The presumption of the self-righteous unbeliever who decides to build up a system of righteousness to reach God often compares himself to the immoral, heathenistic type—and says to himself, “I don’t do those things.” Because he doesn’t do those things, he rationalizes that he is righteous. He compares himself to the immoral person instead of to the perfect divine standard of God. Self-righteousness is blind for you cannot build your righteousness on someone else’s unrighteousness.

 

The self-righteous person who assumes in arrogance to have arrived at the point of unequalled human righteousness and so assumes that he has the right or prerogative to make pronouncements about others (criticises judges and maligns). Pride is the basic sin of the self-righteous person.

 

1. The self-righteous legalist whether it be a, Jew or Gentile is always judging those whose sins are more obvious.

 

2. However the moral or self-righteous type was born with the same imputation of Adam’s sin, and possesses the same old sin nature, therefore the same spiritual death.

 

3. The moral man is not the obvious sinner like his counterpart, the immoral man, because he hides his sins behind a façade of legalism and covers them with self-righteousness.

 

4. However, the moral self-righteous man is just as guilty before God as the immoral man.

 

5. But the self-righteous moral man has great arrogance, great pride of achievement, which expresses itself in judging, maligning, slandering, gossiping about others.

 

6. The self-righteous man finds his security in rationalizing away his sins which gives him a false sense of perfection. From this lofty status, he justifies his right to begin maligning and judging, and in this way he seems to build up a false sense of security with regard to his own life and, above all, his relationship to the Lord. Judging others is not only a sin, but it is a rationalization in which you build your righteousness on someone else’s unrighteousness.

 

7. The self-righteous man does not want to deal with the demand from God for perfect righteousness.  Rather, he makes favourable comparisons with the immoral man; he rationalises himself into a state of having security by thinking that he is better than immoral sinners.

 

8. From making the favourable comparisons of rationalization in his morality against someone else’s immorality he comes to the blasphemy of judgment.

 

In summary:

 

1. The self-righteous judge is as sinful as the object of his condemnation.

 

2. The moral man is just as sinful as the immoral man.

 

3. It becomes, then, a matter of category. One category of sins may be analogous to chicken droppings; another category may be analogous to cow pies, but dung is dung.

 

4. Only the integrity of God can correctly evaluate the life of any creature and so only God has the right to judge His creatures.

 

5. Jesus Christ is the supreme court judge in heaven. He is perfect; only a perfect judge can produce perfect judgment.

 

6. The self-righteous man assumes that he is perfect, but his judgment of others merely proves and demonstrates his imperfection, sinfulness, and hypocrisy.

 

Other important points:

 

1. The same concept is amplified in John 8:3-11 regarding the woman caught in adultery. It is interesting that self-righteous people often pick on helpless people.

 

2. The principle emerges: Imperfect people are not qualified to judge other imperfect people.

 

3. However, there are times when certain people have the right of judgment. In a church, when anyone intrudes into the privacy and the rights of other members of the congregation, the pastor-teacher certainly has the right of judgment. Parents have a right to judge their children. Senior officers have a right to judge those under their command. Officers in a company or business organization have the right to judge those who work for them. The judge on the bench has the right to function in the sphere of criminal law and justice.

 

4. Judging also reflects reversionism, especially self-righteous and legalistic type reversionism.

 

5.. Whether moral or immoral, believer or unbeliever, every member of the human race possesses and old sin nature.

 

6. The self-righteous person, not understanding the doctrine of sin thoroughly gives greater condemnation to some sins over others. All he knows is that there are certain temptations to which he would never acquiesce, and there are certain things where he fails, but he always compares in his rationalisation his strengths with someone else’s weaknesses. All personal sin originates from the same source, the old sin nature. However, environment and early influence develop a set of standards in the human conscience which are used to judge others who do not comply with those standards. 

 

A few other points:

 

1. The self-righteous type has the tendency to commend his own brand of sin while condemning the sins and weaknesses of others.

 

2. Self-righteousness and legalism rationalise sins by comparing hidden sins with the obvious gross sins of others.

 

3. While the self-righteous type sees himself favourably compared with others the justice of God condemns him with the entire human race.

 

4. At the expense of the immoral man especially the self-righteous type builds a system of human righteousness with which he seeks to gain the approbation of God.

 

5. God’s standard of Bible doctrine condemns the self-righteous types, along with the immoral type and all other sinners. Sin is sin, and God condemns sin.