Two Men Went Up to Pray and Only One Went Home Right

If somebody stopped a young man from this community outside the building and asked him what he believes, there is a good chance the longest part of his answer would be a list of things he does not do.

He would not intend that. He would start with something about Jesus. But within about forty seconds he would be describing a boundary, and then another one, and the boundaries are where the detail is, because the boundaries are what he has actually thought about.

That is not hypocrisy. He genuinely does not do those things. Every item on the list is true and most of the items cost him something real.

And Jesus told a story about a man in exactly that position, and the man's list was completely accurate, and Jesus is not gentle about where he ended up.

I want to handle this one carefully, because it is the parable most often used to make careful people feel like frauds, and that is not what it is doing and it is not what I am doing with it.

The first man's list is entirely true

Here is his prayer, and the first thing to establish is that he is not lying.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. (Luke 18:11-12, King James Version)

He does fast twice a week. He does give a tenth of everything. He is not an extortioner and not unjust and not an adulterer. Every clause is factually accurate.

And he thanks God for it, which is more than most people in his position would bother to do. He is not claiming to have produced it himself. He gives God the credit for the list out loud.

So whatever has gone wrong here is not dishonesty and it is not even ingratitude, and if you were looking for the fault by inspecting his behavior you would never find it.

You are not caught out by this parable for having a true list. Luke 18:12 records his practices as facts and the story never disputes one of them, and it is the Spirit who searches all things, 1 Corinthians 2:10, including the part of a man that no inspection of his behavior would reach.

Two words tell you what went wrong

The fault is in two small phrases, and Luke drops them without comment.

Stood and prayed thus with himself. The prayer is addressed to God and it is happening, functionally, inside his own head, in a conversation where he is both the speaker and the audience.

And even as this publican. He has looked across the room. The list has a comparison built into it, and a comparison requires somebody else to be lower, and the moment a man's standing is measured against another man's it stops being about God at all.

That is the mechanism, and it is worth naming because it operates in people who never say any of it out loud. A list of things not done is almost impossible to hold without a second person in the frame, because the list has no meaning by itself. Not doing something is only a position relative to somebody who does.

You are able to have a standing that does not require anybody else to be lower. Luke 18:11 has the comparison sitting inside the prayer, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:16, that the witness of belonging is borne about a person rather than measured against a room.

The second man asks for one thing

The other man's prayer is seven words in English and it contains no list at all.

And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. (Luke 18:13)

Be merciful. The word behind it in the original is not the general word for pity. It carries the sense of an atonement being made, of a covering. He is not asking to be let off. He is asking for the thing the temple existed to provide.

Which is to say he is asking for something to be done for him, rather than reporting something he has done.

And that is the difference between the two prayers. Not sincerity. Not morality. Direction. One man reports and the other requests, and one of those is a prayer and the other is a summary.

You are able to ask rather than report, and asking is what the temple was there for. Luke 18:13 has him asking for a covering rather than presenting anything, and it is the Spirit, Romans 8:26, who helps in the praying when a person has nothing to bring into it.

The verdict is stated and it is not hedged

Jesus does not leave the ending open.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. (Luke 18:14)

Went down to his house justified. Not: felt better. Not: was on the right track. Justified, which is a legal word about standing, and he has it on the way home, that afternoon, before he has changed anything about his life.

I want to be careful with the last clause, because he that humbleth himself shall be exalted can be read as a new technique: perform humility and receive the standing. That is the same disease with different symptoms, and anybody who has tried it knows it does not work, because a humility undertaken to obtain something is a strategy.

What the tax collector does is not a technique. He has nothing to bring and he says so. The humility is a description of his actual situation rather than a posture he adopted for the occasion.

You are justified by a request and not by a technique. Luke 18:14 puts the justification on the man who brought nothing, and it is the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 6:11, named as the one by whom a person is washed and justified rather than by a posture they arranged.

Paul had the longest list of anybody and describes what he did with it

If anybody could have prayed the first prayer with authority it was Paul, and he lays out his own list in Philippians 3 in detail before doing something with it.

But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ... And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. (Philippians 3:7,9)

Not having mine own righteousness. He does not say his list was false. He says he stopped standing on it.

And notice what replaced it: the righteousness which is of God. Not a smaller righteousness. Not a humbler version of his own. A different one, belonging to somebody else, received.

That is the whole trade, and the reason it is good news for a man with a long list is that he does not have to demolish the list. He has to stop standing on it, which is a different and much smaller motion, and the list can go on being true afterward.

You are able to stop standing on it without having to tear it down. Philippians 3:9 replaces one righteousness with another rather than removing anything, and it is by the Spirit, Romans 8:4, that the righteousness of the law is described as fulfilled in those who walk after Him.