When Religion Isn’t Righteousness
“And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.” — Luke 18:9
There is a kind of religion that will damn you. Not because it’s pagan, but because it’s proud.
That’s the kind of religion Jesus exposes in Luke 18. He tells a story about two men who go to the temple to pray. One is part of the religious elite, a Pharisee, and the other is an outcast, a tax collector.
Both men are religious. Both go to pray. But only one goes home justified.
And it’s not the man we expect.
The Pharisee
Jesus paints the Pharisee with uncomfortable accuracy. He stands alone, not for humility, but superiority. His prayer is less a petition and more a performance:
“God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are…”
And then he lists them: extortioners, unjust, adulterers—even that tax collector nearby. He rehearses his spiritual résumé: fasting twice a week and meticulously tithing.
But listen closely—his prayer isn’t about God at all, nor is it really to God. It’s a monologue of self-congratulation. He uses the name of God, but the subject is himself. He doesn’t ask for mercy. He doesn’t acknowledge need. He simply thanks God that he’s not like “them.”
The irony? He’s really not like the tax collector, but not in the way he thinks.
The Tax Collector
Then there’s the other man. He won’t even lift his eyes to heaven. He beats his chest in brokenness. And he prays the most unpolished, unworthy, unforgettable prayer:
“God be merciful to me a sinner.”
That’s it.
No excuses. No negotiations. No comparisons. Just a cry for mercy.
And Jesus says, this man, not the one with the moral record, but the one with the humbled heart, went home justified.
Why the Law-Gospel Distinction Matters Here
If we don’t have a law-gospel distinction in this passage, we’ll end up doing exactly what the Pharisee did, using the law as a ladder rather than a mirror.
The law was never meant to justify. It was meant to silence every mouth and hold the whole world accountable to God (Romans 3:19). The law exposes our need. The gospel meets that need in Christ.
The Pharisee saw the law and thought, “I’ve done it.” The tax collector saw the law and said, “I need mercy.”
Only one of them understood the truth. The gospel is not God helping good people become better. It’s God making dead sinners alive by grace.
At the heart of the Pharisee’s error is comparison. He feels righteous because others are worse. His confidence isn’t in God’s mercy but in his relative goodness.
We’ve all been there. Maybe not out loud—but internally, we pat ourselves on the back:
At least I’m not as messed up as they are.
I’ve been faithful. I’m not one of those hypocrites.
God must be pretty pleased with my progress.
That is not gospel. That’s just self-righteousness in religious language.
The moment you start justifying yourself by what you do—or what you don’t do—you’ve already missed the point.
Justification is God declaring sinners righteous, not because of their performance, but because of Christ’s. It’s not earned by the strong. It’s received by the weak. That’s the beauty of the gospel: your worst doesn’t disqualify you, and your best doesn’t earn it.
The tax collector had nothing to bring but sin. And that was enough, because mercy doesn’t require merit, only need.
This is the scandal of grace: the man who broke the law went home justified, and the man who kept the law (in his mind) did not.
The tax collector stands far off, unable to approach. But Jesus would soon walk right into the heart of the temple system and declare a better way.
He didn’t just tell stories of mercy—He became the mercy seat. He didn’t just pray prayers of humility—He bore our shame. On the cross, Jesus took the place of sinners like the tax collector, and yes, even self-righteous Pharisees like us.
He died not for the cleaned-up, but for the broken. Not for the spiritually elite, but for those who collapse on His mercy. And because of Him, the prayer of the desperate still reaches heaven: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”