Repenting of My Righteousness

We’ve spoken before about repentance (“The Art and Necessity of Genuine Repentance,” March 10, 2022). That blog post focused on what genuine repentance from sin looks like: it includes not just confession of my sin but also renunciation of my sin.

But there’s more to repentance than repenting of our sin. We must also repent of our righteousness.

People who go to seminary learn theological terms, and I learned plenty of -isms and -ologies during my summers at Dallas Theological Seminary. But one term - grace - found its mark deep in my heart because of something Michael Green did.

Michael Green was a young professor who taught the required course on evangelism. He was big on personal responsibility and organization. “You’re in seminary now,” he would say. “There’s no excuse for late or sloppy work,” and many other exhortations to that effect.

One of the class requirements was a take-home test, which we were to grade in class on a certain day. As I did every semester at DTS, I had dutifully noted all my due dates for all my projects in all my courses on a calendar after the first day of class, but I had written down the wrong date for this take-home test.

I didn’t realize my error at first. This day, when I came to class it struck me as odd that my classmates were discussing the take-home test, which I knew to be due a week later. As I heard more discussion about the test, I began to feel a little uneasy, then positively sick. The test would be graded in class today, and I hadn’t even taken it!

Summer classes at DTS were a half-day affair. When the instructor announced that we would be grading the test after the morning break, I knew what I had to do. Ironically, he was well into another of his impromptu lectures on responsibility and organization while I hastily gathered my materials, sprang from my chair at the front of the classroom, and, with his exhortations ringing in my ears (“You’re in seminary now . . .”), fled to the library to cram for my take-home test and write down some answers that I could grade.

When I finished taking the test, I returned with the class and waited outside for them to break. Standing out in the hall, with the class going on inside and me standing on the outside, I felt like a pariah, an outcast. They were all the responsible ones, I was the loser who couldn’t get it together.

Since I knew I deserved no credit whatsoever on this test, I was relieved to score a 72. No one scored 100, although there were a few grades in the low 90’s. So when Dr. Green asked if we would be interested in extra credit, we all jumped at the chance.

In our class on evangelism, we had given a great deal of thought to using terms people could understand. For our extra credit question, Dr. Green asked us to define grace in terms the average unchurched person could comprehend.

All of us needed the extra credit (some of us much more than others), so we applied ourselves diligently to the task. As we finished scribbling our common-man definitions of grace, Dr. Green turned and wrote something on the whiteboard. Then he turned back to the class and dropped the bombshell: he announced that he would give a 100% on the test to anyone who would copy and sign the words he had written on the board: “I accept your gift of grace.”

Some people, successful ones, have difficulty accepting the biblical doctrine of grace. It seems somehow unfair, as if individual effort were meaningless (which it is). On this day I was very open to Dr. Green’s offer of grace. Some of my classmates, I fancy, almost hesitated to accept his offer because it would mean abandoning the results of all their hard work.

There is no meritocracy in the grace of God.

Each of us who elected to receive extra credit had to abandon the results of our own efforts. My test results were so dismal that I had no difficulty turning away from my 72 to receive a 100 in its place. The problem for the high achievers, of course, was that they had worked so hard for their high grades. They too had to abandon the results of their efforts, and they were glad for the help. But they resented the fact that even underachievers like me received the same treatment.

That day I understood what Jesus meant when He announced to the self-righteous religious leaders of His day that prostitutes and tax-collectors would enter the kingdom before they would (Matt. 21:31). I was quiet at lunch that day, even a little embarrassed, when my conscientious friends complained that everyone else got the same grade they did. The object lesson seemed to be lost on them, but not on me.

Like my namesake, I appreciated the grace of God because I could see it from the vantage-point of “the chief of sinners.”

Dr. Green may never know the impact he had on me, but his little surprise gave me a glimpse of the stunning beauty of the grace of God, who not only withholds the wrath we so clearly deserve, but generously grants us the good favor we do not.

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Pastor of Discipleship