Where, then, is Boasting?

How can the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector help us correctly understand Romans?

Let me back up a little. I've had some conversations, over the last few months, discussing the moral condition of man.

What I see in God's word is that man is corrupt and wicked. We are (morally) dead men needing God to breathe life into us, rather than way-ward men needing to be guided into the correct path.

The opposite position -- in those discussions -- is that man is capable of genuine moral good, and just needs some help in following through. Things cited for support included some of the references to the righteous man in Proverbs, and the claim that the binary expression of people as Good/Evil is alien to the way people in New Testament times would have expressed themselves.

Perhaps I will be able to address the distinctions in detail in the future, but these opposite views can be reflected in the verses that follow.

To sum up: the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14) contrasts two men. One trusted in his own righteousness and treated others with contempt, the other saw himself in need of God's forgiveness and grace.

The obvious, and main, application is the person who relies on his works for salvation being contrasted against the one who trusts completely to grace.

But I suggest that the "treated others with contempt" may be echoed in Romans, and help us take a different lesson from this as well.

We see in Romans, Chapter 4, that Paul is explaining the implication of being justified apart from works. Part of his argument (verse 2) was that if Abraham's works were responsible for his justification, he could not -- obviously -- boast before God, but he (notice this) would have legitimate cause for boasting before man.

What does this mean? In simple terms, he would still stand before God as a creature ought to before his creator. (e.g. the response you'd find in Luke 17:10)

But, if the critical element that landed him Heaven rather than Hell was his effort, then he would be morally CORRECT (suggests Paul) to be contemptuous of those who had not made that same effort, to be Justified.

The end of the parable, however centers on humility. We are without boasting, both before God (every knee shall bow), but also before each other. You or I cannot stand before another believer and say "good job!" and be referring to Salvation. We can only say: Glory to God, who is rich in Mercy.

Now, how does the debate I mentioned before tie into this equation?

Simple: how far are we willing to take the question of works? My counterpart would say that we were presented the "OPTION" of believing the Gospel, and so took it. Implied in this statement is "had the good sense to make the right choice." If that is so, then every believer is on solid ground if they criticize someone who has been presented with the Gospel and has rejected it. But that -- once again -- is boasting, which Paul said is "excluded"(Rom 3:27).

Alternatively, if God sovereignly determines that we are His Elect, and sets about to Ransom us from our sin, knowing what will (and will not) be effective in convincing us of the Gospel, and using those means, adds us to His Kingdom, we can't say that we were somehow "deserving" -- we're not. Neither can we say that the unbeliever has a deficient intellect (relative to the believer's) or is more wicked.

We can only say, with Jesus, "blessed are you [Simon -- or someone else] flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in Heaven (Matt 16:17).

Knowing this, we should be all the more:
1) humble. (Romans 11:20 -- They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear.) Rather than see sinners as "those" people, realize that they are just like me, except without either God or hope in this world.

2) diligent. There are others to be added to the kingdom. We don't know which ones. We're not responsible for the reaction of the hearer, but we are responsible for the delivery of the message. [This should be comforting to the believer, in that we can boldly declare His truth, rather than feel obligated to "sell" it to someone, to make it 'less offensive' somehow, or to measure our success or failure in the reaction of those we reach out to.]

3) confident! God WILL save souls. He's not just hoping (yikes!) to "close the deal", but there are , even now, people ordained by God to be "Elect". They don't yet realize that they are waiting to meet their Saviour. (Often they don't look very "elect", either.)

It is Revelation from God (Like Peter's) that transitions someone from unbelief to faith, not their personal intellect or piety. Therefore, the Gates of Hell truly cannot (!) prevail against the success of the Gospel. His word cannot come back void without accomplishing the Purpose HE set it to accomplish.