Minutes, involved in some sort of scandal where he is ripping people off. This man—this tax collector—is the one who goes home righteous before God. Let’s see how.
The tax collector is nothing like the Pharisee. The Pharisee is confident that he will be accepted by God because of his goodness. But the tax collector shows no such confidence. He stands far off, while the Pharisee stands self-confidently with himself. The tax collector does not want to lift his eyes to heaven, but the Pharisee has the confidence to look around and give thanks that he is not like the tax collector. The tax collector strikes his chest, a sign of self-loathing and regret. And he prays a very short prayer. “God, have mercy on me, a sinner’. Literally, ‘God, turn your anger away from me, the sinner’ The word used is stronger than mercy: 'God, turn aside your fierce anger from me. Do something about your anger against me. Take it away from me. Yes, I am the sinner. I am the one who deserves it. But turn aside your anger from me, the sinner.'
He asks for God to take away his anger because of his sins. And he gets what he asked for. For the tax collector goes home justified. That is, he goes home pardoned, forgiven, righteous in God’s sight, all of his sins washed away and covered, and never to be counted against him. The good man, the Pharisee, receives no justification, for he never asked for it. He didn’t think he needed it. The bad man, the tax collector, goes home justified, because he recognized himself a sinner, and asked God to turn his anger from him.
Friends, none of us are good enough for God. We have all sinned. We aren’t good. We aren’t righteous by God’s standards. We haven’t been good enough to be right with God by being good. Our own righteousnes will not justify us on the day we meet God face to face.
Friends we must have Jesus and his goodness to get to heaven. We need a righteousness which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith’ (Philippians 3:8-9).
So we should not think of ourselves as good enough for God. But God is good enough to send Jesus into our world for us sinners. And we should trust Jesus, who lived the perfect life, died for our sins, and rose again for us. And so, like the Tax Collector in the Parable, we can be justified before God, not through our good works. We are forgiven by God through the simple confession of our sins and the asking God to turn his anger away from us.
And friends, while this parable is a story, it speaks to us of real things. For Jesus told this parable on his way to Jerusalem to die. And his death is described as a sacrifice of atonement to take away our sins. Romans 3:25, ‘God presented him {Jesus Christ} as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed.' [BOOK ILLUSTRATION] Again, we read in 1 John 2:2, ‘He himself [Jesus Christ] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world. Or 1 John 4:10, ‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins’.
And it is through Jesus’ death taking away our sins that Jesus Christ offered that we can be justified. For God, by offering Christ as a sacrifice for our sins, is both justly punishing our sins, by laying them on the Christ, but also then can justify us who have faith in Jesus Christ.
So friends, let me urge you, how much more reason have we to pray the tax collectors prayer, 'God be merciful to me, a sinner'. For Jesus Christ is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of all the world.
Can I finish with the words of Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093:
And now, imagine God were to judge you. If he were to judge you, say to him: “God, I place the death of Jesus between me and your judgment; otherwise, I would not be able to stand before you.” And if God were to say to you, “You are a sinner”, say to him, “I place the death of our Lord Jesus between me and my sins”. And if he were to say to you, “You deserve to be sent to hell”, then say, “God, my maker and my judge, I put the death of Jesus my Lord between you and all my sins. I offer his obedience instead of my own, which I should have but do not.” And if God was to say to you, “I am angry with you”, Then say this: “Lord, I place the death of Jesus between me and your anger”.
Let’s pray.