Can Christians Really Be “Self-Righteous”?
There are many, many Protestant misnomers that are assumed to be truth. In the past I have written about so-called “legalism” and “church discipline.” Neither concepts are found anywhere in the Bible. In this short post, we will mention another one: “self-righteousness,” specifically, the idea that a Christian can be “self-righteous.” If you get my point here, you may reconsider your incredulity regarding the aforementioned misnomers.
Actually, there is a reason that we hear the constant literary and verbal drumbeat regarding the dangers of so-called Christian self-righteousness; the root cause is found in Martin Luther’s alien righteousness soteriology. Many have added the self-righteousness mantra to their vocabulary without thinking the idea through to its logical and historical conclusions.
First of all, the problem is presenting Christian self-righteousness as something to be avoided lest we shipwreck our faith. In other words, answering the biblical call to become who we are will supposedly shipwreck our faith. God made us righteous through the new birth; how would we then make ourselves “self-righteous”? If we have a proper understanding of salvation, why would we attempt to do something that we know is already completed? Because of weak understanding, believers have been led to believe that we are in danger of justifying ourselves. Obviously, this makes good works a spiritual minefield for the Christian. A cursory observation of the institutional church makes this point.
This was Paul’s exact point to the Galatians (3:1-3); why are you trying to complete a work that was finished when you received the Spirit? We are made righteous via the new birth, not the satisfaction of…”the righteous demands of the law.” Understand; when Paul speaks of righteousness by the law in Galatians, he is speaking of manmade traditions that fulfill the law for justification. In other words, the law is the standard for justification—not the receiving of the Spirit.
This is a HUGE problem because if the law is the standard for justification, the believer cannot be free to love, ie., the law cannot be the Christian standard for love AND the standard for justification at the same time. Using the law lawfully for love can show that we are justified/righteous, but the law cannot justify in any way, shape, or form.
Hypothetically, if the law could justify, we would have to keep it perfectly:
Galatians 5:2 – Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.
What’s going on here? The Galatians were buying into the most common false soteriology of the ages; the idea that the law is the standard for righteousness instead of the new birth. This does not set the Christian free to use the law lawfully, or in other words, as a standard for love:
Galatians 4:21 – Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 5:1 – For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 5:6 – For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. 7 You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?
So, for those who see the law as the standard for justification, and knowing that we cannot keep the law perfectly, some ritual or tradition is put into place, and if that is practiced, the law is fulfilled. For those falling into this error at Galatia, that meant the observance of days and circumcision. Paul, in essence was saying, “No, no, no—if you are going that route you cannot bypass a perfect keeping of the law; circumcision does NOT fulfill the law.”
No, LOVE is what fulfills the law.
The Galatian problem was a carryover from former error before Christ came to die on the cross to end the law, but later in history Christ was integrated in this way:
Christ fulfills the law for us.
If we do certain things, Christ fulfills the “righteous demands of the law” and a fulfillment of the law is imputed to us. But here is the huge problem with that: law is still the standard for justification, NOT faith working through love. Hence, love is circumvented resulting in dead orthodoxy at best and sinful calamity at worst.
This was the crux of Martin Luther’s alien righteousness. ALL righteousness is outside of the believer, and this is testified to by the fact that Christians cannot obey the law perfectly. If we play by the rules, Christ’s perfect law-keeping will be imputed to us and we can remain saved. Again, the problem is law as justification’s standard.
This keeps the “Christian” under law and COVERED by under grace. In this ancient construct, you have under law and under grace going on at the same time. The “Christian” remains under law, but is “covered” by the righteousness of Christ via under grace.
In contrast, the old us that was under law died with Christ, and we were resurrected with Christ and set free to love according to the law without any fear of condemnation via being under the law. Christ came to end the law of condemnation for those who love him. He loved us first by ending the law on the cross and thereby setting us free to love Him and others according to the law.
The law is NOT the standard for justification—the new birth is, and thus freeing us to love God and others without fear of condemnation.
BUT, this whole idea that Christians can be “self-righteous” confounds under law and under grace. Any righteousness that we have must be, supposedly, our own righteousness that didn’t come from the new birth. This is the true implication of the saying. ALL righteousness remains outside of the believer because he/she cannot keep the law perfectly.
