We keep dealing with the issue of being gracious in the modern world. Perhaps the real issue is that a worldly defined graciousness and tolerance has replaced biblical humility and love. If we look at the externals of Christianity, then we see that when people are outwardly nice they think it is love. So the reality of it means that being nice has replaced true biblical love within Christianity. This means that a person who is full of self and pride can do externally nice things and still think of himself or herself as practicing love. Earlier we discussed the issue of graciousness not being the same thing as love, but in this BLOG we want to look at graciousness as being a form of pseudo-humility. It seems so humble to say that I may be wrong about this and that the other person may have the truth or some of the truth, but biblical humility operates differently.
Jesus Christ was the most humble person ever to set foot on this planet. Yet He was also bold in what He said and did. He poked the Pharisees in their legalistic and proud eyes on a constant basis. Not one time did Jesus ever “humbly” say something that would give us the idea that another false view might have something to it. Of course no person now is Jesus, but true believers have the life of Christ in them. In fact, humility is not seen in thinking that a person may not know something and going around hanging the head pretending to be a nobody. Humility is the emptiness of the creature before its Creator. That means that the life of humility is the life of Christ in a person. After all, the life of the believer is Christ. Matthew 18:1-4 shows us what true greatness is by telling us that for a person to be converted that person must be turned to become like a child. It then tells us that the greatest is the most humble. In other words, humility is the emptying of the creature of its self-love and self-centeredness. It is to be crucified with Christ and to have its life to be Christ instead of self (Gal 2:20).
It is also true that it is the humble person to whom God reveals Himself and true knowledge (Matthew 11:25-27). If God has not revealed truth to a person, then humility is to say that it might be wrong on various issues. But if God has revealed something as true, then true humility will not admit that what is revealed is wrong. True humility will take its stand for the truth and will boldly declare it. Rather than it being humility to say that what God has revealed might have some allowances, it is actually pride. In reality, then, worldly graciousness and tolerance is nothing more than pride rather than humility. Please read that carefully because it reflects on our theological climate.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is clear from Scripture. There should be no argument as to what the basics of the Gospel really are. What happens is that our pride fuels our desire to be accepted by others we assume a false humility that is displayed in what is called graciousness and tolerance. But the reality of it is that we have compromised the Gospel. Am I saying that Solano Portela has done that? I am not saying that, but I am saying that he seems to have drunk deeply at the wells of modern thinking on what humility is rather than search the Scriptures for what it is. I am saying that based on one article that he wrote and not a personal knowledge of him. But again, I am trying to use his article to respond to modern Reformed thinking and Evangelicalism as a whole.
What happens when we replace love with niceness and then humility with a worldly form of graciousness and tolerance? We compromise the Gospel and the standards of Holy Scripture with a pseudo love and humility. Am I saying that we need to be meaner? No, I am saying that we must practice biblical love and biblical humility. We live in a world that is increasingly liberal and the Church is buying in to liberal thinking on some issues. If we are going to reach the world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the glory of God, it is not going to be by compromise in the name of graciousness and tolerance that is really the worldly concept of it though it is thought to be humility and love. It is going to take a real humility and a real love that will stand for the Gospel at all points.
We must realize that true humility before God means that we will not compromise the truth of God for a moment because it is His truth. We must realize that it is never love to compromise the truth of the Gospel for another person even if that person believes that he is a Christian. Love always does what is true to the shining forth of the character of God knowing that is what is best for the other person. Love is willing to make another person angry for the good of that person’s soul. Love is willing to suffer abuse by others that the true Gospel will be heard.
God Loves... Himself 
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