The folly of self-justification before God.
Self-justification, addressed by man to God, is doubly foolish—
I. AS HAVING NO BASIS IN TRUTH, AND THEREFORE EASILY CONFUTED. There is no fact more certain, whether we accept the statements of Scripture as authoritative, or pin our faith on our own observation and experience, than that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Each man is conscious to himself of sin, and no one claims perfection for his neighbours. The greatest saints, both of the Old Testament and the New, have shortcomings, defects, fall into actual sins. One alone is depicted without sin, and he was more than man. Human biographies are in accord. No one, whatever his admiration for his hero, claims that he was perfect. All accept the notion that the best man is simply the one who has fewest faults.
II. As EXCLUDING MAN FROM THE ONLY JUSTIFICATION POSSIBLE TO HIM. God will not justify the self-righteous. He forgives those only who ask his forgiveness. Pride is a barrier which shuts men out from him, and places them on a par with the fallen angels, "to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness fee ever" (Jud Isaiah 1:13). God "justifies the sinner" (Romans 4:5), but only the sinner who confesses his sin and begs for pardon. If we "go about to establish our own righteousness, and do not submit ourselves to the righteousness of God," we exclude ourselves from God's covenant of salvation, which is made with the humble, the contrite, the self-abased, the penitent. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" (1 John 1:9).