\u2018Holier than thou\u2019 or \u2018Chief of sinners\u2019?<\/p>\n
The Lord judges the self-righteousness in Is. 65 for believing themselves to be \u201cHolier than thou\u201d. In contrast, the Apostle Paul confesses himself to be the \u201cchief of sinners\u201d. The truth is that all men believe themselves to be one or the other. Which one we believe ourselves to be\u2026 depends on the standard by which we judge.<\/p>\n
Those who compare themselves to other men can always find someone they are \u2018holier\u2019 than. Those, who by God\u2019s grace have seen Christ, are brought to cry, \u201cwoe is me\u201d. The Pharisee in Luke 18 was proud of how he measured up to \u2018other men\u2019. The Publican could only cry, \u2018be merciful to me the sinner\u2019! The Lord was very clear on which one went down to his house justified.<\/p>\n
Now, here is the hope of this truth. How God sees men is just the opposite of how they see themselves. God says to the \u2018holier than thou\u2019 group: \u2018you are a smoke in my nose\u2019. And to sinners He says: \u201cwhosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.\u201d I Jn. 3:9 All the righteous believe themselves to be unrighteous, and all the unrighteous believe themselves to be righteous. -Greg Elmquist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2018Holier than thou\u2019 or \u2018Chief of sinners\u2019? The Lord judges the self-righteousness in Is. 65 for believing themselves to be \u201cHolier than thou\u201d. In contrast, the Apostle Paul confesses himself to be the \u201cchief of sinners\u201d. The truth is that all men believe themselves to be one or the other. Which one we believe ourselves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119,15,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-greg-elmquist","category-total-depravity","category-righteousness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4639,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638\/revisions\/4639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}