Pride

Pride is a fearful thing. It is the great destroyer—of souls, of careers, of spiritual usefulness. Pride sets man against God and God against man. It is a form of folly into which, but for the grace of God, any of us may fall.

Pride is impiety at its worst, taking to self glory that belongs to God. Twice God, speaking through the Prophet Isaiah, says: “My glory I will not give to another” (Isa. 42:8; 48:11), and in both the Old and the New Testament we read of God’s hatred of human pride.

Pride reveals a ridiculous failure to evaluate one’s self and one’s accomplishments properly. Satan encourages man to be proud. Strutting across the pages of history, finite man sees himself as the author and finisher of his accomplishments and the master of his fate.

But standing in the shadows is God, the One from whom all things come, to whom all men are responsible, and in whom the power of ultimate destiny resides.

The Apostle John includes the “pride of life” as one of the deadly attributes of this world that will pass away. It was this worldly wisdom for which Eve reached, and it is this that has been the downfall of millions to this day.

How vulnerable we all are to conceit! Pride in personal appearance, accomplishments, ability, money, intellect, power—this develops easily in our hearts. We are even tempted to be proud of our humility.

But what does God say? “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices kindness, justice, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, says the LORD’ ” (Jer. 9:23, 24).

Pride has many aspects: haughtiness, which is sophisticated pride; conceit, which is self-congratulation; arrogance, which is pride demanding the recognition and approval of others. Boasting is the trumpet of the proud, which they use to sound forth their own praises.

Many years ago I heard Dr. R. A. Torrey give an address entitled “Seven Reasons Why God Used D. L. Moody,” and one of the reasons he gave was Moody’s humility. Dr. Torrey went on to say that he had known many promising young ministers whom, as time went on, God had had to lay aside as useful servants because they had become proud of themselves and their ministry. What a victory for Satan!

There is no greater evidence of man’s pride today than that many now set aside God’s holy laws as “irrelevant” for our times. In situation ethics and the new morality, man is saying that he is the master of his own life and actions, that God’s righteous demands are no longer valid in the realm of human conduct. To such reasoning one can hear God’s mocking laughter. “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the LORD has them in derision” (Ps. 2:4).

The Bible makes it abundantly clear that pride is a monstrous evil. In the catalogue of evil things that proceed from the unregenerate human heart, we find pride listed with such things as fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, and foolishness (Mark 7:21). This being the case, how earnestly we should seek God’s help to flee from pride!

Pride is utterly unbecoming in a Christian. Everything, even our faith, is a gift of God. As the Apostle Paul says, “Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On the principle of works? No, but on the principle of faith. For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law” (Rom. 3:27, 28). And again Paul says, “I have applied all this to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brethren, that you may learn by us to live according to scripture, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another. For who sees anything different in you? What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” (1 Cor. 4:6, 7).

Some years ago while I was learning to fly I became lost again and again over the mountains of western North Carolina. I lost my perspective, and as I examined the terrain around me, nothing looked familiar. Pride does the same thing for our spiritual perspective. We do not see ourselves, life, other people, and God as we should see them. Self becomes inflated and all else distorted. But when we see ourselves and all else in the light of God and his truth, the bubble of self-esteem is pricked and humility replaces pride.

Pride of intellect has been the downfall of many. Some years ago the president of a then strongly conservative theological seminary remarked to a friend: “When I see promising graduates go on to take advanced degrees I have come to tremble for them, for many in the process of their doctoral studies lose their simple faith in the gospel.” He had himself been a Rhodes scholar and holds the highest degrees attainable. But he recognized the danger of anything that may destroy faith.

The Apostle Paul, the brilliant witness to God’s revealed truth, warned his spiritual son, Timothy, of the danger of a false intellectualism: “O Timothy, guard most carefully your divine commission. Avoid the Godless mixture of contradictory notions which is falsely known as knowledge—some have followed it and lost their faith” (1 Tim. 6:20, 21, Phillips). How clearly this speaks to us today!

The fearful judgment of God on the arrogant should warn us of the magnitude of the sin of pride. “For the LORD of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up and high; … and the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the pride of men shall be brought low; and the LORD alone will be exalted in that day” (Isa. 2:12, 17).

The opposite of pride is humility, which is an evaluation of self in the light of God’s grace and mercy. Jesus, confronted by disciples vying for personal position, called a little child and put him in their midst, using him as a text and an example. “Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:4). There he saw simple trust and unaffected meekness. That is what he wants to see in all of us.

When David humbled himself before God, he became a man after God’s own heart. When the Apostle Paul spoke of himself as the “chief of sinners,” the “least of the apostles,” he showed that he was exercising sober judgment on himself.

The greatest saint is only a sinner saved by grace. Pride and boasting have no rightful place in the life of any Christian. Can we learn this lesson?

L. NELSON BELL

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