A Lesson About Justification

Read Luke 18:9-14

Pray

Who are the key players in this parable

A Pharisee and a Tax Collector

What do you notice about the Pharisee?

How is the Pharisee in this weeks Parable similar to the Lawyer in last weeks?

In both of these parables Jesus preached the law instead of grace to them. Why do you think that is?

Because the law is what they needed to hear. Neither man had ever truly felt the weight of the law. They did not believe themselves to be lost. In Mark 2:17 Jesus said “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.”

The gospel truly has nothing to say to anyone who is satisfied with their own righteousness. There is no truly good news for someone in that state of mind.

Why dies God require absolute moral perfection from human beings? Why doesn’t he grade on a curve? (James 2:10)

Both last weeks parable and this weeks parable do give the true gospel answer, albeit in veiled story form, to the question of how sinners can be made right with God. So what is the answer? How can sinners be made right with God?

Grace. Look at Romans 4:5-6

English Standard Version Chapter 4

5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, 6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

God here “justifies the ungodly” (5) and counts or imputes “righteousness apart from works” (6)

What does imputed mean? What dos it mean to have righteousness imputed to you?

What does atonement mean?

Why was the tax collectors misery a good thing?

How does the Pharisee exalt himself?

How does the tax collector humble himself?

How does this passage teach the doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from works?

What is it about pride that makes it such a deadly, damnable sin?