Jesus was 100% righteous. He lived without sin and never defiled himself in any way. Jesus was also right 100% of the time and knew it. If anyone had the right to beat people up with their own righteousness it was Jesus. But he didn’t.
Then there’s us. We aren’t righteous apart from Christ. We aren’t right 100% of the time like Jesus. We don’t have all knowledge, all authority and all power. We are not all sufficient or even self-sufficient like Jesus was. But when it comes to people wronging us, it is easy to act more righteous than Jesus did even though we aren’t. It is easy to act like we have it all together or that we have all the right answers and that no one else can compare with us. Self-righteousness is all really an act that works against itself, exposing all that is beneath the surface, while righteousness is the real deal…never a show and always more humble than what a self-righteous person would think is warranted.
If the only person to ever live a perfectly righteous life didn’t hold over people’s head the fact that he was always right and that he never made a mistake, who are we, who are unrighteous apart from Christ, to hold things over other people? It is important that we expose self-righteousness in our lives and seek the true righteousness that can only be found in Christ.
