Friday
Friday
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
I tell you that this man [the tax collector], rather than the other [the Pharisee], went home justified before God.
Luke 18:14
Justification is a legal term, the opposite of condemnation. The Old Testament magistrates were instructed to justify the innocent and condemn the guilty. So we can imagine the indignation of the Pharisees when Jesus pronounced the sinful tax collector justified and the upright Pharisee condemned. Was Jesus daring to ascribe to God an action he had forbidden to human judges?
The two actors in the parable both went up to the temple to pray. But there the similarities end and the dissimilarities begin.
Firstly, they had an entirely different opinion of themselves. Five times the Pharisee used the personal pronoun I. But the tax collector used it only once and in the accusative, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (v. 13). This is the language of true penitence. Further, their different opinion of themselves was reflected in their posture. Both stood (in customary Jewish fashion). But the Pharisee stood erect, proud, and ostentatious, preoccupied with himself, whereas the tax collector “stood at a distance” (v. 13), eyes downcast and beating his breast.
Next, they had a different object of confidence for acceptance with God. The Pharisee trusted in himself that he was righteous, while the tax collector trusted in God’s mercy alone.
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in his 1552 Communion Service deliberately puts us where we belong, namely alongside the tax collector, “not weighing our merits but pardoning our offences through Jesus Christ,” and saying that we do not presume to come to the Lord’s table trusting in our own righteousness but in his “manifold and great mercies.” This so-called prayer of humble access remains forever the language of the true penitent.
For further reading: Luke 18:9–14