But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” ~ Luke 10:29
The key to our text today is the question that appears in v.25, "Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?" This lawyer knew this was the most important question, because he was a scribe. He was an expert in the Mosaic law. He knew that when Adam sinned, he lost not just physical immortality, but he lost eternal life. That is, he lost full fellowship with God and a perfect world. And, he knew that not only had Adam forfeited eternal life in the Fall, but he had caused the whole of humanity to follow suit.
The Christian life is not about the life that this world offers, it's about the type of life that God offers. Through the abiding Holy Spirit, the believer in Christ has been given the very presence of God to provide us eternal life instead of eternal death, eternal joy instead of eternal pain, and eternal blessing instead of eternal punishment.
This man who approached the Lord Jesus, this expert in the Mosaic Law, believed in eternal life. When he asked the Lord Jesus, "What shall I do?," he revealed he did not understand the means by which we are given the free gift of salvation. He was a lot worse off than he thought, but God’s grace is so much bigger, so much better and brighter than he could have hoped or imagined.
In context, the Pharisees were trying to catch Jesus in some kind of a violation of the law so they could condemn Him to death and execute Him, which they eventually did. And they were using this scribe to try to trip up the Lord Jesus.
After the Lord Jesus asked the scribe what was his understanding of the Law, the expert answered, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself." The problem is we can't love God perfectly, nor have we loved our neighbors the way we love ourselves.
There’s a big difference between the gospel of the Lord Jesus and moralism. Moralism is looking at a passage in the Bible and saying this is simply giving us guidelines about how to live our lives, while preaching the gospel shows us how whatever is being talked about in that text is a picture of the Lord Jesus.
Here in v.29, we read, "But he wanted to justify himself." This is a big problem. Backed into the corner, he had not come to an end of himself, he had not recognized, yet, that he was unable to be good enough. He knew he didn't love God perfectly, but he was unwilling to admit that he was spiritually bankrupt. He knew, also, he didn't love his neighbor like he loved himself.
"But he wanted to justify himself" literally in the Greek means desiring to declare himself righteous. And, he was having this conversation with the Lord Jesus publicly. He seriously underestimated God's righteousness. He seriously considered God less holy than He is. He thought God was more tolerant of sin than He was. He believed God would allow his hypocrisy, so he was ignorant of God's righteousness.
In the mind of the expert in the Law of God, God was less holy than He was. In his mind, he was more holy than he was. Along with this scribe, the religious leaders had lowered the the requirements of the Law of God and had elevated themselves. They lowered the standard and raised their own ability to maintain it. And, they thought, they therefore could please God by their own efforts. They should have been driven to their knees, and driven to reject their own self-righteousness.
Many think, the goal of the Law is to get people to heaven through our good behavior, by being more good than bad. This is not biblical thinking. No, the goal of the Law is to crush us. The perfection of the Law is to reveal to us that we cannot be good enough before a holy God.
The Law of God indicts us. It brings us before the court, renders us absolutely guilty, invites us to cry out to God for mercy. God, the judge of all, provides the mercy because Christ has paid for the sin. This is the gospel. The Lord Jesus is the goal of the law and the Savior of our lives.