Therefore, the “Christian” is not free to love without fear of condemnation. And again, the church looks like that is indeed the case.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Luther should have nailed himself to the castle’s door instead; the confused, foul-mouthed, Jew-hating, women-hating bigot that he was. This man of “god” who represents the imaginary “act of god” Reformation was deeply disturbed, and he and his fellow deceivers (including those still spreading this rubbish today) have brought only darkness. Not one inch of light.
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There are two kinds of righteousness: self-righteousness is being righteous in who you are, despite what you do: righteous-of-yourself and of your identity because of Christ imputed to your self and your identity, whether or not you do the right thing. When Christ is righteous in your self, you become righteous in of yourself
Works-righteousness is being righteous in what you do, despite who you are: it is doing the right thing, whether pleased or displeased to do so.
Christianity says that ‘by their fruits ye know nothing’ and ‘little children, let no one devceive you: he who claims Christ’s righteousness is righteous.’ Paul even says that sin cancels righteousness, since ‘all have sinned’ means ‘none are righteous’. Since sin is more powerful, the one who does righteousness is not righteous.
Christ’s righteousness is his own. It can be a part of yourself giving you self-righteousness through faith, or you can try works-righteousness through faithfulness.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to believe and get saved?” Micah 6:8
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Huh? Here, let me make this simple. Before one is born again, they are under the condemnation of the law. Their degree of condemnation depends on degree of lawbreaking. After one is born again, they are a new creation. The new birth makes them righteous because they are born of God. Any failure to love according to the law is now a family matter, and not under the condemnation of the law. The born again have no motive to gain righteousness, they are righteous. The goal is to aggressively love God and others without fear of condemnation. We will fail to love because our treasure is in earthen vessels and we are weak, but not enslaved to sin as we were before the new birth.
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“The born again have no motive to gain righteousness, they are righteous.” Yeah, that’s self-righteousness, deciding that it is your born-again self is now righteous in spite of what you do to other people. This involves declaring that all righteous deeds are worthless.
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You are the one’s that declare all righteous deeds are worthless. In fact, Tullian Tchividjian stated that he knows he is going to heaven because he has never done one righteous deed, which would echo Luther and Calvin. Basically, this is all Gnosticism; the denial that mortality and righteousness can be one. I am not unrighteous because I am unable to keep the law perfectly; I fail to love perfectly because of weakness, but weakness in and of itself is not sin. Biblically, a righteous person is defined as one who is no longer enslaved to sin, but is actually enslaved to righteousness. If I am enslaved to righteousness (that’s what the Bible states, not me), I am righteous. So, before we were saved, and enslaved to sin, EVERYTHING we did was sinful? Well, according to Calvin and Luther, YES. And, if you believe that, you are silly. If you believe that, stop telling people that you love them because you can’t dichotomize love and good works or love and the law. Oh, I know, your response is, “I can tell people that because it is Jesus’ love and not mine.” This is where projection comes in regarding the accusation that new birthers can claim righteousness and live any way they want to. Church gets a pass for everything because they are “sinners saved by grace.” Viz, “You may not like us because we are sinners, but it’s the only place you can get salvation.”
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God demands absolute sinless perfection under the threat of eternal damnation. This sinless perfection is limited to those who accept certain doctrines and pray a certain prayer. Virtuous actions have no impact on those who do not have that perfection, meaning that compared to sin, virtue in mortals is effectively nonexistent.
This, being the central pillar of the faith, defines everything else.
Righteousness is the absence of evil, not a substance in itself. That is why righteous deeds can’t redeem you from sin but only an imputed sinlessness you conjure from the cross can. If righteous acts were considered actually righteous, they would be equal and opposite to sin instead of filthy rags ruined by sin because of this lack of imputed sinlessness (or imputed freedom from sin you declare yourselves to have despite the fact it makes no actual difference from the lack thereof beyond ideological motivation).
If you sin in weakness, you are a slave to sin. If you weren’t a slave to sin, you would never sin again, being dead to sin. If you sinned again, you become a slave to sin again.
“you can’t dichotomize love and good works or love and the law” No, but you can dichotomize it from faith, which is greater than love, which cannot save you from hell.
