Exactly. They are trying to establish their own righteousness, which is an absolutely impossible task. The don’t understand that sin isn’t only a list of bad things we do, it’s who we are. It’s our very nature from the start. The Psalmist tells us that we were conceived in iniquity. Everything about us is corrupted because we have inherited the nature of our great-grandfather Adam. Because God is so holy He demands absolute perfection to enter His kingdom. The only perfect righteousness that’s available for a pitiful sinner like me is the righteousness that comes from the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
Rome works hard to hide the truth about the nature of sin. Satan is clever, I will give him that. Rome has grand doctrines and rituals that have been developed over the centuries to obscure the truth about sin. Rome has divided sin into unbiblical categories with differing ways to deal with the sins found in each category. But the Bible never speaks of venial and mortal sins. According to the Bible, ALL SIN IS MORTAL. And the only way to deal with any sin, even a little itty bitty venial sin, is the blood of Jesus Christ.
People sometimes mistakenly say of a Christian that he’s “self-righteous” when in reality a Christian is anything but. A true born-again Christian is a man who knows he has no righteousness of his own. He’s meek in spirit, he knows he has nothing in and of himself to offer our awesome and thrice holy God. Out of his poverty he cries out to Christ. He utterly and totally relies on Christ. He knows only Christ’s blood, and Christ’s blood alone, can make him pure. He knows his labor, his work, could never fulfill the demands of the law because if you have broken the law at even one point the Bible tells us you are guilty of the whole law. The law points out our sin, it isn’t a way to heaven and it never was. The only man who ever perfectly kept the law was Jesus Christ.
The truth is everyone who isn’t in Christ is “self-righteous.” They are people who will have nothing but their own righteousness, their own works righteousness, their own filthy rags to offer the Lord on that great day of judgment. Oh how I wouldn’t want to be in that position.
The great hymnist Augustus Toplady understood these things centuries ago.
1. Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee;
let the water and the blood,
from thy wounded side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure;
save from wrath and make me pure.
2. Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law’s commands;
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone;
thou must save, and thou alone.
3. Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress;
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.
4. While I draw this fleeting breath,
when mine eyes shall close in death,
when I soar to worlds unknown,
see thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee.