Who, Me?

"Far be it from your servants to do such a thing!"
GENESIS 44:7
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Who, Me?
[The brothers] rely on their righteousness and merits to remove the crime with which they have been charged, and they want to be completely exonerated. For this confidence in man's righteousness and freedom from danger is so great that it thinks God is a fool and a weakling who is not able to hold such saintly men responsible for any crime. But they will have to learn the prayer of David (Psalm 19:12): "Who can discern his errors? Clear Thou me from hidden faults." . . . We are corrupted by original sin, so that we can be accused and found guilty before God in a thousand ways when to ourselves we seem to be completely righteous. And if we ever are proud and do not remain in the fear of God and faith, 'He sets a huge mass of sins before us—sins of which we were ignorant, as Moses says in Psalm 90:8. . . . But these brothers are not only smug in regard to secret sins; they also claim innocence in the very worst cause. "There is no need to be worried; we know that we are innocent!" Indeed, they even bring the hardest sentence against themselves by saying, "Let him with whom you find the cup die." This is indeed the fruit of self-righteousness, which makes men smug and stubborn. . .. Therefore they are hurled down to the depths of hell by God's thunderbolt.
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