We humans tend to think rather highly of ourselves. Treated well, we generally think we have earned it. Treated badly, we may complain that we “deserve better.” And if we suspect that we might not be thinking highly enough of ourselves, we complain of “low self-esteem.” Christians, who ought to know better, are no exception. We often judge ourselves based on our own subjective feelings, as if having “peace” or “a clear conscience” indicates that we are right. Mark Dever writes:
Paul says . . . “I care very little if I am judged by you or any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor. 4:3–4). Paul is unaware of anything against himself, but knows that he is not acquitted by his self-assessment. It is the Lord who judges him. Of course, Paul is not saying that self-examination is wrong; in fact, he calls for it later in his letter (9:4–27; cf. 2 Cor. 13:5), but our self-assessment—a clear conscience—simply isn’t the ultimate issue. The nature of our fallenness is such that we can have a clear conscience and still be wrong, which is why our conscience must be educated by the Word of God. Self-esteem can’t be the final arbiter because we esteem ourselves too highly! We are called to make provisional judgments (so Matt. 7:6)—as Paul is about to do forcefully in 2 Corinthians 5!—but no mere human is our ultimate judge because, as Paul says in 4:4, we will be judged by the Lord (cf. 2:10–16).
—Mark Dever, Preaching the Cross (Crossway, 2007), 22–23.
Preaching the Cross is a collection of messages from the 2006 Together for the Gospel Conference. You can download the entire message from which today’s quote was taken here.
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