A DAMNING RIGHTEOUSNESS: Impressing Others Instead of God
Philippians 3:8b-9 … that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ–the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
Self-righteousness is damning. It won't bear the pressure of the final judgment. When we stand before the Lord and account for everything we've done (2 Cor 5:10), giving a self-imposed positive evaluation of our lives is diabolically opposite to what God is hoping to hear from us. He will look for something completely foreign to us, yet miraculously integrated into the deepest parts of our being. He will look for a form of righteousness that comes from Him.
Self-righteousness is something generated deep within our psyche and often invisible to us, but not so much to everyone else; they tend to see the signs: how rigid we are with truth, along with the compulsiveness of our zeal and devotion that constantly compels us to do things we don't want to do. They see our harshness with others who do not make the grade for which our code of ethics tests. They often observe the twinge of unhappiness in our self-sacrifice, along with the grit in our teeth when we perform our Christian duty. This is not to say that we should not hold rigidly to truth, lovingly speak hard truths that hurt on occasion, and press through the many protests of our flesh, all normal Christian living, but there is something kingdoms apart in what is behind a self-generated righteousness and that which comes from the Spirit of Christ. One is natural; the other supernatural.
The Apostle Paul wanted to be found in Christ, not having a righteousness of his own making; he wanted a supernatural righteousness with its roots in faith and based on Christ rather than natural righteousness with its roots in self and based on law. I don't think Paul was doubting what he had, but I do think the story of his life wasn't over, and he knew he could, like others, get off track (1 Tim 1:19-20). Before his conversion, Paul was steeped in self-righteousness. He says so. He had great confidence in his natural ability to follow God, faultless in his obedience to the law, and zealous in its application (Phil 3:4-6). The context of his statement immediately precedes our passage, where he basically says he doesn't want to return to that.
How do we know if we have the right kind of righteousness? Motive. The outward appearance of both forms of righteousness may be the same, exactly the same. Both may live sacrificially, and both may be extreme in devotion; they may pray and fast often, give generously, evangelize, go on mission, suffer, risk their lives, or consecrate themselves by giving up certain amenities, such as TV, social media, secular music, or even the pursuit of marriage. None of these are bad, nor are they necessarily good. It all depends on the root. Are we secretly trying to prove to others, and ultimately ourselves, that we're okay? Or is the motivation coming from a dynamic connecting with Divine presence? If we’re trying to prove something, we will be unhealthily concerned with what others see us doing and what they think about us. Being good is eclipsed by looking good. We're more horrified with getting caught doing something unholy than the fact that something unholy came from within us. An outward focus is probably the scope of most versions of self-righteousness because the inward becomes unattainable, leading us to virtue signaling by doing things to get the praise of men.
At the core of Christian doctrine, I am righteous because I have trusted in Christ and received His righteousness. Any right thing I do should come out of that place, evoking praise and thanksgiving, recognizing as the Apostle Paul recognized that nothing good resides in me apart from Christ (Rom 7:18). When we get a clear understanding of this, true righteousness resets, and every nasty contaminant of self-righteousness recedes. And, for the record, self-righteousness is not limited to religious folks. This past century has witnessed some of the ugliest and merciless forms of non-religious self-righteousness in secular humanism and its Communist political counterpart. That's a discussion for another day, but make no mistake, its roots are the same. In self-righteousness, we play the role of God. We follow, or make, the laws we think are best, and harshly judge others based on those laws, all while giving ourselves glowing reviews. This kind of righteousness is damning.
