MZTV 1417: Sin Disguises Itself as a Path to Righteousness

One of the most startling passages of Scripture is when our Lord told His disciples: "Coming is the hour that everyone who is killing you should suppose he is offering divine service to God." How is it possible for a human being to be so screwed up in the head to suppose that by killing God's people they are actually doing a service to God? Paul explains it in Romans 6:13. Why shouldn't he be able to explain it? He was once one of these people.

Paul explains it most succinctly to the Romans when he tells them to not be "presenting your members, as implements (weapons) of injustice, to Sin" (Romans 6:13).

The preoccupation of religious people is their attempt to become righteous by their own works. Saul the Pharisee worshipped this path, describing the phenomenon to the Philippians in 3:6 as "becoming blameless." This "becoming blameless" in the flesh was in fact a dire sin. And yet this sin disguised itself as an act of righteousness. (By this subterfuge, Sin deceives hundreds of millions.) This phenomenon is more easily understood by recognizing that Satan poses as a messenger of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

The religious person, therefore, assuming that he or she is on a shining path to blamelessness (a path to eliminate sin from his or her life), is in fact presenting him or herself to Sin. What does Sin then do with such a person? Sin hijacks these individuals and uses them as weapons ("implements") of injustice. How so? The self-righteous person, unwittingly becoming a slave of Sin, persecutes those who recognize themselves as delivered from Sin via the death of Christ on the cross.

By such an ingenious method does God use religious people to persecute the truly righteous, who thereby obtain a better resurrection as "it is graciously granted you, not only to be believing on Him, but to be suffering for His sake also" (Philippians 1:29).

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