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You are saying that perfection is imputed through church ritual. You are also defining perfection as perfect law-keeping. According to Paul’s letter to the Galatians, this is salvation by law and not The Promise. Bottom line per 1John 3; I have God’s seed in me and that makes me perfect, not the law. Because God’s seed is in me, “I cannot sin.” The law is not the seed and cannot give life (Galatians). Where there is no law, there is no sin (Romans).
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“Before one is born again, they are under the condemnation of the law. Their degree of condemnation depends on degree of lawbreaking. After one is born again, they are a new creation. The new birth makes them righteous because they are born of God. Any failure to love according to the law is now a family matter, and not under the condemnation of the law.”
Yes, they are unrighteous.
“The born again have no motive to gain righteousness, they are righteous.”
Yes. You are self-righteous.
“We will fail to love because our treasure is in earthen vessels and we are weak”
Yes, you are not works-righteous.
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A person is either under law or under grace. It’s one or the other. Grace is not a covering for remaining under law. Obviously, you are still under law; good luck with that.
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Yes. A person is works-righteous or self-righteous. It’s one or the other. Your identity is not a replacement for your actions. Obviously, you are vicariously good instead of in deed; good luck with that.
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You are biblically illiterate. One is either under law or under grace; you are under law because you need Luther’s double imputation. You are the one that needs some good luck, I have all that I need.
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“You are biblically illiterate. One is either under law or under grace; you are under law because you need Luther’s double imputation.”
Why are you saying I’m biblically illiterate when you are agreeing with me? You’re saying exactly what I am. Under law is works righteous, (by one’s fruits) which does not save people from God according to Paul, under grace is self-righteous (by one’s identity), which does. You are one or the other.
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The question is HOW you become righteous. If you are not righteous as a state of being, you are not saved. Only the righteous will dwell with God. A mere declaration of righteousness or a substitutional righteousness does not save. If you are saved, righteousness was not merely imputed to your “account,” it was imputed to your soul and transformed you into a new being.
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A person does righteous things before converting and then continues to do the same righteous things after converting.
A man does evil things before converting, and then continued to do the same evil things after converting.
A man does evil things before converting, then does righteous things after converting.
How has he changed except in account status?
The truth is that the transformation you claim to be given upon conversion isn’t real, no more than any other life-changing ideological decision. There is no measurable difference that makes your righteousness real except in double standards. You can’t shove a sheet of numerical figures in my face prepared for you by apologists because the numbers don’t show it. Conversion doesn’t change people more than any other conversion. Scientologists and Mormons feel the same thing.
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Again, the thing that many miss is the new birth and how it changes our relationship to the law. And no, evil nor good is the same pre-birth and post-birth. One is slavery to righteousness, while the other is slavery to unrighteousness. Though the saved are enslaved to righteousness, weakness of mortality prevents perfect righteousness because the body is not yet redeemed.
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That so-called slavery to righteousness or unrighteousness is a legal fiction that produces no demonstrable results beyond ideology. The only difference is that the same righteous actions are imputed from disobedience of unrighteousness into obedience of righteousness. It’s a distinction without a difference. Just because you are imputing people as righteous by imputing their actions as righteous does not mean that the righteousness is anything but imputed.
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Well, yes, that is the Protestant philosophical definition of imputed righteousness via realm manifestation. Sanctification is “done to you, not by you,” or “objective justification experienced subjectively,” which is Martin Luther’s Theology of the Cross doctrine. In other words, NO righteous act is performed by the believer. In every place in the Bible where the grammar states the action being performed by the person, we are to assume that God really meant that the action was only experienced by the subject but performed by God. Silly much?
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If no righteous act can be performed by the unbeliever, then when the believer performs them, then they are not righteous acts either in of themselves, because they are the same act.
There is no difference between selfless acts performed by Christians and non-Christians. None. Any difference is by imputation. You are agreeing with Luther and are in denial.
And if the act itself is not righteous, then it can only be the self who acts, therefore the so-called new birth is nothing but self-righteousness, because it is not works-righteousness, which is its only opposite.
Righteousness through identity is the opposite of righteousness through action.
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I went ahead and posted your last comment, and you can come back and post more comments, but they won’t be posted. You are a brainwashed new-birth-denying bonehead and and a waste of my time.
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