Is the Church Just Full of Hypocrites?

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“I don’t drink, smoke, or chew, and I don’t go with girls who do.”

I’m not sure when I first heard that old saying. It certainly isn’t found anywhere in God’s Word, though Christians sometimes have acted like it could be.

The idea is simple. Christians are the people who don’t do certain things. Now, the particular list of “do nots” changes depending upon where you live, what church you attend, and what generation you grew up in. Some of the things on our lists may even reflect God’s Word or genuine biblical wisdom. However, it is always a temptation to reduce the Christian life to following a list of rules.

Then, we talk about our faith with someone outside the church and they reply: “The church is just full of hypocrites.”

The best place to start is honesty. I found out today that a pastor connected to my own ministry circles was indicted on charges that he stole $375,000 from the nonprofit he led. Sometimes the hypocrisy accusation is simply true.

We know that Jesus had some of His harshest words for religious hypocrites. If we are honest, Christians still struggle with hypocrisy today. Yet we also need to be careful about what we mean by hypocrisy, because finding sin in the life of a Christian doesn’t necessarily make that Christian a hypocrite.

 CHRISTIANS REALLY DO SIN

Sometimes the hypocrisy accusation goes something like this: “You Christians say people shouldn’t lie, but Christians lie. You say people shouldn’t lose their tempers, but I’ve seen Christians get angry. You talk about sexual purity, but Christians commit sexual sin.”

Each of those statements is very true. However, the Bible doesn’t teach that when we place our faith in Jesus every trace of sin is immediately removed from our lives.

The Bible is remarkably honest about the ongoing struggle with sin. The apostle John writes to Christians, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn. 1:8). One verse later he tells those same Christians to confess their sins and receive God’s forgiveness.

Christians sometimes use the word sanctification to describe what happens after we come to Christ. God begins changing us. The Holy Spirit works within us to make us more like Jesus. However, we still need to be honest that no Christian on this side of eternity has arrived.

Galatians 5 describes an ongoing battle between the desires of our sinful flesh and the work of the Holy Spirit. Every honest Christian is intimately aware of that battle.

So, when a Christian loses his temper and later says, “I was wrong. I sinned. Please forgive me,” that isn’t necessarily hypocrisy. He really does believe his anger was sinful. His failure demonstrates how much he still needs the grace of Christ.

The problem comes when we pretend otherwise.

Jesus tells a fascinating story in Luke 18. Two men went to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, a respected religious leader. The other was a tax collector, a sellout to the Roman Empire, someone almost no one wanted to be associated with.

The Pharisee prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men.” He went on to mention some of those other people and their sins. Then he reminded God of his own religious accomplishments. He literally prayed to God but talked to and about himself.

The tax collector had a much shorter prayer: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Jesus says it was the tax collector who went home justified before God (Luke 18:9–14).

The Pharisee’s problem wasn’t that fasting or tithing were wrong. He had begun measuring his righteousness by his religious performance and by comparing himself to others.

Christians too often do exactly the same thing.

We tend to be pretty good at constructing lists that include the sins we don’t struggle with. Then we notice the people whose struggles show up on our lists.

Maybe we don’t drink, smoke, or chew. Fine. But I know exactly what happens in my stomach—and the thoughts that immediately flood in—when someone who has hurt me walks into the room unexpectedly. Suddenly my scoreboard doesn’t look so good.

Jesus repeatedly confronted this kind of religious hypocrisy. In Matthew 23, He compared the Pharisees to dishes carefully cleaned on the outside while remaining filthy inside and to tombs that were whitewashed on the outside but held death inside. They were intensely concerned about appearances while neglecting what was happening in their hearts.

We can fall into the same trap. We can even build bubbles almost entirely around Christians who live by the same rules we do. Before long, we begin thinking in terms of “us” and “them.”

We’re the good people. Those people out there have the real sin problems. We often forget something so very important. We’re sinners too.

THE GOSPEL LEAVES NO ROOM FOR SUPERIORITY

The gospel, rightly understood, leaves no room for a Christian to look down on anyone.

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8–9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” Salvation is “the gift of God,” he continues, “not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

When salvation is a free gift—without anything we could do to earn it—there isn’t any room for bragging left after that.

I didn’t become a Christian because I cleaned myself up well enough for God to accept me. I didn’t earn His forgiveness by becoming more moral than my neighbor. I brought my sin to Christ and received something I could never earn for myself.

If anything should produce humility, it is knowing that our salvation is entirely a gift of God’s grace.

Christians should long for holiness in our lives, but that longing must never become an excuse for self-righteousness. Jesus was perfectly righteous, yet He did not treat sinners with the contempt we so often do. He is fully God, fully man, and perfect in holiness, yet He showed grace to sinners who desperately needed it.

Every Christian comes to Christ with that same heart: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” And it’s a heart we continue to need.

DOES CHRISTIAN HYPOCRISY MAKE CHRISTIANITY FALSE?

Let’s suppose that the accusation of hypocrisy is completely justified. Christians certainly can be hypocritical. There have been entire churches that have behaved hypocritically. Sadly, there are even situations where Christian leaders have publicly taught one thing while secretly living another way.

Those failures can do tremendous damage. We shouldn’t minimize them or rush to defend the indefensible.

But do they prove that Christianity is false? Absolutely not.

If a Christian acts greedily while Jesus teaches generosity, the Christian has failed to follow Jesus. If a pastor lies while Scripture teaches us to speak truth, the pastor has violated the faith he professes.

Christian hypocrisy shows that Christians can fail to live according to the teachings of Christ. It does not show that the teachings of Christ are false. Christianity has been honest about the sinful struggles of human beings all along.

Jesus Himself condemned religious hypocrisy. The New Testament openly records the failures of His followers. Peter denied Jesus. Paul wrote letters correcting churches that were living in ways completely inconsistent with the gospel.

The Bible doesn’t hide any of it.

Every single Christian fails. Look at me long enough and you’ll find plenty of ways that I still fall short of the holiness of Christ. My family sees this reality more often than I want to admit. Apparently, all it takes is someone cluttering up my garage.

The more important question is: What do we find when we look at Jesus?

Christians will disappoint us. Churches sometimes will too. At times those failures are painful and serious. But Christianity has never asked us to place our faith in the moral perfection of Christians. Our faith rests in Christ.

Jesus lived the life we have failed to live. He died for sinners who could never make themselves right with God. And He is still at work changing people who have trusted Him.

Is the church full of hypocrites? Far too often. Christians should be willing to acknowledge that and repent when the accusation personally fits.

But the church is also full of people who know they need grace even if they sometimes forget it. We are still being changed. Grace doesn’t give us permission to make peace with our sin. It allows us to be honest about our struggles.

We can confess our sin because our hope was never that we were good enough. Our hope always has been and always will be Jesus.

REFLECTION & APPLICATION

  • When someone says Christians are hypocrites, what do you think they usually mean? Is there some truth in their criticism?

  • Are there ways you measure your spiritual maturity by comparing yourself with other people?

  • Read Luke 18:9–14 and 1 John 1:8–9. What do these passages teach about the way Christians should view their own sin?

  • How could you respond if a friend told you, “I could never go to church. It’s full of hypocrites”?

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