By telling this parable, Jesus will correct the confidence the Pharisees were putting in their own righteousness. False doctrine must be corrected, especially if it’s a false gospel because a false gospel has never saved anyone. The story revolves around two men, one of whom is a Pharisee.
To the Jews, the location of the prayer is important—the Temple. God’s special presence was in the Holy of Holies; God had commanded the people to assemble at the Temple from time to time, at certain times of the year. Therefore, the people thought that if you prayed in the Temple, God was more likely to hear you. Israel was to worship God in the Temple and prayer is a part of worship.
The other man is a tax collector, but to understand the difference in these two men, we have to go back to the culture in which they lived.
The Pharisee was renowned for his dedication to the Law, for fasting two days of the week, for loud and public prayers, and for trying to keep the smallest details of the Jewish traditions. The Pharisee was a person of supreme religious confidence in himself. In fact, he admired himself very much. (Know any Christians like that—their speech betrays an admiration of themselves.) Some people are like the famous author who was talking to a friend, telling him that he had speaking engagements in D. C., NYC, and Philadelphia. Then he said to his friend, “Well, that’s enough about me, what do you think about my latest book?”
To get the feel of the people for the tax collectors, one word will suffice: “traitor.” The Jews looked upon them as traitors, those who worked for Rome and against the people. In WWII, then Hitler took over France, there were Frenchmen who cooperated with the Nazis in running the country. They were called, “collaborators.”
But to really get the pulse of the Jews for their countrymen who were tax collectors, let’s use another word: “Gestapo.” The Jewish tax collectors abused their own people for profit. They would charge the people above and beyond the tax rate Rome required and pocketed the excess for themselves. This is what Zacchaeus was doing until he met Christ.
The Pharisee in the story has a particular way he stands that indicates how much he admires himself. Self-righteousness and arrogance go hand in hand. He had come to believe that his righteousness set him head and shoulders above others. We see this in the way he stands and by what he prays as he thanks God that he’s not a “robber, and evildoer, and adulterer, or a tax collector.
He cites the two reasons why he’s righteous—he fasts two times a week and he tithes. Yet early in Jesus’ public ministry. In the Sermon on the Mount, He had stressed to the people that external practices do not count for a right standing with God. The right standing comes from the inner man, not an outward show of piety.
We would also note that the Pharisee wants the people in the Temple to know just how good he is, so he prays in such a way so that everyone can hear him.. By this we see that in his prayer, he’s not really worshipping God, but he’s praising himself. Jesus noted that the Pharisees love to pray so others can hear them. The Pharisee is obsessed with honoring, not God, but himself.
THE CONTRAST
Jesus contrasts the attitude of the tax collector with that of the Pharisee. Even his stance is different: he “stands afar off.” This indicates that he recognizes that he is unfit to stand before God, so he doesn’t even go inside the Temple. Not only that, but also, he would not look upward; he drops his head and lowers his eyes. In addition, he beats his chest as a sign of his contrition.
His prayer isn’t ornate; it’s to the point: “Oh, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This is something the Pharisee would not admit. By this one sentence, we see that he’s not asking God to overlook his sin; he wasn’t asking God to change His attitude toward sin or toward him.
THE ONE WORD
The word he uses for “merciful” is the same word we read in I Jn. 2:2: “propitiated.” The word means “satisfied.”
Because of this, Christ pronounces the man to be righteous. But this is not a prayer for those living after the Cross. As I John 2:2 says, God is now satisfied. He’s not satisfied with our righteousness, but with the death of His Son, and therefore, God is satisfied. The context of the prayer is pre-cross. After the death of Christ, God is satisfied because His righteous and holy demands have been all completely met in the death of His Son.
It's the historical context of the prayer that makes it an improper one today. There's no need to plead with God to be saved. He's been satisfied. The only requirement for salvation is "believe," not "plead."
Now to mathematics. If you had trouble understanding why the formula is correct, it's because you're placing it in the wrong context. The context isn't math. The proper context is baseball. On the baseball diamond, the positions of the players are assigned numbers as a means of keeping score as the game goes along. 6 represents the shortstop. 4 represents the second baseman and 3 represents the first baseman. So the formula is saying that a double play occurred when the shortstop (6) fielded the ball and threw it to the second baseman (4) who threw it to the first baseman (3) and that resulted in 2 outs.
Context is king!
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