according to this prophet the 2% that go to heaven (are saved, in other words) are those whose righteousness exceeds that of the pharisees. also the women must not wear any adornment on themselves. or trousers.
Sounds like they want to be exactly as "righteous" as the hypocrites were. Wearing their phylacteries large, making a spectacle of themselves in prayer, white washed sepulchers full of dead bones.
That's what moralism does. It gives the appearance of religion without any substance.
Read Matthew 25, notice that when we stand before the Lord on the Day of Judgment He doesn't mention how we dressed, how we appeared, or how outwardly pious we made ourselves look. He says, "I was hungry" and "I was thirsty" and "I was naked" and "I was sick" and "I was in prison" and "I was a foreigner", then He says, "Whatever you did/did not do to the least of these you did/did not do it unto Me". When we read that we must stand and give account before God for our actions, what matters is how we treated other people, especially the "least of these".
We Lutherans call the human craving for glory and to be righteous by our own efforts and works the Opinio Legis, the "Opinion of the Law". This desire for glory is the arch-temptation, the chief heresy of man, it is the lie of the serpent that says, "You will be as gods".
One of my favorite quotes comes from Catholic theologian Fr. Herbert McCabe from his book God Still Matters, it's about the Incarnation:
"
This is what John is talking about at the beginning of his Gospel when he calls Jesus the Word of God made flesh. Jesus is God's Word, God's idea of God, how God understands himself. He is how-God-understands-himself become a part of our human history, become human, become the first really thoroughly human part of our history--and therefore, of course, the one hated, despised, and destroyed by the rest of us, who wouldn't mind being divine but are very frightened of being human." - Fr. Herberb McCabe, God Still Matters, p.104
Oh how desperately men crave to be gods, to crave glory, to wish to be superior, wish to be on top, wish to be part of the special, the in-group. It is not enough that we belong, but that we rise to the top.
We, like John and James the sons of Zebedee come to the Master saying, "Let us sit on your right hand and your left hand in Your kingdom", but what does the Master say? "The greatest among you is your slave."
In God's world, in God's kingdom, success, power, glory, crowns, etc all are meaningless nothing.
Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew says that no one born of woman is greater than John the Baptist, but, He continues, "the least in the kingdom is greater than even he". What does Jesus mean? By this He points to Himself as the least. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. The Son of Man came, not in judgment, but to save the world. Christ came into the world to save sinners, and I am the chief of sinners.
And so we sinners, craven and cowardly and wretched as we are, we put on theater. "Do not touch!" we say, "Do not taste!" we declare. Don't wear this, don't watch that. With one side of the mouth comes some vacuous claim of "modesty" and out of the other they vomit hubris and arrogance. The one who says "Don't wear trousers" and "Don't wear makeup" stands there, smug, with logs blinding their eyes the size of redwood trees. They stand in the midst of the Church assured that what they are wearing is good, righteous, holy, pious--as though textiles adoring the body could ever mean anything whatsoever. They have become the very thing which the Apostle warns against in the first place, they have not adorned themselves with modesty or humility, they have simply taken the occasion to promote themselves through religion. Precisely the sin of the hypocrites Jesus rebuked.
It wasn't that people were praying in public that Jesus rebuked, it was that hypocrites want to be seen and heard, they crave glory. That's what Jesus rebuked.
It wasn't wearing earrings or makeup that the Apostle condemns, it's self-promotion that the Apostle condemns.
-CryptoLutheran
