Self-justification.
I. THE NEED TO BE JUSTIFIED. The burning necessity of justification lies at the root of Job's terrible agony. Yet even he does not feel it in its deep moral and spiritual significance, as it would have been felt by one who was conscious of sin rather than of undeserved suffering and unjust accusations. We cannot endure to be out of right relations with God. Though our lost state may not trouble us as yet, the time will come when we shall see its terrible and fatal character.
II. WE ARE TEMPTED TO JUSTIFY OURSELVES. The very need causes the temptation. Moreover, a self-flattering vanity urges us in the same direction. It is most painful and humiliating to have to own that we are sinners, deserving nothing but wrath and condemnation. When we feel ourself in danger, we are at once urged by very instinct to put ourselves in an attitude of self-defence.
III. WE MAY BE DELUDED INTO A MISTAKEN BELIEF THAT WE ARE JUSTIFIED. No delusions are so powerful as those which flatter us. It is so easy to put things in a favourable light to ourselves. While we are our own judges, every motive of self-esteem urges us to a favourable judgment. Then there comes in the terrible mistake of determining according to our feelings rather than according to objective reality, so that when we have argued or soothed ourselves into a comfortable assurance that all is well, that very assurance is regarded as a proof of the fact on which it is supposed to be grounded. But this may be a pure hallucination. It is possible to be justified before God and yet to be tormented with needless fears of condemnation, and it is equally possible to be still under condemnation while we fancy ourselves in a state of justification.
IV. SELF-JUSTIFICATION MUST FAIL. We cannot get outside ourselves or transcend our own experience. No lever by which a man can lift himself has ever been invented. We may make a fair show in the flesh, but we cannot change our own hearts. We have sinned against God; it is useless for us merely to forgive ourselves; we need God's pardon. If sin were not real, we might find a defence which would clear our reputation. But it is real, most terribly and unquestionably real. This fact makes self-justification impossible.
V. OUR OWN CONDUCT DEMONSTRATES THE DELUSION OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION, Job seems to think he is so hardly dealt with, and God so much greater than he is, that whatever he says in self-justification will be turned against him. That is a mistake, for God is just and merciful. But in a deeper sense God's words are true. We may say we are just, but our deeds belie our words. Nay, our very mouth, that proclaims our justice, denies it; for our words arc often sinful, ungenerous when they are not untrue.
VI. THE FAILURE OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION SHOULD DRIVE US TO GOD'S JUSTIFICATION IN CHRIST. We need not despair like Job, for we have a gospel to the unrighteous. Christ has brought a perfect justification, in pardon and renewal, for all who own their sin and trust his grace.—W.F.A.